William W. Freehling Explained

William W. Freehling
Birth Name:	William Wilhartz Freehling
Birth Date:	26 December 1935
Birth Place:	Chicago, Illinois
Spouse:
Children:	4
Nationality:	American
Alma Mater:	Harvard College University of California, Berkeley
Occupation:	Historian

William Wilhartz Freehling (born December 26, 1935) is an American historian, and Singletary Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at the University of Kentucky.^[1]

Early life

Freehling was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 26, 1935, a son of Norman Freehling and Edna (Wilhartz) Freehling. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1958. He wrote his undergraduate honors thesis under noted U.S. historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. He received his M.A. in 1959 and his Ph.D. in 1964, from the University of California, Berkeley, with historian Kenneth M. Stampp serving as his dissertation supervisor.

Career

Freehling taught at Berkeley, Harvard, the University of Michigan, and Johns Hopkins University. He also held endowed chairs at SUNY, Buffalo and Kentucky.^[2]

Freehling has written several well-respected works on the American South during the antebellum era and on the American Civil War. His most notable book, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, won the 1967 Bancroft Prize.

As of 2011, he was senior fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.^[3]

Personal life

On January 27, 1961, Freehling married Natalie Paperno. Before their divorce in April 1970, they became the parents of two children, Alan and Deborah Freehling, and on June 19, 1971, he married fellow historian Alison Harrison (Goodyear) Bradshaw.^[4] The former wife of William Emmons Bradshaw,^[5] she was a daughter of Frank H. Goodyear Jr. and a granddaughter of lumber baron Frank H. Goodyear and Edmund P. Rogers.^[6] Together, they are the parents of two children, Alison and William Freehling.^[7]

Awards

• 1965 Allan Nevins Prize of the Society of American Historians^[8]
• 1967 Bancroft Prize
• Senior Fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities ^[9]
• 2007 Louis R. Gottschalk Lecture ^[10]

Works

• Book: The Road to Disunion: Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854. Oxford University Press . 1991. 978-0-19-507259-4 . ^[11]
• Book: Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860. William W. Freehling . Craig M. Simpson. Oxford University Press . 1992. 978-0-19-507945-6 .
• Book: Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836. Oxford University Press . 1992. 978-0-19-507681-3 .
• Book: The Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War. Oxford University Press . 1994. 978-0-19-508808-3 . ^[12]
• "The Divided South, Democracy's Limitations, and the Causes of the Peculiarly North American Civil War", in Book: Gabor Boritt. Gabor Boritt. Why the Civil War Came. 1996. Oxford University Press. 0-19-507941-8 .
• "The Civil War: Repressible or Irrepressible" (with Allan Nevins), in Francis G. Couvares, George Athan Billias, Martha Saxton, eds., Interpretations of American History: Through Reconstruction. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
• The South vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War. Oxford University Press, 2001
• Book: The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861. Oxford University Press . 2007. 978-0-19-505815-4 .
• "Arthur Schlesinger Jr: William W. Freehling Remembers", OUP blog
• Book: Showdown in Virginia: The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union. William W. Freehling . Craig M. Simpson. University of Virginia Press . 2010. 978-0-813-92991-0 .
• Becoming Lincoln. University of Virginia Press, 2018.

Further reading

• Ward, John William (1955). Andrew Jackson: Symbol for an Age. New York: Oxford University Press.

External links

• • "The South Vs. the South, Reviewed by Gary Smith, Department of History, University of Dundee", American Studies Online, 14 November 2005
• "A Very Special Visit: William W. Freehling", Civil War Memory, September 25, 2007
• "Historical Reconstructions", The Historical Society, 2002
• "Four American Presidents (But What Did They Have to Do with the Civil War?)", The Museum of the Confederacy, February 20, 2010

Notes and References

1. Web site: William W. Freehling Reexamines Nullification in Worcester, Oct. 22 « Abolitionism in Black and White . abolitionisminblackandwhite.com . 13 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20091125001133/http://abolitionisminblackandwhite.com/wordpress/?p=111 . 25 November 2009 . dead.
2. Web site: William W. Freehling . 2023-05-16 . John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation... . en-US.
3. News: Freehling . William W. . Henry Wise's Pistol . 16 May 2023 . . 16 April 2011 . en.
4. Crofts . Daniel W. . 1991 . Review of The Road to Disunion. Volume 1: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854 . The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography . 99 . 2 . 207–210 . 0042-6636.
5. News: William Bradshaw Marries Alison Harrison Goodyear . 16 May 2023 . . 21 June 1964.
6. News: Times . Special to The New York . Alison H. Goodyear Prospective Bride . 16 May 2023 . . 21 December 1963.
7. Web site: Freehling, William W(ilhartz) 1935- . www.encyclopedia.com . . 16 May 2023.
8. Web site: Allan Nevins Prize - Past Winners. Society of American Historians. 16 March 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110719175234/http://sah.columbia.edu/content/past-winners-0. 2011-07-19. dead.
9. Web site: VFH - Press Release - William Freehling - Lincoln Discussion . 2010-01-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20101130090145/http://virginiafoundation.org/pressreleases/2006/lincoln.html . 2010-11-30 . dead .
10. Web site: Louis R. Gottschalk Lectures — University of Louisville . 2010-01-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100528104528/http://louisville.edu/history/lewis-r-gottschalk-lectures.html . 2010-05-28 . dead .
11. News: Remini . Robert V. . Plunging Into Civil War . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20230516145236/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/30/books/plunging-into-civil-war.html?searchResultPosition=2 . 2023-05-16 . 16 May 2023 . . 30 September 1990.
12. News: Chaffin . Tom . In Short/Civil War . 16 May 2023 . . 12 June 1994.