Material is unprocessed. Please contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
This collection of correspondence and subject files details a variety of episodes and projects from the career of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner. Included are travel diaries from visits to Africa and the former Soviet Union, as well as correspondence related to Prof. Foner's work with the National Park Service and the Walt Disney Company in rewriting historical markers. It also features reviews and correspondence related to Foner's numerous published books, as well as his professional and scholarly career. It also contains research materials for Foner's major books.
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Material is unprocessed. Please contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Eric Foner Papers; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Gift of Eric Foner, 2019.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Student records and salary information were separated from "Miscellaneous Correspondence" folders in Box 1 and placed in a single folder marked "Restricted." Another full folder of university records in Box 2 was also restricted. Box 20 was found to contain school memorabilia belonging to Foner's daughter, and was discarded with the donor's approval.
Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, is one of this country's most prominent historians. He received his doctoral degree at Columbia under the supervision of Richard Hofstadter. He is one of only two persons to serve as president of the three major professional organizations: the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians, and one of a handful to have won the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes in the same year.
Professor Foner's publications have concentrated on the intersections of intellectual, political and social history, and the history of American race relations. His best-known books are: Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (1970; reissued with new preface 1995) Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (1976); Nothing But Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy (1983); Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (1988) (winner, among other awards, of the Bancroft Prize, Parkman Prize, and Los Angeles Times Book Award; The Reader's Companion to American History (with John A. Garraty, 1991); The Story of American Freedom (1998); Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World (2002); his survey textbook of American history, Give Me Liberty! An American History (2004); The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) (winner, among other awards, of the Bancroft Prize, Pulitzer Prize for History, and The Lincoln Prize); and Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad, ( 2015) (winner of the American History Book Prize by the New-York Historical Society. His latest book, Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History (2017), is a collection of essays from The Nation magazine. His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. Eric Foner revised the presentation of American history at the Hall of Presidents at Disney World, and Meet Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland, and has served as consultant to several National Parks Service historical sites and historical museums.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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| Subject | ||
|---|---|---|
| Historians -- United States | CLIO Catalog | ArchiveGRID |