Henry Steele Commager

Henry Steele Commager was a very important American historian. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 25, 1902. His parents were James Williams and Anne Elizabeth Commager.

After his mother died, he lived with his grandfather in Chicago. He studied hard at the University of Chicago. He earned his Bachelor of Philosophy in 1923. He also earned a Master of Arts in 1924. Finally, he got his Doctor of Philosophy in 1928. He even lived in Copenhagen for a year to study history in Denmark.

Commager spent his life studying how people think and act. He was an intellectual historian. This means he studied the history of ideas. He wrote 40 books and 700 essays.

One of his famous books is called The American Mind. It looks at American thought from the 1880s to the 1940s. He also wrote a book called Empire of Reason in 1977. He was very active in his work. He taught at New York University for many years. Later, he taught at Columbia University and Amherst College. He wanted his students to be great thinkers too.

He believed that history should be easy for everyone to read. He did not want to write only for other experts. He wanted regular people to understand the past.

Commager edited a very useful book called Documents of American History. He first published it in 1938. He worked on ten different editions of this book. He even worked with his former student, Milton Cantor, on the last one in 1988. He also helped make books about the Civil War and the American Revolution. These books used real papers from people who lived during those times. This helped people see history through real eyes.

Commager was also a man who spoke out about fairness. He was a liberal thinker. He believed the government should protect individual rights.

He fought against people who used government power in bad ways. He spoke out against McCarthyism in the 1940s and 1950s. He also disagreed with the Vietnam War. He was a critic of several presidents, including Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. He even worried about how the Central Intelligence Agency spent money. He thought the Constitution should be followed very carefully. He wanted leaders to be honest and fair to everyone.

As he grew older, his views on fairness grew too. At first, he did not focus much on race. However, he later became a strong advocate for civil rights. In 1949, he helped the historian John Hope Franklin. He wanted Franklin to be able to share his work. In 1975, he wrote the Declaration of Interdependence.

This paper was signed in Philadelphia in 1976. It said that nations should work together for peace. It also said we must protect our oceans and space. Commager died in Amherst, Massachusetts, on March 2, 1998. He was ninety-five years old.