Carl Van Doren
| Carl Clinton Van Doren | |
|---|---|
Van Doren as the commencement speaker for the University of Kentucky in 1929
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| Born |
Carl Clinton Van Doren September 10, 1885 Hope, Illinois |
| Died |
Torrington, Connecticut July 18, 1950 (aged 64) |
| Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (B.A.), Columbia University (Ph. D) |
Carl Clinton Van Doren (September 10, 1885 – July 18, 1950) was a U.S. critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer. He was the brother of critic and teacher Mark Van Doren and the uncle of Charles Van Doren.
He won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Benjamin Franklin.
He was born in Hope, Vermilion County, Illinois on September 10, 1885 to a country doctor and was raised on the family farm. He earned a bachelor of arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1907 and a doctorate from Columbia University in 1911 and continued to teach there until 1930. He was a world federalist and once said, "It is obvious that no difficulty in the way of world government can match the danger of a world without it". In 1939, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Benjamin Franklin.
Van Doren's study The American Novel, published in 1921, is generally credited with helping to re-establish Herman Melville's critical status as first-rate literary master. He was book section editor for The Nation from 1920 to 1922.
From 1912 to 1935, Van Doren was married to Irita Bradford, editor of the New York Herald Tribune book review. He married Jean Wright Gorman in 1939, but divorced in 1945.
Van Doren worked closely with Howard Henry Peckham on his Pulitzer Prize winning Secret History of the American Revolution (1941), editing documents from the Clinton Papers that first revealed Benedict Arnold's treason.
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