Stephen J. Herben Jr.

Stephen J. Herben Jr.
Born Stephen Joseph Herben Jr.
(1897-03-14)March 14, 1897
Died December 22, 1967(1967-12-22) (aged 70)
Rosemont, Pennsylvania
Nationality American
Years active 1927–1967
Title Professor
Spouse(s) Mary Bishop Shattuck (1921–1929)
Caroline Robbins (1932–1967)
Parent(s) Stephen J. Herben
Grace Foster Herben
Relatives George Foster Herben (brother)
Academic background
Alma mater Rutgers University
Princeton University
Thesis The Hrolfs Saga Kraka and Related Materials for the Study of Beowulf (1924)
Academic work
Discipline English and Germanic Philology
Institutions Bryn Mawr College
Notable works Arms and Armor in Chaucer (1937)

Stephen Joseph Herben Jr. (14 March 1897 – 22 December 1967) was an American professor of philology at Bryn Mawr College. He specialized in English and German philology, and among other places did work at the American-Scandinavian Foundation in Copenhagen and Oxford University, as well as at Rutgers, Princeton,[1][2] and Stanford University.[3] He further assisted on the etymological work of the second edition of Webster's New International Dictionary.[3]

Herben was the son of Grace Foster Herben and Reverend Stephen Joseph Herben Sr.,[4] a friend of Thomas Edison who officiated at his funeral.[5] In May 1921 he married Mary Shattuck, another academic then beginning her career in psychology; they divorced in 1929.[6] On 21 September 1932 Herben married again, this time to Caroline Robbins, a professor of history at Bryn Mawr[7][8][9] and the sister of Lionel Robbins.[10]

Early life and education

Stephen Joseph Herben Jr. was born on 14 March 1897 to Grace Foster Herben and Stephen Joseph Herben Sr.[4] He was the younger brother of George Foster Herben, who was born on 17 March 1893.[4]

In September 1914 Herben Jr. matriculated at Rutgers University.[11][12] Two months later, earlier employment in the forestry commission came in useful when an estate on which he was hunting caught fire and he was put in charge of the volunteer firefighters.[13] His graduation was delayed by the American intervention in World War I, for by May 1917 Herben Jr. had been made responsible for organizing an ambulance corps of twenty-five Rutgers students to be trained by Fred H. Albee and serve in the First World War.[14][15] By September 1917 he was in France, part of the Base Hospital Unit No. 8 Post Graduate Hospital, New York.[16] A spell of scarlet fever in February landed himself in the hospital as a patient, stricken enough that a letter home had to be dictated to a fellow Rutgers student,[17] but in July he was sent back stateside via Ellis Island and granted a brief furlough to visit home.[18] By October he was back in France, where so too was his father, who had volunteered to serve as a chaplain with the American Red Cross.[19][20][21] Herben Jr. finally graduated from Rutgers in June 1920, with a Bachelor of Letters.[22]

Herben Jr. graduated from Princeton University on 20 July 1922, with the award of a $1,000 fellowship by The American-Scandinavian Foundation.[23][24] The following year he left for his fellowship at the University of Copenhagen with his newlywed wife, who helped with his research into the Scandinavian backdrop of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf;[6] two years later, following a second year abroad as a special coach in Old English at Oxford,[25] his return occasioned headlines proclaiming that he had discovered the site of Heorot, the fabled mead hall and seat of King Hrothgar, where the titular character travels in search of the monster Grendel.[26][27][28][29][30][31] A decade later, in 1935, a paper titled simply Heorot placed the hall northeast of Roskilde, on the basis of the place names "Stor Hiort" and "Lille Hiorte" on an 18th-century map;[32] the suggestion went against the conventional belief that Heorot was based on a settlement at Lejre, and has been termed "practically groundless."[33][34]

Career

Colour photograph of the Valsgärde 8 helmet
Herben Jr. linked the neck protection on the Valsgärde 8 helmet to descriptions of helmets in Beowulf.

From approximately 1925 until 1928 Herben Jr. taught English as an instructor, and then associate professor, at Princeton, where a student later reminisced about his "happy melange of beer and literary discussion".[2] The bulk of Herben Jr.'s career was then spent at Bryn Mawr College, where he taught for 34 years, until his retirement in 1962.[35] At Bryn Mawr he was a professor of philology,[7] specializing in English and German.[3] He was put in charge of abstracting articles from philological journals for the 1934 release of Webster's New International Dictionary, in addition to his etymological work;[36] the chief etymologist for the edition was Princeton professor Harold H. Bender,[36] with whom Herben Jr., then still an instructor at Princeton, had written a 1927 article on the etymology of several English words rooted in German.[37]

In 1937 Herben Jr., who himself had a collection of arms and armor from the Shakespearean era,[38] published two articles on the literary descriptions of weapons and armor, by the Beowulf poet and by Chaucer.[39][40] In A Note on the Helm in Beowulf, Herben Jr. linked the neck protection on the recently excavated Valsgärde 6 and 8 helmets with the description of in the poem as "encircled with lordly chains".[41][42] His other article, Arms and Armor in Chaucer, aimed to "confirm impressions of [Chaucer's] realism and establish more firmly his existing claims as a dependable source for manners and customs in the fourteenth century."[43] The article was one of Herben Jr.'s better known publications,[35] and was still regarded 75 years later, in 2012, as "a groundbreaking and most useful piece of research" and "perhaps ... the most familiar [analysis of contemporary arms and armor] within Chaucerian scholarship".[44]

Herben Jr.'s teaching was interrupted in 1949 by injuries sustained in a car accident.[2] Driving from Williamsburg to Washington in February, he received, according to a former student who wrote to the Princeton Alumni Weekly, "a severe concussion and a bad shaking-up".[2] Herben Jr. underwent surgery upon arrival at a hospital and remained unconscious for nearly a week; he eventually recovered enough to be moved to a hospital in Roxborough, Philadelphia, where he remained six weeks later.[2] The former student wrote at the time that Herben Jr. was "still rather dazed", and that "[i]t is doubtful if he will be able to teach for a long time".[2]

During Herben Jr.'s career he also lectured at the University of Bonn and the Sorbonne.[35] He retired in 1962 and became a professor emeritus, upon which occasion then president of the college Katharine Elizabeth McBride remarked that he "was never willing to turn away a student who entered to learn."[35]

Personal life

Herben Jr. married Mary Bishop Shattuck on 27 May 1921.[45] She was herself the daughter of a minister, Rev. Willard Ide Shattuck,[6] who together with Herben Jr.'s father performed the ceremony.[45] The Boston Post dubbed it "entirely a family affair", for the best man was Herben Jr.'s brother, and the maid of honor Mary Shattuck's sister, Frances.[45] Shattuck, who as Mary Fisher Langmuir would become recognized in the field of child psychology, went on to obtain her master's degree and doctorate from Columbia University, after which she lectured at New York University and served as the director of research at the Family Consultation Bureau of Columbia's Child Development Institute.[6] The couple had two children, Mary Joan and Lysbeth, before Shattuck filed for divorce in 1929.[6][note 1] The divorce was filed in Reno, Nevada, on 23 September; a notice in the Reno Evening Gazette the next day reported on the proceeding.[48] Shattuck was granted custody of both daughters,[48] who upon her subsequent marriage to Willis Fisher took up the new surname.[6]

On 21 September 1932 Herben Jr. married again, and his father again officiated.[49] His new bride was Caroline Robbins, an associate professor of history at Bryn Mawr.[49] Marion Edwards Park, the president of the college, held the ceremony in her house.[49]

Herben died on 22 December 1967, at his home in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.[35] He had a wife and six grandchildren,[35] including the geologist and author Sarah Andrews.[50] A fund for the purchase of history materials was established in his name, and that of Howard L. Gray,[51] at Bryn Mawr by Mary O. Slingluff of the class of 1931.[52] One of Herben Jr.'s books, a rare 1617 copy of The Faerie Queen; The Shepheards Calendar: Together with the Other Works of England's Arch-Poët, Edm. Spenser signed by John Dryden,[53] was bequeathed at his death to Julia McGrew of Vassar College's Department of English, who subsequently donated it to the school.[54]

Publications

  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (1924). The Hrolfs Saga Kraka and Related Materials for the Study of Beowulf (Ph.D.). Princeton University.
  • Bender, Harold H. & Herben Jr., Stephen J. (1927). "English Spick, Speck, Spitchcock, and Spike". The American Journal of Philology. Johns Hopkins University Press. XLVIII (3): 258–262. JSTOR 290130.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (January 1935a). "The Vercelli Book: A New Hypothesis". Speculum. The Mediaeval Academy of America. X (1): 91–94. JSTOR 2848240.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (December 1935b). "Heorot". Publications of the Modern Language Association. Modern Language Association. L (4): 933–945. JSTOR 458100.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (January 1937a). "A Note on the Helm in Beowulf". Modern Language Notes. Johns Hopkins University Press. LII (1): 34–36. JSTOR 2912312.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (January 1937b). "Rare Books in the Library". Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin. Bryn Mawr Alumnae Association. XVII (1): 2–4. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (October 1937c). "Arms and Armour in Chaucer". Speculum. University of Chicago Press. 12 (4): 475–487. JSTOR 2849302.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (December 1938). "Knight's Tale, a 1881 ff". Modern Language Notes. Johns Hopkins University Press. LIII (8): 595. JSTOR 2912967.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (January 1939). "The Ruin". Modern Language Notes. Johns Hopkins University Press. LIV (1): 37–39. JSTOR 2911804.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (January 1944). "The Ruin Again". Modern Language Notes. Johns Hopkins University Press. LIX (1): 72–74. JSTOR 2911374.
  • Herben Jr., Stephen J. (Autumn 1963). "A Shakespearian Limerick". Shakespeare Quarterly. Folger Shakespeare Library. XIV (4): 481. JSTOR 2868198.

Notes

  1. ↑ Reno at the time was nationally known as a divorce haven, with permissive laws and a short three-month residency requirement.[46] Statutes recognized seven grounds for divorce: impotency, adultery, desertion, criminal conviction, drunkenness, extreme cruelty, and neglect.[47] Whether true of not, those seeking a divorce had to fit their request into those seven options.[47] Cruelty, easiest to prove and least damaging to the defendant, was frequently invoked as a substitute for a no-fault divorce.[47]

References

  1. ↑ "Class Letters and Personal Items". Rutgers Alumni Monthly. II (I): 16–28. October 1922.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Class Notes". Princeton Alumni Weekly. XLIX (23): 12–27. 25 March 1949.
  3. 1 2 3 "Bryn Mawr, Texas Visitors to Teach English, Philology". The Stanford Daily. 81 (61). Stanford University, California. 23 May 1932. p. 4. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 Leonard & 1914–15, p. 382.
  5. ↑ "Honor Edison; One Minute Dark Tonight". Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Illinois. 21 October 1931. p. 1. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Seigneur, Erica & Johnson, Colton (2013). "Mary Fisher Langmuir". Vassar Encyclopedia. Vassar College. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
  7. 1 2 "Faculty Members Wed at Bryn Mawr". Delaware County Daily Times. Chester, Pennsylvania. 22 September 1932. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Smith 1998.
  9. ↑ Pole, Jack (16 February 1999). "Caroline Robbins Obituary: Revolutionary History Teacher". The Guardian. London. p. 14 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ Howson 2011, p. 234.
  11. ↑ "Freshman Class of 160 at Rutgers College, Including 19 From New Brunswick". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 24 September 1914. p. 4 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Here are Names of Students in Big Freshman Class". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 25 September 1914. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ "Mrs John Metlar Leads Brigade in 12 Hour Forest Fire Fight". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 13 November 1914. pp. 1, 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "3 Local Boys in Ambulance Unit for War Service". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 14 May 1917. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ "Praise for Rutgers Ambulance Unit". Plainfield Courier-News. Plainfield, New Jersey. 15 May 1917. p. 5 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "Stephen J. Herben, Jr". Plainfield Courier-News. Plainfield, New Jersey. 13 September 1917. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ "Personals: Mr. and Mrs. S. J. Herben". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 21 February 1918. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ "Stephen Herben Visits His Parents". Plainfield Courier-News. Plainfield, New Jersey. 15 July 1918. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ "Dr. Herben May Go to France". Plainfield Courier-News. Plainfield, New Jersey. 31 May 1918. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ↑ "Rev. Dr. S. J. Herben Called to France". Plainfield Courier-News. Plainfield, New Jersey. 15 October 1918. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ "Rev. S. Herben Dead at 75". Plainfield Courier-News. Plainfield, New Jersey. 23 February 1937. p. 11 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ "H. G. Parker Gets Rutgers Degree at 154th Annual Commencement Here Today". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 15 June 1920. pp. 1, 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ "Princeton Degrees for a Record Class". The New York Times. New York City. 21 June 1922. p. 14.
  24. ↑ "Foundation Fellows for 1922–1923". The American-Scandinavian Review. American-Scandinavian Foundation. X (6): 377. June 1922.
  25. ↑ Seigneur & Johnson 2013.
  26. ↑ "Scene of "Beowulf" Found in Denmark". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 19 October 1924. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. ↑ "Beowulf Hall Site is Found". The Detroit Free Press. Detroit, Michigan. 26 October 1924. p. 36 – via Newspapers.com.
  28. ↑ "Fact for Fiction". St. Joseph Herald-Press. St. Joseph, Michigan. 27 October 1924. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ↑ "Site of Hall Heorot Found: Princeton Professor Discovers Scene of Epic Poem". The Lincoln State Journal. Lincoln, Nebraska. 14 November 1924. p. A4 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. ↑ "Finds Scene of Ancient Poem". The Hartford Daily Courant. Hartford, Connecticut. 25 December 1924. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  31. ↑ "Scene of "Beowulf" Traced". Nebraska State Journal. Lincoln, Nebraska. 29 December 1924. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. ↑ Herben Jr. 1935b, p. 943.
  33. ↑ Osborn 2007, pp. 290, 290 n.8.
  34. ↑ Harris 2014, p. 187.
  35. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Dr. S. J. Herben Dies; Professor Emeritus". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 26 December 1967. p. 38 – via Newspapers.com.
  36. 1 2 "The Lexicographer's Uneasy Chair: Professor Bender and Other Princeton Scholars Complete Eight Years of Work on the New "Webster's Dictionary"". Princeton Alumni Weekly. XXXV (3): 55. 12 October 1934.
  37. ↑ Bender & Herben Jr. 1927.
  38. ↑ "Exhibit Honors 400th Birthday of Shakespeare". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 9 April 1964. p. 8D – via Newspapers.com.
  39. ↑ Herben Jr. 1937a.
  40. ↑ Herben Jr. 1937c.
  41. ↑ Herben Jr. 1937a, pp. 34–35.
  42. ↑ Cramp 1957, pp. 62, 62 n.24.
  43. ↑ Herben Jr. 1937c, p. 475.
  44. ↑ Hughes 2012, p. 85.
  45. 1 2 3 "The Bridal Party at Unique Wedding". The Boston Post. Boston, Massachusetts. 28 May 1921. p. B1 – via Newspapers.com.
  46. ↑ "Timeline". Reno Divorce History. University of Nevada, Reno Libraries. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  47. 1 2 3 "Grounds for Divorce". Reno Divorce History. University of Nevada, Reno Libraries. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  48. 1 2 "Son of Editor Declared Cruel". Reno Evening Gazette. Reno, Nevada. 24 September 1929. p. 12 – via Newspapers.com.
  49. 1 2 3 "Dr. S. J. Herben, Jr., Marries Dr. Robbins, Bryn Mawr Professor". The Daily Home News. New Brunswick, New Jersey. 26 September 1932. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  50. ↑ Andrews 2004, pp. 330–331.
  51. ↑ "Howard L. Gray, Historian, 71, Dies". The New York Times. New York City. 16 September 1945. p. 42.
  52. ↑ "Endowed Library Funds R-S". Bryn Mawr College. Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  53. ↑ "Title: The Faerie queen ; The shepheard's calendar". Vassar College Library Catalog. Vassar College. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  54. ↑ Darlington 1970, p. 5 n.4.

Bibliography

  • Andrews, Sarah (2004). Earth Colors. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-99770-1.
  • Cramp, Rosemary J. (1957). "Beowulf and Archaeology" (PDF). Medieval Archaeology. Society for Medieval Archaeology. 1: 57–77.
  • Darlington, Beth (February 1970). "Vassar Receives a Rich Legacy". Vassar Alumnae Magazine. Associate Alumnae of Vassar College. LV (3): 4–8. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
  • Harris, Joseph (2014). "A Note on the Other Heorot". In Neidorf, Leonard. The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. pp. 178–190. ISBN 978-1-84384-387-0.
  • Howson, Susan (2011). Lionel Robbins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-00244-9.
  • Howson, Susan; Moggridge, Donald, eds. (1990). "Lionel Robbins: Hot Springs and After, May–June 1943". The Wartime Diaries of Lionel Robbins and James Meade, 1943–45. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 8–91. ISBN 978-1-349-10842-8.
  • Hughes, Gavin (2012). "Fourteenth-Century Weaponry, Armour and Warfare in Chaucer and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". In Morgan, Gerald. Chaucer in Context: A Golden Age of English Poetry. New York: Peter Lang. pp. 83–108. ISBN 978-3-03-430765-9.
  • Leonard, John William, ed. (1914–15). "Herben, Grace Foster (Mrs. Stephen J. Herben)". Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada. New York: American Commonwealth Co. pp. 382–383.
  • Osborn, Marijane (2007). "The Lejre Connection in Beowulf Scholarship" (PDF). In Niles, John D. & Osborn, Marijane. Beowulf and Lejre. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. 323. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. pp. 287–293. ISBN 978-0-86698-368-6.
  • Smith, George (1998). "Tribute to Caroline Robbins" (PDF). The Bulletin of the Radnor Historical Society. VI (8): 27–28. Retrieved 10 June 2017.
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