William Gienapp

William E. Gienapp (February 27, 1944 – October 29, 2003) was an American historian, noted for his writing on the period of the American Civil War. His widely-acclaimed and prize-winning The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (1987), which was based on a massive volume of original research and dramatically revised traditional understanding of the political party's origins, is still considered one of the most important books ever written on 19th-century American politics and the coming of the Civil War. Later he wrote Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography (2002), which was deemed by numerous leaders in the field to be the best brief biography of Lincoln ever written. He also co-authored one of the best-selling United States history textbooks of the last generation, Nation of Nations, and compiled one of the most widely-used documentary readers on the era of the Civil War, The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Collection (2001). Many years after his death, his wife, Erica Gienapp, completed one of his final projects: The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy: The Original Manuscript Edition (2014). It painstakingly restored one of the most important primary sources of Abraham Lincoln's administration to its complete, original form.

During his long tenure at Harvard University, Gienapp acquired a reputation as a beloved teacher and devoted mentor of graduate students. In addition to teaching popular courses on the American Civil War, Reconstruction, and antebellum America, he also taught a course on the history of baseball in the United States that quickly became one of the most sought-after classes offered at Harvard.[1]

Gienapp held a B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied under Kenneth Stampp, and an M.A. from Yale University. After earning his doctorate in 1980, Gienapp began working at the University of Wyoming. He became a visiting associate professor at Harvard in 1988 before formally joining the faculty the following year. Gienapp died prematurely in the fall of 2003 at the age of 59 from complications surrounding a rare form of blood cancer. He was survived by his wife and two sons.[1]

Books
  • The Civil War Diary of Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy: The Original Manuscript Edition (University of Illinois Press, 2014), edited with Erica L. Gienapp.
  • Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography (Oxford University Press, 2002)
  • This Fiery Trial: The Speeches and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (Oxford University Press, 2002), edited.
  • The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Collection (W. W. Norton, 2001), edited.
  • The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (Oxford University Press, 1987)[2]
  • Nation of Nations: A Narrative History of the American Republic (McGraw-Hill/Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), contributor.

References
  1. Potier, Beth (6 November 2003). "Civil War historian, beloved professor, William Gienapp, at 59". Harvard University Gazette. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
  2. Baker, Jean H.. 1988. "Review of The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856". The Journal of Southern History 54 (4). Southern Historical Association: 663–65. doi:10.2307/2209220.
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