Henry Farnum May (March 27, 1915 – September 29, 2012) was an American historian and Margaret Byrne Professor of History at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

Life

Henry May was the son of Henry F. May, a lawyer, and May (Rickard) May. Born in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, he was reared in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, and spent a formative year in Europe with his family as the youngest of three children. He married Jean Louise Terrace on June 18, 1941, and they had two children. He earned a B.A. from the

(1937) and an M.A. (1938) and a Ph.D. (1947) from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. May was an instructor of history at

Lawrence College Lawrence University is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1847, its first classes were held on November 12, 1849. Lawrence was the second college in the U.S. to be founded as a coeducation ...

from 1941 to 1942, and from 1942 to 1945, he served as a Japanese language translator in the

United States Navy Reserve The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...

. He was an assistant professor, and then associate professor, at Scripps College from 1947 to 1949 and taught as a visiting associate professor at Bowdoin College from 1950 to 1951. He taught at Berkeley from 1952 until his retirement in 1980, serving as chairman of the history department during the

Free Speech Movement The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of Be ...

of 1964. May's works primarily address American intellectual and religious history, but he also wrote about his youth in Berkeley and his experiences as a graduate student at Harvard during the 1930s. Two of May’s books helped define scholarly discussion. ''The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time, 1912-1917'', published in 1959, "argued that the cultural rebellions of the 1920s were well underway before World War I and that these rebellions were less dependent upon the war’s impact than earlier scholars had assumed." ''The Enlightenment in America'' (1976), which won the

Merle Curti Award The Merle Curti Award is awarded annually by the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American social and/or American intellectual history. It is named in honor of Merle Curti Merle Eugene Curti (September 15, 1897 – March ...

of the Organization of American Historians, proposed that the

Protestant culture Although the Reformation was a religious movement, it also had a strong impact on all other aspects of life: marriage and family, education, the humanities and sciences, the political and social order, the economy, and the arts. The role of fa ...

of late-18th century America was "strikingly different from its European equivalents." May was honored by the Organization of American Historians with its Distinguished Service Award in 1997. He was also an elected Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. May's papers are held by the University of California, Berkeley.Finding aid
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Awards

* 1970 Guggenheim Fellowship * 1978

Bibliography

*''Protestant Churches and Industrial America'' (Harper Torchbooks, 1949) *''The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time, 1912-1917'' (New York: Knopf, 1959) * *''Coming to Terms: A Study in Memory and History'' (University of California Press, 1987) *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:May, Henry F. 1915 births 2012 deaths Writers from Denver University of California, Berkeley alumni Harvard University alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Historians from California