Charles Howard McIlwain | |
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| Born | (1871-03-15)March 15, 1871 Saltsburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | June 1, 1968(1968-06-01) (aged 97) |
| Awards | Pulitzer Prize for History (1924) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | History |
| Institutions | |
| Notable students | Henry Friendly |
Charles Howard McIlwain (March 15, 1871 – June 1, 1968) was an American historian, medievalist, and political scientist. He won thePulitzer Prize for History in 1924. He was educated atPrinceton University andHarvard University and taught at both institutions, as well as theUniversity of Oxford,Miami University, andBowdoin College. Though he trained as a lawyer, his career was mostly academic, devoted to constitutional history. He was a member of severallearned societies and served as president of theAmerican Historical Association in 1935–1936.
McIlwain was born March 15, 1871, inSaltsburg, Pennsylvania. In 1894Princeton University awarded him a bachelor's degree.[1] He then moved toPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he served as aclerk within a law firm while studying the law. In 1897 he was admitted to the Pennsylvaniabar[2] inAllegheny County.[1]
Though McIlwain remained interested in law through his life, he quickly abandoned his legal career.[2] In 1898 he received a master's degree fromPrinceton University,[3] and began teachingLatin and history and coachingtrack and field atThe Kiski School in Saltsburg.[1][4] He left in 1901 to pursue a master's degree atHarvard University. After obtaining the degree in 1903 he began teaching history atMiami University.[1]
In 1905Woodrow Wilson, thenPresident of Princeton University, instituted apreceptorial system, a modified version of thetutorial system ofOxbridge, at Princeton. After interviewing McIlwain personally, Wilson appointed him to the inaugural group of 45 Princeton preceptors.[5] McIlwain remained at Princeton until 1910, when he left[6] to become theThomas Brackett Reed Professor of History and Political Science[7] atBowdoin College. There he published his first book,The High Court of Parliament and Its Supremacy,[8] which caught the attention of fellow historians and led to his appointment[2] in 1911 as an assistant professor of history at Harvard. He was named a full professor of history and government in 1916.[1]
McIlwain spent the rest of his academic career at Harvard, where he taught courses on the constitutional history of England and the history of political theory. In 1918 he edited a collection of political treatises and speeches ofJames VI and I, the king of England, Scotland, and Ireland.[2] In 1923 he publishedThe American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation, in which he argued that theAmerican Revolution came about because of a disagreement over the interpretation of theconstitution of the United Kingdom.[9] The following year he received thePulitzer Prize for History for this book.[10] In 1926 he was appointed the Eaton Professor of the Sciences of Government at Harvard.[4] In 1932 he published another book,The Growth of Political Thought in the West. In 1934 he was named a Fellow of theMedieval Academy of America. He served as President of the American Historical Association 1935–1936. He was also a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society and a Corresponding Fellow of theBritish Academy.[2]
In 1940 McIlwain publishedConstitutionalism: Ancient and Modern, in which he identified government power and an independent judiciary and the countervailing forces underlyingconstitutionalism. He also discussed theancient Roman and English roots of United States constitutionalism. He published a revised version of this book in 1947.[9] During 1944 McIlwain served as theGeorge Eastman Visiting Professor at Oxford, the first person named to that post since the start ofWorld War II.[11][12] At Oxford he was a member ofBalliol College.[4] He retired from Harvard in 1946.[2]
McIlwain received honorary doctorates from theUniversity of Chicago in 1941[13] andYale University in 1951.[14] He corresponded with theWorld Federalist Movement's Committee to Frame aWorld Constitution in the mid-1940s.[15] He died on June 1, 1968.[2] In 1986 a preceptorship at Princeton was established in his name.Eric Santner was the inaugural Charles H. McIlwain Preceptor.[16]
