Gerda Richards Crosby

Gerda Cornell Richards Crosby (June 19, 1900 – April 6, 1953) was an American historian, college professor, and writer. She was awarded the Caroline Wilby Prize at Radcliffe College in 1933, and she is the namesake of the Gerda Richards Crosby Prize, awarded annually by the Harvard University Department of Government.

Gerda Richards Crosby
A young white woman wearing a white blouse or jacket with a collar
Gerda Richards, from the 1922 yearbook of Smith College
BornJune 19, 1900
Fall River, Massachusetts, United States
DiedApril 6, 1953
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Occupation(s)Writer, historian, college professor
Notable workDisarmament and peace in British politics, 1914-1919 (1957)
RelativesWilliam Otis Crosby (father-in-law)

Early life and education

Gerda Cornell Richards was born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts, the daughter of John Bion Richards and Winifred May Cornell Richards.[1] She was a Mayflower descendant; Richard Warren was her Mayflower ancestor.[2] In 1921 she was a page at the annual convention of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Washington, D.C.[3]

Richards graduated from Smith College in 1922,[4] and earned her master's and doctoral degrees at Radcliffe College in 1923 and 1933, respectively.[5] Her dissertation, "The Transformation of the Tory Party after 1780: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Party Politics", won the Caroline Wilby Prize for 1933.[6]

Career

In 1934 Crosby was teaching at Dartmouth College, when she took leave to work in Washington with the Committee on Economic Security.[7] In the 1940s, Crosby taught at Wellesley College, Hunter College, and Radcliffe College.[5] She reviewed academic monographs for The Yale Review,[8] and The American Historical Review.[9][10] Although her output was cut short by her early death, two works by Crosby have remained relevant to historians:

  • Disarmament and peace in British politics, 1914-1919 (1957, published posthumously)[13][14]

Personal life and legacy

Gerda Richards married engineering geologist Irving Ballard Crosby in 1929.[15][16] She died in 1953, aged 52 years, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, survived by her husband and both her parents.[5] Harvard University's Department of Government awards an annual Gerda Richards Crosby Prize.[17] Recipients of the Gerda Richards Crosby Prize include lawyer Oona A. Hathaway and economist Amy Finkelstein.

References
  1. "Three Local Girls Win the Smith A.B." Fall River Daily Evening News. June 20, 1922. p. 1. Retrieved December 29, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants (1923). The Mayflower Descendant 25. Heritage Books. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-7884-0523-5.
  3. "Honor for Local Girl". The Evening Herald. March 4, 1921. p. 9. Retrieved December 29, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. Smith College (1922). Class of 1922. Smith College Libraries. Smith College. p. 85 – via Internet Archive.
  5. "Historical News". The American Historical Review. 59 (2): 495–512. 1954. doi:10.1086/548935. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 1843672.
  6. "Radcliffe Degrees are Awarded to 236". The Boston Globe. June 22, 1933. p. 28. Retrieved December 29, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. "Notes". The American Economic Review. 24 (4): 788–806. 1934. ISSN 0002-8282. JSTOR 1808265.
  8. "Volume XXVI (26) (1936-1937)". The Yale Review. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  9. Crosby, Gerda R.; Barnes, Donald Grove; Roberts, Michael (July 1940). "George III and William Pitt, 1783-1806: A New Interpretation based upon a Study of their Unpublished Correspondence". The American Historical Review. 45 (4): 872. doi:10.2307/1854476. ISSN 0002-8762. JSTOR 1854476.
  10. Crosby, Gerda Richards (July 1, 1942). "Letters from George III to Lord Bute, 1756–1766. Edited with an Introduction by Romney Sedgwick, Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. [Studies in Modern History, General Editor, L. B. Namier, Professor of Modern History, University of Manchester.] (New York: Macmillan Company. 1939. Pp. lxviii, 277. $4.00.) and America s Last King: An Interpretation of the Madness of George III. By Manfred S. Guttmacher. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1941. Pp. xv, 426. $3.50.)". The American Historical Review. 47 (4): 847–849. doi:10.1086/ahr/47.4.847. ISSN 0002-8762.
  11. Essays in Modern English History in Honor of Wilbur Cortez Abbott. Duke University Libraries. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. 1941.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  12. Hecht, J. Jean (1966). "The Reign of George III in Recent Historiography". In Furber, Elizabeth Chapin (ed.). Changing Views on British History: Essays on Historical Writing since 1939. Harvard University Press. pp. 206–233. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674332935.c9. ISBN 978-0-674-33293-5.
  13. Crosby, Gerda Richards (1957). Disarmament and peace in British politics, 1914-1919. Harvard historical monographs 32. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  14. Winkler, Henry R. "Some Recent Writings on Twentieth-Century Britain" in Elizabeth Chapin Furber, ed., Changing Views on British History : Essays on Historical Writing Since 1939 (Harvard University Press 1966, reprint 2014) ISBN 9780674332935
  15. "Collection: Irving B. Crosby papers". MIT ArchivesSpace. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  16. "Obituary for Irving B. Crosby (Aged 68)". The Boston Globe. September 21, 1959. p. 27. Retrieved December 29, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. "Geologist Crosby Leaves $85,000 for Tech Lectures". The Boston Globe. November 14, 1959. p. 3. Retrieved December 29, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.