(Obituary - New York Times, December 27th, 1964)

DEAN CARMAN, 80, OF COLUMBIA, DIES

 Social Historian and Leader in American Studies Was Champion of Humanities

Harry James Carman, who started as a teacher in a one-room school and became one of the best-known educators in the United States, died early yesterday morning at Mount Sinai Hospital.

He was 80 years old and lived at 21 Claremont Avenue and had a farm near Schuylerville, N.Y.

Dr. Carman, dean-emeritus of Columbia College and for many years one of the countrys leading historians and a Pioneer in American studies, had been ill for five weeks after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.

Dr. Carman was a familiar figure in New York life for more than 40 years. His interests ranged from the most erudite scholarship to the mundane task of helping building-trades prentices find and keep jobs. He was always ready to lend his time and labor to causes he considered important.

Heavy-set until he slimmed down in recent years, with a shock of reddish-brown hair, Dean Carman would come to a meeting of citizens with similar interests, put everyone in an informal mood with a few stories, then start a constructive session. His enthusiasm would grow as he worked. A thorough liberal, he won the respect of conservatives by his consideration for opposing viewpoints, and he often won their support as well.

In class, Dr. Carmans informal way of recounting the development of historical situations mad them come alive for his students and made historical investigation an exciting enterprise. He made many recruits to history teaching and historical scholarship. But he was always concerned with the use of the past to control the present and shape the future. This attitude made all his students conscious of history.

Probably his most notable achievement was his part in developing Columbias Contemporary Civilizations courses, which became a model for humanities programs throughout the country.

Dean Carman was born Jan. 22, 1884 in Greenfield, N.Y. in Saratoga County. He was educated there in a one-room school.

When he had completed 12 grades, he wanted to take the high school Board of Regents examinations at Saratoga. The school superintendent there opposed the request. The principal, who was friendly, took the students side and the boy took the tests.

 Taught at $7.50 a Week

He passed and thus became, at the age of 16, eligible to enter a teacher's training school, which granted certificates to teach at rural schools. He returned to the one-room schoolhouse as its teacher at $7.50 a week.

The second year his pay was raised to $8 a week. Then, in 1905, Mr. Carman entered Syracuse University. He was graduated in 1909, then served four years as principal of Rhinebeck (N.Y.) High School.

Again he saved his money and returned to Syracuse as a graduate student. He received a masters degree in 1914 and taught history and political science at the university until 1917. Then he became a doctoral candidate at Columbia. After receiving his degree in 1919, he joined the department of history.

Dean Carman specialized in studies of American history and civilization, hardly a delineated field at that time but now widely cultivated here and abroad.

In those days funds for serious research, particularly in the humanities, were almost non-existent. Dean Carman, who for several years was executive secretary of the American Historical Association, decided to do something about it.

            He set up what was called a national endowment for historical research, begged for contributions, and got them. Although other initiatives were needed to bring historical studies nearer their potential, Dr. Carman thus helped make up part of the deficiency.

Questioned Teaching Aims

He attacked the problem from another direction. With other young faculty members, he later recalled, he was impressed by the fact that during World War I the American people seemed very ignorant  - and even our own students were ignorant of historical backgrounds. Columbia College students were taking limited narrowly specialized courses, even in their early years.

These young teachers asked. Couldnt we develop one course that cuts across all of those frontiers. The answer was a new course, Contemporary Civilization. Dean Herbert E. Hawkes supported its establishment over the objections of traditionalist faculty members.

It became the prototype of the broad-based humanities courses introduced thereafter in most United States colleges and universities.

Dean Carman adopted the approach of social history, which had been developed in Europe and was promoted here by such scholars as Carlton J. H. Hayes of Columbia, for the study of American history. He combined with the traditional study of political and diplomatic events the economic and socio-preciation of how the present came to be.  And I want them to know something of scientific methods. And I want them to be able to communicate well, both orally and in writing.

A man of infectious enthusiasm, he chatted informally with his classes rather than lectured, building among his auditors a love for history and culture equal to his own. Tall, gangling, a man with no trace of pompousness, he was interested in each student as an individual and made the learning process an exciting adventure.

His approach and that of others of the school of social historians was to combine the professional competence of the economist and the sociologist with the methods of a historian, which required enormous erudition. But Dean Carman carried his intellectual baggage so easily that his hearty, friendly manner seemed more suited to the farmer of Schuylerville that he had been than the outstanding educator, which he was.

In consequence, for seven consecutive years, he won the annual poll among Columbia College seniors as Columbias most popular professor.

His carrier as an educational administrator was equally noteworthy. He served as the assistant to the dean during the tenure of Dean Hawkes from 1925 to 1931. In 1943, after Dean Hawkes death, he succeeded to the post, serving until 1950, when he was 66 years old.

Member of City Board

He also served the city as a member of the Board of Higher Education, planning for the citys colleges, for 24 of the last 26 years. During the tenure of Mayor Vincent Impelliteri he was dropped from the board.

He had been on the board of Atlanta University, Earlham College, the Parsons School of Design, and the Free University in Exile. He was a Trustee of the Institute of International Education and chairman of the board of the National Scholarship Fund and Service for Negro Students.

At Columbia, Dean Carman was an easily recognized figure as he strode quickly from building to building, usually without hat or coat.

When General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower became President of Columbia in 1948, he was advised to see Dean Carman.  He met the Dean 30 minutes after taking office. They became close friends.

When he was teaching Dean Carman had an office in Hamilton Hall. The door was always open and it was a busy place, with students dropping in frequently.

After his retirement, he moved to an office in the Nicholas Murray Butler Library. There he continued to counsel students.

He criticized those who had a dour outlook on life, once recommending that pessimists should try living a month or even a week with 2,500 American boys who inhabit the Columbia College quadrangle on Morningside Heights.

I defy them to do that and emerge with long faces and tidings of woe. He said. A good look at these young men will take the pessimism out of them in a hurry.

Dean Carman was equally active in civic posts. He was chairman of the humanities division of the John Hay Whitney Foundation, which helps public school teachers get post-graduate training. He sponsored the employment of retired professors at small colleges lacking outstanding teachers.

He was director of the Japan-American Cultural Exchange Program and the Urban League of New York, became executive director of the Ellis Phillips Foundation in 1962 and held many similar posts.

Interested in Labor

Dean Carman had a keen interest in labor affairs and in workers education and adult education, serving for 12 years on the board of the Adult Education Council. He was a member of the states Board of Mediation from 1941 to 1955 and in 1953 served as chairman of the Minimum Retail Wage Board.

He advised Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on the organization of its education program for union members, and supervised the joint electrical industry labor-scholarship program.

The Yale-Columbia Football program in October carried as special tribute to Dean Carman. It called him one of the busiest retired educators.

Last years he accepted an appointment from Mayer Wagner as a member of what was called an action panel to seek jobs for Negroes and Puerto Ricans in the building trades. He joined a committee for the re-election of Senator Kenneth B. Keating in October.

For his services to the city and to education, Mayer Wagner awarded him the Medal of the City of New York on May 22. Dean Carman also received many academic honors from institutions here and abroad.

He leaves his second wife, the former M. Margaret Carscadden, whom he married in 1953 and a brother William in Mechanicsville, N.Y.  Dean Carmans first wife, the former Catheryne M. Barrett who he married in 1910, died in 1943.

The body will lie at Frank E. Campbells on Madison Avenue at 81^st Street today and tomorrow. It will be taken to Dr. Carmans home in Schuylerville, and will lie there Tuesday and Wednesday.

A requiem mass will be held at the Roman Catholic Church of the Visitation in Schuylerville on Thursday morning at 11. Burial will follow at St Marys Cemetery.

A memorial service will be held at St Pauls Chapel on the Columbia campus on Jan.22, which would have been Dr. Carmans 81^st birthday.