Call Number:

AC353

Repository:

Princeton University Library: University Archives

Extent:

1 box

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Gordon Alexander Craig Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1946-1956 (inclusive)

Creator:

Craig, Gordon Alexander, 1913-2005

Abstract:

Gordon Alexander Craig was an American historian specializing in German and diplomatic history who taught at Princeton and Stanford. The Gordon Alexander Craig Papers document several projects the historian was involved with while a professor at Princeton including the Marine Corps History Project for which Craig served as chairman of the editorial board, and the Princeton response to the loyalty oath controversy at the University of California in 1950-1951.

Gordon Alexander Craig was an American historian specializing in German and diplomatic history. Gordon Alexander Craig graduated from Princeton as the valedictorian of the Class of 1936. As an undergraduate in 1935 Craig visited Germany with a group of Princeton graduates. There his witness of the beginnings of the Nazi regime's rise to power left an indelible mark on his academic life. After graduation Craig was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, leading him to studies at Oxford for two years before returning to Princeton to complete his doctoral dissertation in 1938. In the Second World War Craig served with the Marines in the South Pacific.

During his career Gordon Alexander Craig held professorships at Princeton (1950-1961) and Stanford (1961-1979). After transferring to emeritus status in 1979 he remained publicly visible as a historian, serving as president of the American Historical Association in 1986 and frequently reviewing books on German and European history for the New York Review of Books. Craig died of a heart attack in 2006 at the age of 91.

The Gordon Alexander Craig Papers document several projects the historian was involved with while a professor at Princeton. These include the Marine Corps History Project for which Craig served as chairman of the editorial board, and which resulted in the 600 page volume The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War (1951).

Also included in the collection are a set of correspondence and clippings relating to the loyalty oath controversy at the University of California in 1950-1951. In response to the matter which involved several tenured faculty members being dismissed for refusing to take a loyalty oath, Craig headed a group to compose a letter of protest to the California Board of Regents that was signed by most Princeton University faculty.