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David Morris Potter (December 6, 1910 in Augusta, Georgia – February 18, 1971) was an American historian specializing in the study of the American South and the American Civil War.

He was born in Georgia. He graduated from the Academy of Richmond County, then from Emory University in 1932. Potter entered graduate school at Yale the same year, but he left four years later without finishing his dissertation. He taught at the University of Mississippi for two years, then taught at Rice University for another two before completing his dissertation in 1940 under Ulrich Bonnell Phillips.[1]

In 1942 Yale published his dissertation as Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis and hired him as an assistant professor. As professor of history at Yale University in 1942–1961 and Coe Professor of American History at Stanford University in 1961–1971 he directed numerous dissertations and served on numerous editorial and professional boards. He also held the Walgreen Lectureship at the University of Chicago, and the Commonwealth Fund Lectureship at the University of London. Potter held the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University in 1947.[2] He was a pioneer in sponsoring the study of Women's history.

Potter was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[3][4] He posthumously won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (1976), an in-depth narrative and analysis of the causes of the American Civil War. His main achievement was to put the history of the South in national perspective. He rejected the conflict model of Charles A. Beard and emphasized the depth of consensus on American values. He considered himself a conservative and was a prominent exponent of Consensus history.[5]

Bibliography

• His most important book, completed and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher, was The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861, Harper & Row, 1976.[6]
• Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis (1942), new introduction by Daniel W. Crofts, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1995.
• "American Women and the American Character" in American Character and Culture in a Changing World: Some Twentieth-Century Perspectives (Greenwood Press, 1979): 209–225.
• Freedom and Its Limitations in American Life, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher, compiled by George Harmon Knoles, Stanford University Press, 1976.
• History and American Society: Essays of David M. Potter, ed. by Don E. Fehrenbacher, Oxford University Press, 1973.
• Division and the Stresses of Reunion, 1845-1876, Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1973.
• The South and the Concurrent Majority, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher and Carl N. Degler, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1972.
• The South and the Sectional Conflict, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1968.
• (With Curtis R. Grant) Eight Issues in American History: Views and Counterviews, Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1966.
• "The Historian's Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa," American Historical Review, Vol. 67, No. 4 (July 1962), pp. 924–950 in JSTOR
• The Background of the Civil War, National Council for the Social Studies, 1961.
• (With Manning) Nationalism and Sectionalism in America, 1775-1877, Holt, 1961.
• (Editor, with William Goetzmann) The New Deal and Employment, Holt, 1960.
• (Editor) E. David Cronon and Howard R. Lamar, The Railroads, Holt, 1960.
• (Editor) Party Politics and Public Action, 1877-1917, Holt, 1960.
• The American Round Table Discussions on People's Capitalism, 1957.
• People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character, 1954.
• (With Thomas G. Manning) Select Problems in Historical Interpretation, Holt, Volume I, 1949, Volume II, 1950.
• "An Appraisal of Fifteen Years of the Journal of Southern History, 1935–1949," Journal of Southern History, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Feb. 1950), pp. 25–32 in JSTOR
• Editor of Yale Review, 1949-51.
• "The Historical Development of Eastern-Southern Freight Rate Relationships," Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Summer, 1947), pp. 416–448 in JSTOR
• "Horace Greeley and Peaceable Secession," Journal of Southern History, Vol. 7, No. 2 (May 1941), pp. 145–159 in JSTOR
• "Why the Republicans Rejected Both Compromise and Secession," in Knoles, George Harmon, ed., The Crisis of the Union: 1860-1861, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1965, pp. 90–106, Comment by Kenneth M. Stampp, pp. 107–113; reprinted in Wilentz, Sean, ed., The Best American History Essays on Lincoln, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 175–188, without Comment by Stampp.

Notes

Further reading

• Barney, William L. "Potter's the Impending Crisis: a Capstone and a Challenge." Reviews in American History 1976 4(4): 551–557. JSTOR
• Brogan, Denis. “David M. Potter.” In Pastmasters: Some Essays on American Historians edited by Marcus Cunliffe and Robin W. Winks, (1969) pp. 316–44
• Collins, Robert M. "David Potter's People of Plenty and the Recycling of Consensus History," Reviews in American History 16 (June 1988): 321–335. in JSTOR
• Fredrickson, George M. "Two Southern Historians." American Historical Review 1970 75(5): 1387–1392. in JSTOR
• Gallagher, Gary W. "A Master's Lessons" Civil War Times (Feb 2020) 59#1, on Potter as teacher.
• Johannsen, Robert W. "David Potter, Historian and Social Critic: a Review Essay." Civil War History 1974 20(1): 35–44. ISSN 0009-8078
• Temperley, Howard. "David M. Potter", in Robert Allen Rutland, ed., Clio's Favorites: Leading Historians of the United States, 1945–2000, U of Missouri Press (2000), pp. 138–155.
• Thomas Winter. "Potter, David Morris"; American National Biography Online 2000.

External links

• http://biography.yourdictionary.com/david-m-potter
• David M. Potter at Find a Grave

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