Historian William S. McFeely, "who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Ulysses S. Grant but was also well known for advancing the field of black history," died December 11, the New York Times reported. He was 89.
McFeely also wrote an acclaimed biography of Frederick Douglass as well as Yankee Stepfather: General O.O. Howard and the Freedmen (1968). "These books and other writings established Professor McFeely as a leading interpreter of Reconstruction, the pivotal period after the Civil War," the Times noted.
Grant: A Biography won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for biography or autobiography and the 1982 Francis Parkman Prize. Frederick Douglass was honored with the 1991 Lincoln Prize. His other titles include Proximity to Death; Portrait: The Life of Thomas Eakins; and Sapelo's People: A Long Walk into Freedom.
"Via his books on Howard, Douglass and Grant, McFeely played a major role in the re-evaluation of Reconstruction--seeing it not as an era of misgovernment and corruption as previous scholars too often did, but as a key moment, despite its flaws, in the ongoing struggle for racial justice in this country," said author Eric Foner.
Drew Gilpin Faust, historian and former president of Harvard University, said McFeely's "prizewinning books, and especially his magnificent biographies, have made the past vivid for scholars and general readers alike."
McFeely taught at Yale until 1970, "helping to establish the university's Department of African American Studies and teaching a core course on African-American history," observed Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was in his class. "Professor McFeely's riveting lectures brought to life in the most vivid way a world about which most of us had been unaware, a world of black achievement, sacrifice, resistance and attainment, facts and stories that had been edited out of standard American history textbooks."
Gates added: "Inevitably, during question period, someone would stand up and rudely ask how a white man like him could dare to teach a black history class. Invariably, he responded, unfazed, that the person was absolutely right, that a black person should be hired, and would be hired one day, soon. But in the meantime, we should study our lecture notes and do next week's reading for the class! I think even the most militant among us respected him enormously for the courage of that response."