Carl Van Doren

Born in Hope, Illinois, in 1885, Carl Van Doren studied at Columbia University, earned his Ph.D. in 1911, and went on to teach there until 1930. During those years, he was part of a generation of scholars who helped establish American literature and American history as central academic subjects rather than side topics.

He also worked as an influential editor, serving as managing editor of the Cambridge History of American Literature and as literary editor of The Nation and Century Magazine. His books ranged from criticism and literary surveys to autobiography, including The American Novel, Contemporary American Novelists, What Is American Literature?, and Three Worlds.

Van Doren is especially remembered for Benjamin Franklin (1939), the biography that won him a Pulitzer Prize. He died in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1950, leaving behind a body of work that helped shape how American writing was read, taught, and valued.