James R. (James Root) Hulbert

James Root Hulbert was born in Eldora, Iowa, on March 8, 1884, and earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago in 1912. His dissertation, Chaucer’s Official Life, was published the same year, showing the medieval focus that marked an important part of his scholarship.

He taught English at the University of Chicago and appears in archival records there as Professor James Root Hulbert. His surviving papers and related university materials point to a career that combined teaching, literary research, and editorial work.

Hulbert is especially remembered as co-editor, with Sir William A. Craigie, of A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles, a major reference work on American words and expressions. Other books associated with him include Effective English and Dictionaries, British and American, which suggest a writer equally interested in both the history of language and the way English was actually used and taught.