Education
Craven graduated from Simpson College in 1908. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1923, Studying with Marcus Jernegan as well as William East Dodd.
Craven graduated from Simpson College in 1908. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1923, Studying with Marcus Jernegan as well as William East Dodd.
He earned an Master of Arts from Harvard in 1914, where he was influenced by Frederick Jackson Turner. He taught at Michigan State University and the University of Illinois. In 1927, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, where he spent the rest of his career.
The Organization of American Historians gives an annual award named after Professor Craven, "for the most original book on the coming of the Civil War, the Civil War years, or the Era of Reconstruction, with the exception of works of purely military history.
The exception recognizes and reflects the Quaker convictions of Craven, President of the Organization of American Historians 1963-1964."
Craven"s personal archives are part of the library collection at Simpson College. Craven was a leader of the "revisionist" historians in the 1930s who said the Civil War was caused by a failure of democracy.
He rejected the "progressive" school of Charles A. Beard, who argued the war was an inevitable conflict between the agrarian South and the industrial North. Craven increasingly took a pro-Southern and even pro-slavery position on the causes of the Civil War.
His explanation of the war was basically psychological, arguing according to John David Smith that, "Fear, suspicion, passion, propaganda, distortion" caused the war.
Craven especially emphasized exaggerated abolitionist attacks on slavery. The war was avoidable, he argued, but selfish politicians escalated the psychological fears to their own advantage.