Charles Sackett Sydnor

Background

Charles Sackett Sydnor was born on July 21, 1898 in Augusta, Georgia, the son of Giles Granville Sydnor, pastor of the Green Street Presbyterian Church, and Evelyn Aiken Sackett Sydnor.

Education

From 1901 to 1915 the family lived in Rome, Georgia, where Charles Sydnor graduated from the Darlington School. He entered Hampden-Sydney College in 1915 and graduated in 1918 with a degree in classical studies.

In 1923 he received the Ph. D. and became professor of history and political science at Hampden-Sydney College. (He was the sole teacher in that department. )

In 1920 Sydnor entered the graduate school of Johns Hopkins University, where his major interests were medieval and English history.

In 1925 he went to the University of Mississippi as chairman of the history department.

Career

After brief military service and a few months teaching in Rome High School, he became a teacher of mathematics at the McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He joined the faculty of Duke University in 1936 as an associate professor, becoming full professor in 1938, chairman of the department in 1952, and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1952.

In 1953 he was named James B. Duke professor. With Claude Bennett, Sydnor wrote Mississippi History (1930), a school text. He also produced four other books, all carefully researched and written with clarity and respect for the data, and offering fresh insights and conclusions.

He published numerous articles on southern history and contributed twenty-three sketches to the Dictionary of American Biography. Sydnor's Slavery in Mississippi (1933) was possibly the most significant of several studies of slavery that followed the pioneer work of Ulrich B. Phillips. Black reviewers pointed out certain limitations in Sydnor's work, arising from white bias and disregard of environmental factors, but agreed that it was written with restraint and care. More recent scholars have questioned Sydnor's opinion that slavery in Mississippi was unprofitable by pointing to errors in his statistics concerning the number of white overseers and the lifespan of slaves, but it is generally recognized that he added new dimensions to the study of slavery.

His next book, A Gentleman of the Old Natchez Region: Benjamin L. C. Wailes (1938), was a biography of a Mississippian whose voluminous diaries and letters, on which he drew, provided a great deal of information about the evolution of a frontier society into a settled plantation system with a social and political order destined to crumble under the impact of civil war.

The Development of Southern Sectionalism, 1819-1848 (1948; volume V in The History of the South, edited by E. Merton Coulter and Wendell H. Stephenson) was an examination of the transitional period in which the political philosophy of the Virginia dynasty was yielding to issues associated with the diminished political power of the South, population shifts to the southwest, and broadening threats to slavery.

The democratic upsurge of the 1830's, Sydnor noted, raised to power a political leadership eager to reject social reform and to intensify the sectional differences.

Sydnor's last book, Gentlemen Freeholders, Political Practices in Washington's Virginia (1952), was an effort to determine whether the structure of Virginia politics was responsible for the emergence of the statesmen who did so much to make and to shape the early republic. Although those elevated to high office came "to be regarded as very great men, " he wrote, "nearly every detail of the political processes" that brought them to the fore "has been repudiated. "

Sydnor had lectured to the Mississippi Historical Society and was on his way to deliver the Walter L. Fleming lectures at Louisiana State University when he died of a heart attack at Biloxi, Missippi. After a funeral service at the First Presbyterian Church, Durham, he was buried in the Forest Hills Cemetery, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Achievements

• The list of Charles Sydnor's achievements includes him serving as president of the Southern Historical Association (1939), the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association (1949 - 1950), and the Historical Society of North Carolina (1949 - 1950), and was the first southerner to hold the distinguished Harmsworth lectureship in American history at Oxford University (1950 - 1951). He served on the executive committee of the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and on the council of the Institute of Early American History and Culture. He was also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Southern History (1935 - 1938) and the South Atlantic Quarterly (1947 - 1954). Sydnor also has written some excellent books of a remarkable quality pertaining to the historical research field that are still appreciated by scholars. His book, Slavery in Mississippi (1933), was long considered the most significant of the several studies of slavery. In recognition to his academic achievements, professor Sydnor received honorary degrees from such institutions, as Washington and Lee University, Davidson College, Princeton University, and Oxford University. In 1955 the Southern Historical Association established the Charles S. Sydnor award of $500 to be given in even-numbered years for the best book on southern history.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press)

    (Here is a vivid picture of late eighteenth-century Virgin...)

  • The Development of Southern Sectionalism 1819-1848 (A History of the South, Vol. V)

    ( Includes: The South, 1819--1848: A Critical Essay on Re...)

  • American Revolutionaries in the Making

    (Originally published by UNC Press as Gentlemen Freeholders.)

  • The Development of Southern Sectionalism, 1819-1848.
  • A gentleman of the old Natchez region, Benjamin L.C. Wailes,
  • The free Negro in Mississippi before the Civil War
  • American Revolutionaries in the making: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia
  • American Revolutionaries in the Making: Political Practices in Washing
  • The development of Southern sectionalism, 1819-1848
  • Crossroads!: Which way for Presbyterians?
  • The Development of Southern Sectionalism, 1819-1848 (History of the South) by Charles Sackett Sydnor (1948-12-31)
  • Slavery in Mississippi

Religion

Remaining true to his Presbyterian heritage, Sydnor was steadfastly active in the work of his church, and at some point served as a trustee of Davidson College, a Presbyterian school (1942–46).

Views

Sydnor found that the interplay of both democracy and aristocracy produced the political leadership of revolutionary Virginia. Sydnor was increasingly interested in the problem of how to improve the quality of political leadership.

In his academic life he set high standards for himself, and also demanded them of his students.

Membership

Charles Sydnor was a member of the Southern Historical Association (1939), the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association (1949 - 1950), and the Historical Society of North Carolina (1949 - 1950). He was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Kappa Sigma.

Personality

At the age of eleven Charles Sydnor was remembered as "strikingly good looking, with cheeks as pink as a girl's. " As a result, some of the "boys gave him a rough time, " but he took it in good humor.

In his later years, being a tall and gentle man, Sydnor was never pretentious, always patient and courteous. He was an efficient administrator with the tact necessary to harmonize conflicting views.

Sydnor was a meticulous scholar who knew the effort that went into the writing of good history. His personal qualities, however, did not so much suggest the dedicated scholar as the complete gentleman: unfailing courtesy, good humor, and a relaxed manner. The informality of his classroom discussions did not obscure the fact that he was probing for the reality below the surface. His graduate students were apt to find that conferences with him were enlightening experiences rather than times of dull faultfinding. These same gentlemanly qualities helped to make him an efficient administrator. He got along with people because he had a way of dissipating any point of friction.

Connections

On June 12, 1924, Charles Sackett Sydnor married Betty Brown, a native of Chattanooga. They became the parents of two boys, Charles Sackett, Jr. , and Victor Brown.

Father:

Giles Granville Sydnor

pastor

Mother:

Evelyn Aiken Sackett

Wife:

Betty Brown

Son:

Victor Brown

Son:

Charles Sackett, Jr.

References

• Who's Who In America Volume 28 1954-1955 Two Years
• The Alumni Register of Duke University, 1928, Vol. 14 (Classic Reprint)