Harry Elmer Barnes

Background

Harry Elmer Barnes was born on June 15, 1889, in Auburn, New York, a city in Cayuga County in the Finger Lakes region of central New York. He later was associated with Port Byron, New York, a village in the same region, where he attended the local high school before entering Syracuse University.

His formative interests developed in an academic setting that was beginning to connect history with the social sciences. His later career centered on the integration of history with sociology, economics, and criminology, a theme that emerged from the scholarship he pursued as a student.

Education

Barnes attended Port Byron High School before enrolling at Syracuse University. Syracuse was chartered in 1870 under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and had grown into a coeducational university in upstate New York. Barnes received his bachelor's degree summa cum laude in 1913 and a master's degree in 1914. At Syracuse, he was stimulated by the teaching of Philip Parsons and prepared a history of pre-Comtean sociological literature.

In the academic year 1916 to 1917, Barnes studied at Harvard on a fellowship, where he prepared an extensive history of sociological contributions to political theory. Harvard, founded in 1636, was the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, and its graduate programs in the social sciences attracted scholars during this period. His studies at Harvard built on his earlier work in historical sociology and furnished material for his later writings on historiography and Western thought.

He completed his doctorate at Columbia University, where he received a Doctor of Philosophy in history in 1918. While at Columbia he was University Fellow in Historical Sociology and Cutting Travelling Fellow in History. Columbia, which began in 1754 as King's College in New York City, was then a center of the New History movement, and Barnes studied under James Harvey Robinson and James T. Shotwell, two of its founders.

Career

Barnes began his professional career at Syracuse University as an instructor in historical sociology for about two years after his bachelor's degree. He then became a lecturer in history at Columbia University, where he had earned his doctorate. Columbia at this time was a leading center of the New History, the movement that Barnes later promoted in his own writings.

In 1918 he became associate professor of history at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, a post he held until 1919. Clark had been founded in 1887 as a graduate research institution, which gave its faculty an emphasis on advanced scholarship. From 1920 to 1923 he served there as professor of history of thought and culture. In 1919 and 1920 he taught as professor of history at the New School for Social Research in New York, which had been founded in 1919 by progressive scholars, several of whom had been associated with Columbia.

From 1923 to 1930 he was professor of historical sociology at Smith College, a women's college founded in 1871 in Northampton, Massachusetts. He also taught at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, which was founded in 1821 as a liberal arts college. In Philadelphia he taught at Temple University, founded in 1884 as a institution offering evening instruction to working students. He taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the state's flagship public university, and at Indiana University in Bloomington, which was established in 1820. He lectured also at Barnard College, the women's college affiliated with Columbia and founded in 1889, and in many university summer schools.

From 1929 to 1940 Barnes worked in the editorial department of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, where he served as an editorial writer and special commentator on social issues. The chain, which grew out of the newspaper ventures of E. W. Scripps and Roy W. Howard, gave him a national platform for commentary on public affairs. During these years he lectured widely on penology, criminology, and education and consulted on criminology and penology for federal and state agencies.

From 1943 to 1944 he served as chief consultant on prison industries for the War Production Board, the wartime agency established in 1942 to direct American industrial production during the Second World War. In his later years he became known for historical revisionism and Holocaust denial. Barnes died on August 25, 1968, in Malibu, California.

Achievements

• Through The New History and the Social Studies (1925), Barnes became an outstanding advocate of the New History, a movement that sought a deeper understanding of the origin and development of Western culture.

• His writings on the origins of the First World War, including The Genesis of the World War (1926), challenged the view that Germany alone was responsible for the conflict and contributed to the revisionist school of historical writing about the two world wars.

Works

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• nonfiction book

  • World Politics in Modern Civilization

    (A study of the contributions of nationalism, capitalism, ...)

    1930

  • Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace

    (A collection of nine revisionist essays edited by Barnes,...)

    1953

  • Living in the Twentieth Century

    (A study of how contemporary society had developed, writte...)

    1928

  • Social Thought from Lore to Science

    (A two-volume work written in collaboration with Howard Be...)

    1938

  • In Quest of Truth and Justice: De-bunking the War Guilt Myth

    (A collection of writings examining the war guilt question...)

    1928

  • An Intellectual and Cultural History of the Western World

    (A survey of the development of Western thought and cultur...)

    1937

  • The Evolution of Penology in Pennsylvania: A Study in American Social History

    (A historical study of penal reform and prison development...)

    1927

  • The Twilight of Christianity

    (A critical study of Christianity's place in modern though...)

    1929

  • A Survey of Western Civilization

    (A survey of Western civilization from its origins to the ...)

    1947

  • Prisons in Wartime

    (A study of prisons and penal institutions during the Seco...)

    1944

  • New Horizons in Criminology

    (A study of the American crime problem and approaches to c...)

    1943

  • Role of Religion in a Secular Age

    (A study of religion's role in modern secular society.)

    1929

  • Social Institutions

    (A study of social institutions and their development.)

    1942
  • Who Started the First World War?

    (Published by the Legion for the Survival of Freedom. Barn...)

    1989

  • Society in Transition

    (A study of social change in the modern period.)

    1939

  • The Great World Revolutions

    (A study of major revolutions in world history.)

    1946

  • History of Western Civilization

    (A two-volume survey of Western civilization.)

    1935

  • Contemporary Social Theory

    (Written in collaboration with Howard Becker.)

    1940
  • A History of Historical Writing

    (Published by Dover Publications. A survey of Western hist...)

    1963

  • The New History and the Social Studies

    (Published by The Century Co. A key statement of the New H...)

    1925
  • The Genesis of the World War

    (Published by Alfred A. Knopf. An influential study of the...)

    1926

  • The Making of a Nation

    (Published by Alfred A. Knopf, written with Elisabeth Anth...)

    1929

• report

  • Report on the Progress of the State Prison War Program

    (Prepared under the government division of the War Product...)

    1944

Religion

Barnes did not belong to a documented religious denomination, but he wrote extensively about religion and questioned conventional views of orthodox faith. His books The Twilight of Christianity (1929) and Role of Religion in a Secular Age (1929) addressed the place of religion in modern secular society.

Christianity, the religion at the center of these works, arose in first-century Judea and developed into a diverse family of churches and traditions in the Western world. By the early twentieth century, historians and social scientists increasingly examined religious institutions as social and historical phenomena, a perspective that shaped Barnes's critical approach to the subject.

Politics

Barnes was not a party politician, and no party affiliation is documented for him. His political views are evident in his writings and public commentary, which made him a prominent critic of official narratives on war and foreign policy.

In the 1920s he argued against the view that Germany alone was responsible for the First World War, a position he developed in books such as The Genesis of the World War (1926). He was long regarded as a progressive intellectual of the American Left, but during the 1930s and 1940s he became associated with the Old Right because of his opposition to the New Deal, the economic and social programs introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and to American entry into the Second World War.

His anti-interventionist stance linked him with a broader current in American politics that opposed foreign military commitments and resisted expansions of federal power, while emphasizing skepticism toward government explanations of wartime decisions.

Views

Barnes believed that history should be used to develop informed judgment about public affairs and to expose outworn myths and illusory doctrines that hindered cultural progress. He held that social problems could be understood only in light of their historical background, and he advocated the integration of history with the social sciences.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• After Barnes's death, the economist and historian Murray Rothbard wrote a tribute in which he called Barnes “the last of the truly erudite historians.” Rothbard also described Barnes as a scholar whose historical approach informed his work in sociology, criminology, religion, economics, and current affairs.

Interests

• Barnes was known for his interests in hunting and fishing, as recorded in photographs published in a testimonial volume after his death.

References

• Harry Elmer Barnes Learned Crusader: The New History in Action A testimonial volume published shortly after Barnes's death, containing essays and a collection of his writings, photographs, and a portrait gallery of revisionist historians.
  1968
• Harry Elmer Barnes Papers, Syracuse University Archives An inventory of the Barnes papers at Syracuse University, including his writings, correspondence, and biographical materials.
• Harry Elmer Barnes papers, 1887-1977 A finding aid describing Barnes's academic appointments, his Scripps-Howard work, his consultancy on criminology and penology, and his revisionist writings.
• Harry Elmer Barnes A biographical article describing Barnes's education, teaching career, Scripps-Howard commentary, and role in the New History.
• Harry Elmer Barnes A reference article summarizing Barnes's doctorate, academic posts, historical revisionism, and later controversies.
• Harry Elmer Barnes A profile describing Barnes as a pioneer of historical revisionism and his association with the Old Right.