Background

William Linn Westermann was born in Belleville, Ill. , the son of Louis and Emma Hilgard Tyndale Westermann.

Education

After completing his secondary education in Decatur, Ill. , he entered the University of Nebraska in 1890, receiving the B. A. in 1894 and the M. A. in 1896. Westermann next taught Latin at Decatur High School for three years. In 1899 he returned, as he states in the vita of his dissertation, to the "land of his fathers" to study at the University of Berlin. He remained there, with the exception of half a year spent at Heidelberg, until 1902, when he received the Ph. D. after defending a dissertation entitled De Hippocratis in Galeno memoria quaestiones, done primarily under the direction of Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Hermann Diels. It would be difficult to find two more eminent sponsors, except perhaps Eduard Meyer, the leading ancient historian of the day. Meyer had already trained another American, James Henry Breasted; and over the years his influence on Westermann was pervasive. This was a great period for classical studies at Berlin. The training included a tough-minded, secular approach to the past.

Career

After returning to the United States in 1902, Westermann moved steadily up the academic ladder. Beginning as instructor at the University of Missouri, he became an assistant professor in 1904. In 1906 he moved to the University of Minnesota, and in 1908 he became an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin. Two years later he was promoted to professor. In 1920 Westermann accepted a professorship at Cornell University, which he held until he moved to Columbia University, where he spent the rest of his academic career, in 1923. While at Columbia he was appointed professor in charge at the School of Classical Studies in Rome (1926 - 1927). In 1944 he served as president of the American Historical Association. After his retirement in 1948, Westermann twice accepted appointments in Egypt: in 1949 at Farouk I University and in 1953-1954 as lecturer in ancient history at the University of Alexandria. Although also renowned as an editor of the Zenon papyri (in part) and other collections at Cornell and Columbia, Westermann made his greatest contribution in the field of economic history, following guidelines already set up by Eduard Meyer and K. J. B. Beloch. It was neither of these men, however, but his close friend Michael Rostovtzeff who focused Westermann's interests on the subject that made his reputation. Rostovtzeff persuaded Wilhelm Kroll, then editor of the Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, to commission Westermann to do an article entitled "Sklaverei. " The book-length article was published in 1935; and twenty years later, just after Westermann's death, his Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity appeared, covering the same ground in English but with added material and some changes in emphasis. Even this volume, indispensable though it is, fails to do justice to Westermann's developing ideas on slavery (some of which are envisaged in his presidential address to the American Historical Association). Westermann's later views were not reached through the study of the ancient texts alone; he also learned from his colleagues and graduate students. The seminar on slavery that he conducted with colleagues from other fields of history in 1937 and subsequent years gave him (and them) a view of slavery as an institution and a social phenomenon that transcended the sometimes narrow limits of classical scholarship. Students who participated in that seminar acquired a new perspective on a complex social problem and a great respect for Westermann's grasp of relevant details - from the Zulu empire back to ancient Egypt. His wide range of interests enabled Westermann to serve the United States as an expert on the Near East at the Paris peace conference in 1918-1919. During the Nazi period and afterward he also helped Columbia to attract and retain such European scholars in exile as Kurt von Fritz and Rafael Taubenschlag.

Achievements

• He was regarded as an expert on the economy of the ancient world.

Works

More photos

• book

  • De Hippocratis in Galeno memoria quaestiones (Latin Edition)

    (This book was digitized and reprinted from the collection...)

  • Story of the Ancient Nations: A Text-Book for High Schools

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Tax Lists and Transportation Receipts from Theadelphia: Columbia Papyri, Greek Series, No. 2
  • The slave systems of Greek and Roman antiquity (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society)

Membership

He was a member of the American Academy in Rome's Broad of Trustees from 1922 to 1933.

Connections

On June 15, 1912, he married Avrina Davies; they had one son.

Father:

Louis Westermann

Mother:

Emma Hilgard Tyndale Westermann

Spouse:

Avrina Davies

child:

Evan Davies Westermann

Friend:

Michael Rostovtzeff