Terms of Access and Use:
There is no restriction on access to the collection for research use. Particularly fragile items may be restricted for preservation purposes.
Requests for permission to publish material from the collection should be directed to the Archives and Special Collections. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights.
Theodore P. Greene (AC 1943), professor of history and American studies at Amherst College from 1952 to 1989, personified many of the traditional-but-progressive values of the college. Greene was especially proud of his role in the 1974 decision to make Amherst coeducational. He is also remembered as an outstanding teacher, lecturer and historian.
Born in New York City in 1921, Greene spent his early years in New Britain, Conn., and attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, graduating first in his class. Although this distinction won him admission to Harvard, he chose instead to enter Amherst, following long family tradition. After graduating from Amherst, he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II in Denver, Colo., where he met his future wife, Mary Jane "Jary" England. Greene pursued graduate studies at Columbia University before returning to Amherst in 1952.
Over the next 37 years, he taught courses in American colonial, social, intellectual, frontier and diplomatic history. He retired in 1989 as the Winthrop H. Smith Professor of History and American Studies, Emeritus.
A reserved New Englander, Greene set high standards for his own scholarship and the work of students. Between 1955 and 1969 Greene edited three "Problems in American Civilization" paperbacks produced by the college's pioneering American studies program. These were American Imperialism in 1898, Wilson at Versailles and Roger Williams and the Massachusetts Magistrates. Greene wrote another book, America's Heroes: the Changing Models of Success in American Magazines, and edited two local history books, Essays on Amherst's History and 250 Years at First Church in Amherst, 1793-1989.
In 1974, Greene chaired one of the committees studying coeducation at Amherst, and wrote a 76-page final report of its findings. The conclusion bore the unmistakable stamp of Greene's Yankee practicality: "The question is not whether a significant college like Amherst can with justice continue to exclude women," he wrote. "The question is whether Amherst can remain as significant and vital a college in the future if it does not admit women."
Hugh Hawkins, the Anson D. Morse Professor of History and American Studies, Emeritus, remarked at Greene's funeral service on Feb. 3, 2007 that "No one was more ready to see when the old ways didn't fit the new students." Hawkins also recalled that John William Ward once told the Amherst Student that Greene was the person who had most influenced him in his years as president of the college -- "that Ted knew more about where the college came from and where it ought to be heading than anyone else."
Greene and his brother, Thayer Greene (AC 1950) were third-generation alumni whose father was the Rev. Theodore Ainsworth Greene (AC 1913) and whose grandfathers were both in the Class of 1882. Ten other family members also went to Amherst.
Theodore P. Greene died of cancer in Amherst on January 15, 2007.
[Source: "In Memoriam: Theodore P. Greene '43," by Douglas C. Wilson. Amherst, Winter 2007, pp. 5-6.]
Correspondence, writings, research and lecture notes, speeches and other papers primarily related to the history of Amherst College and higher education, generated by Greene as professor of history and American Studies, 1952-1989. The collection includes Greene's undergraduate writings, manuscript drafts for his book America's Heroes: the Changing Models of Success in American Magazines (1970), and occasional chapel talks delivered to Amherst College students. The collection includes a variety of research notes created for teaching, advisement to the Amherst administration, or scholarly publication on Amherst College topics such as the life of Charles W. Cole (AC 1927), military recruiting, parietal rules, Jeffery Amherst and charges of germ warfare, cultural diversity, coeducation and other topics. There are also papers related to his personal or family associations with First Congregational Church (Amherst, Mass.) and the town of Jaffrey, N.H.
This collection is organized into six series:
There is no restriction on access to the collection for research use. Particularly fragile items may be restricted for preservation purposes.
Requests for permission to publish material from the collection should be directed to the Archives and Special Collections. It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy the holders of all copyrights.
Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
[Identification of item], in Theodore P. Greene (AC 1943) Papers [Box #, folder #], Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library
Gift of Mrs. Theodore P. Greene, 2010.
Processed in March 2010 by Peter Nelson.
Contact Information |
Amherst College Archives and Special
Collections Robert Frost Library PO Box 5000 Amherst, MA 01002-5000 Phone: (413) 542-2299 Fax: (413) 542-2692 Email Reference Form: http://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/askus URL: http://www.amherst.edu/library/archives |
Series 1: WRITINGS,
| 1940-1971 | ||
Undergraduate papers
| ca. 1940-1943 | Box 1: folder 1 | |
Undergraduate history research paper
| [1942?] | Box 1: folder 2 | |
Master's thesis
| 194- | Box 1: folder 3 | |
America's Heroes - typescript draft (1 of 2)
| 1970 | Box 1: folder 4 | |
America's Heroes - typescript draft (2 of 2)
| 1970 | Box 1: folder 5 | |
America's Heroes - reviews, etc.
| 1971 | Box 1: folder 6 | |
Series 2: RESEARCH ON AMHERST COLLEGE HISTORY,
| 1973-1995 | ||
Class of 1943 notes | Box 1: folder 7 | ||
Student experiences in the 1960's
| 1973 (?) | Box 1: folder 8 | |
"Piety and Play in Amherst's History"
| 1979-1992 | Box 1: folder 9 | |
Biographical research on Charles Cole (AC 1927) for article in American National Biography | 1994-1995 | Box 1: folder 10 | |
Writings on Charles Cole (AC 1927)
| 1999 | Box 1: folder 11 | |
Preface to Black Women of Amherst | [1999?] | Box 1: folder 12 | |
Fine Arts 92.1 on the architecture of the campus
| 1996 | Box 1: folder 13 | |
Lord Jeffery Amherst and germ warfare (letter to President Plimpton)
| 1969 | Box 1: folder 14 | |
Series 3: SPEECHES AND TALKS,
| 1943-1998 | ||
American Studies - lecture notes, etc.
| 1980's | Box 1: folder 15 | |
Talks
| 1943-1986 | Box 1: folder 16 | |
Talks
| 1955-1990 | Box 1: folder 17 | |
"The Crisis in the College and the Role of the Churches"; "The Changing Mission of the College and the Community"
| 1969, 1972 | Box 1: folder 18 | |
Chapel talks
| ca. 1957-1970 | Box 1: folder 19 | |
Memorial tributes to others
| 1974-1998 | Box 1: folder 20 | |
Series 4: COMMITTEES,
| 1967-1980 | ||
College Council - Military recruiting on campus
| 1967-1968 | Box 1: folder 21 | |
Advising president re: Cultural diversity, black student orientation, financial aid
| 1980 | Box 1: folder 22 | |
College Council report: "Women Visitors at Amherst"
| 1969(?) | Box 1: folder 23 | |
Coeducation at Amherst - notes, drafts, etc. (see also: Series 5, Correspondence) | Box 1: folder 24 | ||
Final Report of the Amherst Visiting Committee on Coeducation- Copy 1
| 1974 | Box 1: folder 25 | |
Final Report of the Amherst Visiting Committee on Coeducation - Copies 2 and 3
| 1974 | Box 1: folder 26 | |
Series 5: CORRESPONDENCE,
| 1952-2004 | ||
Coeducation - correspondence
| 1974 | Box 1: folder 27 | |
Correspondence
| 1952-2004 | Box 1: folder 28 | |
Series 6: PERSONAL AFFAIRS,
| 1948-2006 | ||
"Jaffrey [New Hampshire] - 200 Years: The Creation of a Pluralistic Community" by Theodore P. Greene (manuscript of a talk given at the Amos Fortune Forum in the Old Meetinghouse of Jaffrey Center on the 200th anniversary of the incorporation of the town)
| [1973] | Box 1: folder 29 | |
First Congregational Church, Amherst, Mass.
| 1960-1961 | Box 1: folder 30 | |
Retirement proposal, other miscellaneous ephemera
| ca. 1948-1984 | Box 1: folder 31 | |
Obituaries
| 2006 | Box 1: folder 32 | |