Hackney, Sheldon 1933–

PERSONAL:

Born December 5, 1933, in Birmingham, AL; son of Cecil Fain (a businessman) and Elizabeth Hackney; married Lucy Durr, June 15, 1957; children: Virginia Foster, Sheldon Fain, Elizabeth Morris. Education: Vanderbilt University, B.A., 1955; Yale University, M.A., 1963, Ph.D., 1966.

ADDRESSES:

Office—University of Pennsylvania, 208 College Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6379. E-mail—shackney@history.upenn.edu.

CAREER:

Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, instructor, 1965-66, assistant professor, 1966-69, associate professor, 1969-72, professor of American history, 1972-75, provost, 1972-75; Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, president, 1975-80; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, president and professor of history, 1981-93, president emeritus, 1993—, Boies Professor of History, 2004—. National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Washington, DC, chairman, 1993-97. Member of board of directors and chairman, Rosenback Museum and Library; member of vestry, Christ Church, Philadelphia. Military service: U.S. Navy, 1956-61; became lieutenant.

MEMBER:

American Philosophical Society, American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, Agricultural History Society, Southern Historical Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association, 1970, and Charles Sydnor Award of the Southern Historical Association, 1970, both for Populism to Progressivism in Alabama.

WRITINGS:

Populism to Progressivism in Alabama, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1969.

(Editor) Populism: The Critical Issues, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1971.

(Compiler with Barton Bernstein and James M. Banner) Understanding the American Experience, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1973.

One America, Indivisible: A National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity, National Endowment for the Humanities (Washington, DC), 1997.

The Politics of Presidential Appointment: A Memoir of the Culture War, NewSouth Books (Montgomery, AL), 2002.

Magnolias without Moonlight: The American South from Regional Confederacy to National Integration, Transaction Publishers (New Brunswick, NJ), 2005.

Contributor to American Historical Review, Journal of Southern History, and American Scholar.

SIDELIGHTS:

University of Pennsylvania president emeritus and history professor Sheldon Hackney has built his career on studying the history of the southern United States since the Civil War. He specializes in American social and utopian movements, with an emphasis on the campaign for civil rights of the mid-twentieth century. He is best known, however, for his role leading the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. "Hackney presided over the NEH at a time when the agency faced frequent crises," wrote Mike Madden in the Daily Pennsylvanian. "Shortly after his arrival in the capital, the new Republican majorities in Congress targeted the NEH and its counterpart, the National Endowment for the Arts, for elimination."

Although the agency suffered severe cuts in funding, Hackney helped ensure its survival in the face of strong pressure, in part by emphasizing its role in communicating the basic principles of American citizenship and culture. "Asked to provide a defense for continuing the endowment," explained Irvin Molotsky in the New York Times, "Mr. Hackney said: ‘the only legitimate argument against continuing it is from someone who believes in minimalist government, that government shouldn't be in culture at all. The endowment does things that no one else would do but need to be done if we are to remember who we are and what the heritage of our nation is.’"

Hackney writes about his tenure as head of the NEH in The Politics of Presidential Appointment: A Memoir of the Culture War. The volume, wrote Todd Gitlin in the Washington Monthly, is "an elegant, persuasive defense of a judicious approach to the culture wars, but it is also an indispensable study of the press, much of which played useful idiot to the crackpot right's crusade against what they took to be campus radicalism." "He is alert to the deeper meaning of the culture wars," Gitlin stated, "which he interprets as the right's attempt to roll back the 1960s cultural insurgencies." "Whatever Helms and The Wall Street Journal thought," the Washington Monthly reviewer concluded, "Hackney was an old-fashioned liberal, objecting to a ‘polarized atmosphere [in which] the public has no chance to understand complex issues.’"

Magnolias without Moonlight: The American South from Regional Confederacy to National Integration is a collection of essays dealing with Hackney's academic specialty. "A region that has been historically slow to conform to the rest of America (from capitalism to cultural pluralism, from public education to a racially egalitarian ethos)," wrote Southern Culture contributor Stephen J. Whitfield, "has also kept itself so intact that a disproportionate impact in shaping U.S. history was guaranteed. The differences persist, Hackney argues—in manners and mayhem, in expressions of piety and in imposing capital punishment, in owning more guns and in earning fewer diplomas." "Hackney's attempt to talk about the South's magnolias without the romanticizing effect of moonlight is laudable," David R. Janssen stated in the Geographical Review. "Perhaps most fascinating, given his training," concluded John Herbert Roper in the Journal of Southern History, "… and his family connections to Alabama liberalism, are his conclusions about racial reformism and economic development. Although his heart is with those who seek racial justice first and then economic development, he concludes that ‘economic change stimulated racial change rather than the other way around.’"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America's Intelligence Wire, December 3, 2002, "U. Pennsylvania: Former U. Penn President Writes Tell-all Book"; April 13, 2003, "U. Pennsylvania: 10 Years Later, U. Penn Free Speech Issues Revisited."

Back Stage, April 16, 1993, "Clinton Chooses NEH Head; NEA Awaits Its Chief," p. 3.

Change, May, 1998, review of One America, Indivisible: A National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity, p. 58.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, April, 2003, M.J. Rozell, review of The Politics of Presidential Appointment: A Memoir of the Culture War, p. 1443.

Chronicle of Higher Education, April 21, 1993, "Clinton Names U. of Pennsylvania Chief to Take over Humanities Endowment," p. 19; July 7, 1993, "Hackney Clears Hurdle in Run for the NEH," p. 26; July 14, 1993, "Hackney Attacked and Praised for Criticizing Literary Theory," p. 21; August 11, 1993, "Hackney Survives Opposition and Is Sworn in as NEH Chief," p. 24; December 1, 1993, "Conservation on NEH Advisory Board Charge Hackney Had Political Motives in Personnel Move," p. 29; March 2, 1994, "New Chairman of Humanities Endowment Curtails Practice of ‘Flagging’ Potentially Controversial Grant Applications," p. 24; March 7, 1997, "Humanities Advocates Seek to Bolster NEH, Which May Soon Have a New Chairman," p. 29; May 2, 1997, "Sheldon Hackney Resigns as Head of the National Endowment for Humanities," p. 34.

Daily Pennsylvanian, April 22, 1997, Mike Madden, "Former President Sheldon Hackney to Return to Penn."

Geographical Review, January, 2007, David R. Jansson, review of Magnolias without Moonlight: The American South from Regional Confederacy to National Integration, p. 137.

Journal of Southern History, February, 2007, John Herbert Roper, review of Magnolias without Moonlight, p. 183.

Library Journal, May 15, 1998, review of One America, Indivisible, p. 49.

Los Angeles Times, November 30, 1997, "Sheldon Hackney; Starting a National ‘Conversation’ on What It Means to Be American," p. 3.

New Orleans Magazine, July, 1993, "Whatever Happened to the Class of '77?," p. 9.

New Republic, August 2, 1993, "Play Penn: Sheldon Hackney's Dismal Record," p. 16.

Newsweek, April 18, 1994, "Sheldon Hackney's Conversation," p. 66.

New Yorker, March 28, 1994, "Sheldon Hackney Joins the Conversation," p. 44.

New York Times, April 22, 1997, Irvin Molotsky, "Chairman to Leave Humanities Endowment."

Southern Cultures, spring, 2007, Stephen J. Whitfield, review of Magnolias without Moonlight.

Time, June 14, 1993, "The Next Lani Guinier?," p. 29; July 26, 1993, "Wine and Cheese Liberal—at Taxpayer's Expense!," p. 18.

U.S. News & World Report, October 13, 1997, "And the Winner Is …," p. 16.

Washington Monthly, January 1, 2003, "Appointment with Destiny," p. 53.

Washington Post, April 22, 1997, "NEH Chairman Resigns; Departure Unrelated to Attacks on Endowments," p. 1.

ONLINE

Muhlenberg College,http://www.muhlenberg.edu/ (January 19, 2008), "Muhlenberg College Announces Honorary Degree Recipients."

University of Pennsylvania Department of History,http://www.history.upenn.edu/ (January 19, 2008), "Boies Professor of US History."