Ex-president of Yale is a leading scholar of American West

Howard Lamar, Ph.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus of History
and former president of Yale University. (Yale Art Gallery)

One of the leading scholars of the American West is an icon at a school that is a citadel of the East: Yale University. Former Yale President Howard R. Lamar is known for many traits: generosity, dedication to service, wisdom and a relentless spirit of inquiry. Yet his most lasting gift is to have developed a breadth and depth of shared knowledge of the American West, writes Andra Thompson Peed of Yale News.

Lamar grew up in Alabama, attended Emory University in Atlanta, and at Yale "intended to study the history of the American South or diplomatic history" under renowned historians," Peed writes. "But it was another great of the era, Ralph Henry Gabriel who pushed him toward his life’s work. As Lamar told it, Gabriel advised him, 'Raised in the South, educated in the East, go West, young man!'”

He did: "Lamar identified a subject for his dissertation: a nuanced examination of territorial political forces. That study, which became his first book, Dakota Territory, 1861-1889, marked an advance of historical inquiry into the American West," Peed writes. "Jay Gitlin, a professor of history at Yale, has written, Lamar 'brought a new sense of realism to a field of Western history'."

Lamar's view of the West was original, he "looked critically at the role of capitalism and labor systems in the West, and at the complex interplay of — and conflict among — the region’s people and cultures," Peed shares. "His work was a forerunner of what became known as 'new Western history,' a movement that casts a critical eye on the role of class, race, and the environment in the development of the West."

As a teacher, Lamar was "equally revolutionary, establishing Western history as a popular strand of scholarship on the Yale campus. His two-semester survey course, called 'The History of the American West,' was initially reserved for history majors who’d taken enough 'regular' courses. Over time, however, it became what one former student described as 'a tour de force … students flocked to it.'"

As a leader at Yale he was exceptional, but his focus remained on the West, Peed writes: "In 1998, he published The New Reader’s Encyclopedia of the American West, an updated and expanded version of the encyclopedia he’d produced two decades earlier, which offers more than 2,400 entries on significant aspects of the region and its history, along with hundreds of photographs and illustrations."

Lamar's uncommon spirit is an extension of his outlook on life. George Miles, a history curator at Yale, told Peed: “His entire outlook is that people are a gift to him. He’s fascinated by people, he is intrigued by them, and he sees in people the opportunity to learn more and expand his understanding of the world.”