The C. Grant Loomis papers consist of professional and personal correspondance, articles written and published by Loomis on folklore, medieval saint's legends and German poetry and culture. Also included are notes on folklore, transcripts and translations of German poetry and prose, and miscellaneous notes and clippings that Loomis' publications are based on.

C. Grant Loomis, professor and former chairman of the Department of German, Berkeley, was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, on January 21, 1901, took his A.B. at Hamilton College in 1923, and then taught in high schools for a few years in the vicinity of New York City. An important turning point in his life was the two years, 1926-28, which he spent at the University of Munich. Here he came under the influence of the late Max Foerster, distinguished Old English philologist, and this seems to have been the experience which determined him to embark on an academic career. Upon his return to this country he went to Harvard to pursue graduate studies in English, taking the M.A. in 1929 and the Ph.D. in 1933, with a dissertation on Old English saints' lives written under the direction of George Lyman Kittredge. He commenced his teaching in the German field concurrently with his graduate work, becoming instructor in German at Tufts College in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1930, where he remained until 1937. He then returned to Harvard as an instructor in the Department of German and as a tutor in the Division of Modern Languages. In 1941 he was called to an assistant professorship in the Department of German, Berkeley. He was promoted to associate professor in 1947 and professor in 1953, acting as chairman of his department from 1957 to 1962. He held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1945-46. He died suddenly on March 22, 1963. His career was noteworthy for service to the profession. He spent the year 1952-53 as Associate Secretary of the Modern Language Association in New York, taking an active part in the organizing of a newly founded program for the teaching of the modern foreign languages. He served on the council of the Association from 1951 to 1955 and had been elected its vice-president for 1963. He was a member of the Medieval Academy, the American Folklore Society, and the California Folklore Society, and held official positions in all of them. He gave much energy and thought to his editorship of Western Folklore in the years after 1949. He was the president of the Philological Association of the Pacific Coast for 1958.

8 cartons, 1 box 10.4 linear feet

Collection is open for research.