Collection Guide
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Guide to the George Harmon Knoles Papers
SC0328
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Table of contents
Call Number: SC0328
Creator:
Knoles, George Harmon
Title: George Harmon Knoles papers
Dates: 1920-1994
Physical Description:
15 Linear feet
Summary: Professional and personal papers of Stanford University professor of American history.
Language(s): The materials are in English.
Repository:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6064
Email: specialcollections@stanford.edu
Phone: (650) 725-1022
URL: http://library.stanford.edu/spc
Gift of George H. Knoles, 1986, 1993, 1998, 2002.
Letters of recommendation from accessions 1985-097 and 1986-022 are restricted; contact the University Archivist for more
information. Otherwise the collection is open for research. Materials must be requested at least 24 hours in advance of intended
use.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
George Harmon Knoles Papers (SC0328). Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries,
Stanford, Calif.
George Knoles was a distinguished professor of History at Stanford University. Dr. Knoles received two degrees from (then)
College of the Pacific, an A.B. in 1928 and an M.A. in 1930. He joined Stanford as an instructor in history in 1937 and received
his Ph.D. in history from Stanford in 1939. During World War II he was a Lieutenant in the Navy serving with the Pacific Fleet
and in preparing Naval history after the War. In 1946 he rejoined Stanford rising to become Chairman of the History Department
and the Margaret Bryrne Professor of American History before his retirement in 1972. Professor Knoles' field was American
history. He has written extensively on American political, intellectual and cultural history, His major publications include
The Presidential Campaign and Election of 1892, The Jazz Age Revisited, and The New United States: A History Since 1896. With
fellow Professor Rixford Snyder he co-wrote Readings in Western Civilization, which was widely used in American universities
in the study of western civilization. During 1950-52 and 1956, Professor Knoles went to Japan with a small group of Stanford
professors to teach American history. In the years following he maintained many personal and professional relationships with
Japanese scholars. He was a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Japan in 1971. He was a popular teacher and established strong
relationships with his students. These relationships with students continued after they left Stanford. Two of the many ways
he served the University was as a speaker at alumni functions and as a field judge for Stanford Track Meets.
Scope and Content of Collection
Collection contains correspondence, memoranda, minutes, lecture notes, syllabi, manuscripts, photographs, and other papers
pertaining to Knoles' academic career at Stanford, Stanford's overseas campuses, particularly those in Japan, the Institute
of American History, his publications, and his work with the Associates of the Stanford University Libraries. There is extensive
correspondence with other historians and students. Correspondents include Harold W. Bradley, Rixford K. Snyder, Thomas A.
Bailey, John Foster Dulles, Frank Friedel, John F. Kennedy, Michio Murayama, Allan Nevins, E. E. Robinson, Arnold Toynbee,
Gordon Wright, William and Eleanor Bark, John Gange, J. E. W. Sterling, and Max Savelle. Also included are several files on
student unrest at Stanford in the 1970s and an audiotape of John Dewey speaking on philosophy at Cooper Union, New York, December
7, 1941. The personal papers within the collection include extensive correspondence, 1920s-1994, his Naval logs and records,
1942-45, and his World War II letters, 1944-46.
Bradley, Harold Whitman.
Dewey, John, 1859-1952.
Gange, John.
Robinson, Edgar Eugene, 1887-1977
Savelle, Max, 1896-
Snyder, Rixford K., (Rixford Kinney), 1908-
Stanford University. Department of History.
Stanford University. Institute of American History
Stanford University. Libraries. Associates
Phonotapes.
Photoprints.
Stanford-Tokyo University Seminars.
United States--History--Study and teaching.