David Herlihy papers, 1951-2000

(bulk 1954-1990)

John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Published in 2024

Collection Overview

Title:	David Herlihy papers
Date range:	1951-2000, (1954-1990)
Creator:	Herlihy, David
Extent:	8 Linear Feet 8 cubic ft. (8 records center boxes)
Abstract:	These papers represent the intellectual and professional corpus of medieval historian, and Brown University professor, David Herlihy. Herlihy is considered a pioneer in the use of computers to analyze historical data to extrapolate socioeconomic trends and their impact on life during the middle ages. The collection includes Herlihy's research notebooks, notes, computer code books, pre-published and un-published drafts of articles and monographs, his Ph.D. dissertation, reviews of his publications, lecture notes and teaching materials, professional correspondence, papers documenting professional activities, speeches and addresses, photographs, and miscellaneous personal ephemera and papers.
Language of materials:	English
Repository:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts
Collection number:	OF.1UF.H3

Scope & content

The collection represents the intellectual and professional corpus of medieval historian, demography expert, and Brown University professor, David Herlihy. Herlihy is considered a pioneer in the use of computers to analyze historical data to extrapolate socioeconomic trends and what they reveal about life during the middle ages. He capitalized on a "treasure trove" of largely untouched medieval town records in Italy and on the advancement of computing in the 1950s. According to the Computer History Museum, in 1951 the UNIVAC I computer was delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau and was the first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention. Herlihy is acknowledged as the first historian to apply the same computing power to historical census, property, and tax records. The collection includes research notebooks, notes, computer code books, documentation of historical data analysis from 1951-1990, pre-published and un-published drafts of articles and monographs, Herlihy's Ph.D. dissertation, reviews of his publications, lecture notes and teaching materials, professional correspondence, papers documenting professional activities, speeches and addresses, photographs, misc. personal ephemera and papers.

The bulk of the collection (5 boxes) includes Herlihy's scholarly research, writings, and publications from the beginning of his career (ca. 1951) until after his death. Included in the collection are his 1955 Ph.D. dissertation, "Pisa, Economy, and Society, 1250-1300" (which was published in 1958 as "Pisa in the Early Renaissance; a Study of Urban Growth"), as well as 130 notebooks, most of which are Herlihy's transcriptions of Italian "catasti" (property records). Herlihy's transcriptions were then entered into computers, and analyzed using programs that Herlihy wrote himself, initially in the FORTRAN programming language. Also included in the collection are Herlihy's teaching files (2 boxes) including course materials, and lecture notes (including those that he and his wife, Dr. Patricia Herlihy, shared); his professional correspondence spanning teaching posts at Bryn Mawr College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University, and Brown University; as well as correspondence between his wife and Herlihy's publisher following Herlihy's death.

Access Points

Subject Names

• Herlihy, Patricia
• Herlihy, David
• Litchfield, R. Burr, 1936-
• Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane
• Molho, Anthony
• Litchfield, R. Burr

Subject Organizations

• Brown University--Faculty

Subject Topics

• Civilization, Medieval
• Diseases and history
• Middle Ages -- Historiography
• Plague -- History
• Social history -- Medieval, 500-1500
• Women -- Italy -- History -- To 1500

Geographical Names

• Florence (Italy) -- History -- 1421-1737
• Italy -- Economic conditions
• Italy -- Social conditions -- 1268-1559
• Italy -- Social life and customs -- To 1500

Occupations

• Urban historians
• Professors
• Historians
• Demographers

Document Types

• Drafts (Documents)
• Manuscripts (documents)
• Syllabi
• Research notes
• Letters (Correspondence)
• Lecture notes
• Fliers (printed matter)
• Bibliographies
• Clippings

Arrangement

This collection is organized into the following series and sub-series:

• Series 1. Scholarship
• Sub-series 1.A. Overview
• Sub-series 1.B. Herlihy's data
• Sub-series 1.C. Publications
• Sub-series 1.D. Pre-published or un-published drafts of research articles
• Sub-series 1.E. Research
• Series 2. Teaching
• Sub-series 2.A. Course Materials
• Sub-series 2.B. Students
• Sub-series 2.C. Syllabi and lecture notes
• Sub-series 2.D. Miscellaneous
• Series 3. Professional Activities and Correspondence
• Sub-series 3.A. Correspondence
• Sub-series 3.B. Other
• Series 4. Personal

Biographical note

David Joseph Herlihy (1930-1991), was educated at a Jesuit high school and college in San Francisco, California. He soon married his high school debate opponent who also became a historian. Herlihy's earliest known scholarly work examined the activism of a nineteenth-century San Francisco priest that stood up against local anti-Catholic bigotry. Herlihy's work then turned toward the papacy and the role of the church in the socioeconomic culture of medieval Italy. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of San Francisco in 1952, went on to Catholic University obtaining his Master of Arts in 1953, followed by Yale University where he was mentored by Robert Sabatino Lopez. Lopez influenced Herlihy to turn his talents to the "treasure trove" of unanalyzed data residing in early town records in Italy. His Ph.D. dissertation in 1955 examined and analyzed, with the use of early computers, large volumes of data drawn from medieval "Catasti" (property and tax surveys).

He served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College as assistant and then associate professor between 1955 and 1964; University of Wisconsin-Madison, as professor and then the William F. Allen Professor between 1964 and 1972; École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris from 1969-1970 as directeur d'études assicié at Harvard University, as professor and then the Henry Charles Lea professor between 1972 and 1986; and at Brown University from 1986-1991 where he served first as professor and then as the Barnaby Conrad and Mary Critchfield Keeney Professor. Herlihy's sense of social justice and egalitarianism are evidenced in this collection in his choice of research topics which often focused on women and children (for the first time in his field of medieval studies), his collaboration with peers, his mentorship of students, his advocacy for his wife's professional career, and his voice in social and political forums. He and his wife, Patricia, raised six children and both concluded their teaching careers at Brown University. David Herlihy died on February 21, 1991 of pancreatic cancer.

Access & Use

Access to the collection:	There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Use of the materials:	Researchers are advised that express written permission to reproduce, quote, or otherwise publish any portion or extract from this collection must be obtained from the Brown University Library. Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Preferred citation:	David Herlihy papers, OF-1UF-H3, Brown University Archives.
Contact information:	John Hay Library, University Archives and Manuscripts Box A Brown University Providence, RI 02912 Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148 Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Acquisition:	Donated by Dr. Patricia Herlihy, Brown University Professor Emerita of History, and wife of Dr. David Herlihy, December 2005.
Accruals:	There are no future additions expected for this collection.
Processing information:	The collection was processed and described in 2006 by Megan Hurst, student at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Library and Information Studies.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Author:	Megan Hurst
Encoding:	This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-11-07.

Additional Information

Related material:

Related Archival Materials note RESOURCES AT BROWNFlorentine Renaissance Resources: Online Catasto of 1427Edited by David Herlihy, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, R. Burr Litchfield and Anthony Molho. The Online Catasto is a World Wide Web searchable database of tax information for the city of Florence in 1427-29 (c. 10,000 records). It is based on David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Principal Investigators, Census and Property Survey of Florentine Dominions in the Province of Tuscany, 1427-1480.Florentine Renaissance Resources: Online Tratte of Office Holders 1282-1532Edited by David Herlihy, R. Burr Litchfield, Anthony Molho, and Roberto Barducci. This site gives access to a database (c. 165,000 records) with information about office holders of the Florentine Republic during its 250-year history. The data base was developed initially by Professor David Herlihy at Harvard and Brown Universities, and then completed under the direction of Professors R. Burr Litchfield and Anthony Molho at Brown with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Preservation and Access, and the Brown University Center for Computing and Information Services and Scholarly Technology Group. An edition of the Tre Maggiori, Guild elections and Birth registrations is now available.RESOURCES AT OTHER INSTITUTIONSCatasto Study: Census and Property Survey for Florentine Domains and the City of Verona in Fifteenth Century ItalyDavid Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Principal Investigators. Data and Program Library Service On-line Data Archive, University of Wisconsin. This site provides access to the raw data and documentation files for the Census and Property Survey for Florentine Domains and the City of Verona in Fifteenth Century Italy, also known as the Catasto study.

Separated material:

Separated Materials note A number of scholarly journals and scholarly journal article reprints were separated from the collection, when holdings for the same issues could be found in the Brown University Rockefeller Library. For journals and articles that were removed, they were replaced by photocopies of the first page or table of contents of the journal or article attached to printouts for the JOSIAH union catalog entry for that journal.

Inventory

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