David Herlihy papers (OF.1UF.H3)

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.