Avery Odelle Craven: His Life and Simpson Connections
1885
Born August 12, 1885 near Ackworth, Iowa
*1908
Graduate with B.A., Simpson College
*1908-10
Instructor at Simpson College - Director of the School of Art
1910-12
Instructor at North High School, Des Moines
1912-13
Attended Harvard University
1914
M.A. from Harvard / Married Grace Greenwood on October 2
1914-20
Instructor at north Division High School, Milwaukee
1917
Daughter Jean born
1920-22
Taught at the College of Emporia, New York
1923
Ph.D. from University of Chicago
1923-24
Taught at Michigan State University
1924-27
Taught at University of Illinois
1926
Published Soil Exhaustion
1927
Began teaching at University of Chicago
1930
President of the Agricultural History Society
1932
Published Edmund Ruffin
1933
Published To Markie
1935
Published Essays in Honor of William E. Dodd and wrote introduction to Turner's The United States 1830-1850
*1936
Honorary Doctor of Laws - Simpson College / Wife dies while she was on a study tour of Europe
1938
Married Georgia Watson on September 26
1939
Published Repressible Conflict
1941
Published Democracy in American Life
1942
Published Coming of the Civil War
*1945
Honorary Doctor of Literature - Simpson College
1947
Published U.S. Experiment in Democracy / Distinguished Foreign Professorship - University of Sidney
1951
Published A Documentary History of the American People
1952
President of Southern Historical Society / Honorary Degrees from Tulane University and Cambridge University / Retired at University of Chicago - Professor Emeritus
1952-53
Pitt Professorship at Cambridge University
1953
Published Growth of Southern Nationalism
1953-54
Lectureship at the American Seminar at Salzburg, Austria
1957
Honorary Degree from Wayne State University / Published revised edition of Coming of the Civil War
*1958
Appointed to the Civil War Centennial Commission by President Kennedy / Received Simpson Alumni Achievement Award June 1, 1958 / Lecturer at the 5th Annual Christian Liberal Arts Festival Oct. 12, 1958
1959
Appointed to the Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission / Published The Civil War in the Making
1961
Honorary Degree from University of South Carolina / Published American History
1963-64
President of Mississippi Valley Historical Society
1963
Honorary Degree from Western Michigan University
1964
Published Historian and the Civil War
*1967
Lecturer at the American Studies Commission in Japan / Convocation speaker for Simpson College (at First Methodist Church)
1969
Published Reconstruction / Honorary Degree from Purdue University
1973
Honorary Degree from the College of Emporia
1975
Published Rachel of Old Louisiana
1980
Died January 21, 1980 in Chesterton, Indiana at the age of 93 - buried in Ackworth, Iowa
*1981
His entire library and manuscript collection was given to Dunn Library, Simpson College - Dedicated September 21, 1983
* his Simpson connections
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