Holdings Liberal Arts and Sciences Classics Department William A. Oldfather Papers Finding Aid Holdings Liberal Arts and Sciences Classics Department William A. Oldfather Papers Finding Aid Title: William A. Oldfather Papers, 1904-45, 1972, 1992
ID: 15/6/20
Primary Creator: Oldfather, William Abbott (1880-1945)
Extent: 12.6 cubic feet
Arrangement:
Alphabetically by subject and chronologically thereunder.
Accession through the Classics Library, summer 2024:
This accession contains a draft edited manuscript “Part 2: The Text Tradition of Avianus” (pages 370-1716), which Oldfather’s students and colleagues, including Benjamin E. Perry and Edith Jones, attempted to complete after his death.
Also included are Oldfather’s draft correspondence from April 1945, a draft of his petition as chairman to increase the funding of the Classics Department for 1945-1955, and multiple materials related to his Avianus manuscript, including source lists, and correspondence between colleagues Kenneth M. Abbott and Grundy Steiner (who was supposed to take over editorship for Avianus) about the Avianus draft which also names some of the authors of its various chapters.
Subjects: Academic Freedom, American Philological Association, Committee of Nine, University (Educational Organiz and Adminis), Constitution Study Club, Cooperatives, Curriculum, Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, American Committee for, Faculty, Faculty Papers, Greek and Latin Lexicography, Hiking Club, Language and Literature Studies, Travel, University of Munich, World War II - Intelligence, Morale and Propaganda
Formats/Genres: Papers
Languages: English
Papers of William Abbott Oldfather (1880-1945), professor of classics (1909-1945), including correspondence, memoranda, reports, studies, notes, reviews, manuscripts and related material concerning classical writings, publications, students, job placement, travels and teaching abroad, hikes and canoe trips, oversight of the campus coop restaurant following financial collapse (1936-37), affairs of national and local professional and political organizations, university administration and research. Substantial portions of the papers relate to Oldfather's work as a general editor of the Illinois Studies in Language and Literature (1914-45), American Philological Association (1936-44), American Committee for Democracy & Intellectual Freedom (1941-42), University Committee of Nine Library Committee (1930-35), Munich notes (1904-07), faculty salary study (1944-45) and Oldfather's publications. Most of the correspondence is for the 1936-45 period. Papers also include Avianus correspondence (see second accession for the Avianus draft manuscript, part 2), and An Appreciation of the Region From the Hiker's Point of View featuring recollections of Oldfather's experiences hiking in East Central Illinois, as well as manuscripts, and drafts of translations by Oldfather and his students Robert Jones and Edith Jones (1910-1946). This series contains publications.
The 2nd accession was added summer 2024 and those materials are listed at the end of the finding aid.
William Abbott Oldfather (1880-1945) was associate professor (1909-15); professor of classics (1915-45); head of the Department of Classics (1926-45); and chairman of the Division of Languages and Literature (1935-42) at the University of Illinois (UI). He was an influential leader in early American classical scholarship working in the German tradition of Altertumswissenschaft (science of antiquity).
Oldfather was born on October 23, 1880, in Urumiah, Persia, to American missionary parents Felicia Narcissa Rice and Jeremiah M. Oldfather. The family returned to the United States in 1890, living in Harmony, Indiana, where Oldfather earned a bachelor's degree from Hanover College in 1899. He then matriculated at Harvard University, earning a second bachelor's degree (1901) and a master's degree (1902). From 1903 to 1906, Oldfather worked as an instructor of classics at Northwestern University. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Munich, Germany, in 1908. His dissertation titled Lokrika, marked the beginning of his career-long interest in the culture, history, and topography of Locris, a region of ancient Greece.
At the UI, Oldfather assembled the Classics Library Collection; was chief editor of the monograph series Illinois Studies in Language and Literature (1915-45); and served as curator (1931-45) of the Classical Museum. His studies of the ancient world were marked by rigorous textual studies and bibliography as well as his collaborative, multidisciplinary approach that emphasized historic, economic, and cultural analysis with applications to modern life. He influenced a generation of classicists such as Richmond Lattimore, who were known as the "Oldfather school" (Armstrong 249).
Over the course of his career, Oldfather contributed some 500 articles to the authoritative German series Real-Encyklopadie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, including "Lokris." Oldfather's embrace of the German tradition was epitomized by works such as "Social Conditions and Theories in the Graeco-Roman World" (1909); his now-lost Sather lecture "The Decline of Culture within the Roman Empire," (1933-34) University of California, Berkeley; and his address to the American Philological Association, "Some Ancient Thoughts on Progress and Decadence" (1938). Additional publications include, Ysopet-Avionnet: The Latin and French Texts (1919), a translation of Discourses on Epictetus (1925), Contributions Toward a Bibliography of Epictetus (1927), Index Apvleianvs (1934), Index verborum Ciceronis Epistularum (with H. V. Canter and K. M. Abbott, 1938), and Studies in the text tradition of St. Jerome's Vitae partum (as editor, 1943).
Oldfather married Margaret Agnes Giboney in 1902, and together they had two daughters. Oldfather was an avid hiker and outdoorsman, who, in 1901, founded the University of Illinois Walking Club that met Saturdays each week. During one of the club's outings on May 27, 1945, he drowned when his canoe capsized, leaving behind as many as eleven unfinished works.
Sources:
Michael Armstrong, "A German Scholar and Socialist in Illinois: The Career of William Abbott Oldfather," The Classical Journal 88, no. 3 (February/March 1993): pp. 235-253, accessed May 15, 2020, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3297497?seq=1.
"Classics, adventure, and a renowned scholar," Illinois LAS, accessed May 15, 2020, https://las.illinois.edu/news/2019-09-06/classics-adventure-and-renowned-scholar.
"Oldfather, William Abbott," Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences, accessed May 15, 2020, https://dbcs.rutgers.edu/all-scholars/8985-oldfather-william-abbott.
Wikipedia, s.v. "William Abbott Oldfather," accessed May 15, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Abbott_Oldfather.
Academic Freedom
American Philological Association
Committee of Nine, University (Educational Organiz and Adminis)
Constitution Study Club
Cooperatives
Curriculum
Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, American Committee for
Faculty
Faculty Papers
Greek and Latin Lexicography
Hiking Club
Language and Literature Studies
Travel
University of Munich
World War II - Intelligence, Morale and Propaganda
URL: https://files.archon.library.illinois.edu/uasfa/1506020.pdf
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