E. Digby Baltzell
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E. Digby Baltzell (born Edward Digby Baltzell Jr.) (14 November 1915–17 August 1996) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1915 to a wealthy, Episcopalian family. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. Before entering the Ivy League however, "Digby" attended St. Paul's School, an Episcopalian boarding school in New Hampshire [1]. After World War II service as a naval aviator he earned his doctorate degree from Columbia University. He later became the eminent Penn sociologist credited with the serendipitous invention of the acronym WASP, which stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. His term changed perceptions of American society and even American history bringing forth new insight into the workings of the ruling elite of America.
Those who knew Digby describe him as a dapper figure in tweed jackets and bow ties, popular in a slightly aloof way, but always courteous and accessible[2]. Far more important to him than his personal preference for English clothes and for the ethos and manners of the gentleman was his conviction that aristocracy was necessary for the provision of leadership, both nationally and internationally.
After serving on the faculty of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania from 1947 to 1986, he retired in 1986. Until his death in 1996 E. Digby Baltzell was Emeritus Professor of History and Sociology. Some of his authored books include Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class in 1958, American Business Aristocracy in 1962, The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America in 1964, Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia: Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership in 1979, The Protestant Establishment Revisited in 1991, Judgment and Sensibility: Religion and Stratification in 1994, and Sporting Gentlemen: Men's Tennis from the Age of Honor to the Cult of the Superstar in 1995.
E. Digby Baltzell accomplishments include being appointed to the Danforth Fellow at the Society for Religion in Higher Education of the Princeton Theology Seminary from 1967 to 1968, Charles Warren Research Fellow at Harvard University from 1972 to 1973, and Guggenheim Fellow from 1978 to 1979. He is member of the American Sociology Association, the American Studies Association, and the Pennsylvania Historical Society. Although raised in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, he had houses on Delancey Place in Philadelphia and in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
On August 17, 1996 while vacationing at his summer home "Digby" was stricken with chest pains and hospitalized at Hyannis, then moved to Boston, where he passed away at Brigham and Women's Hospital at the age of 80. Dr. E. Digby Baltzell, whose first wife, the artist Jane Piper, died in 1991, was survived at the time of his death by two daughters, Eve and Jan Baltzell and by his second wife, Jocelyn Carlson Baltzell and two step-daughters Justina Carlton and Julie Carlson Groves. At the time, he was also survived by a brother, Dr. William Hewson Baltzell IV, and a niece and two nephews.
He once dedicated one of his books to "all my undergraduate friends at the University of Pennsylvania, many of them grandsons of immigrants to the urban frontier, who, in spite of their possessing too many Jaguars and mink-coated mothers, have constantly been renewed by faith in the American Dream of unlimited opportunity".
[edit] See also
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[edit] Published Books
- Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class (1958)
- American Business Aristocracy (1962)
- The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America (1964)
- Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia: Two Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Class Authority and Leadership (1979)
- The Protestant Establishment Revisited (1991)
- Judgment and Sensibility: Religion and Stratification (1994)
- Sporting Gentlemen: Men's Tennis from the Age of Honor to the Cult of the Superstar (1995)
