Background

Thomas was born in 1854, in a log cabin at Lapeer, Michigan, the son of Stephen Van Rensselaer Thomas and Caroline Louisa (Lord) Thomas, who had not long before emigrated from the state of New York. Stephen Thomas was a sturdy and enterprising young farmer who fought under Burnside and Stoneman in the Civil War, and won a captaincy in the 10th Michigan Cavalry. Later he became a lawyer and attained some prominence in politics. The bracing life of early farming days offered the son a wholesome opportunity for all-round development. At eleven years he had not only become something of a naturalist and hunter, but had won great renown as a young spelling prodigy.

Education

Ready for college at fourteen, two years before he could be admitted, he entered the University of Michigan in 1870 as the youngest of his class, specializing in Latin and Greek, and graduating in 1874 as valedictorian. After three years of teaching at the high school in Grand Rapids, he went in 1877 to Leipzig for further study of the classics.

Career

He was called back to his university to teach Greek; but, owing to certain exigencies, he was almost at once given full-time work in German and was made professor in 1886. From this point on, his career as teacher and scholar was one of steady progress.

During the next ten or fifteen years he contributed upward of one hundred articles and reviews to various journals, especially to the Nation. But he soon began to concentrate on the subject of Goethe. In 1888 he published Goethe's Torquato Tasso and within the next ten years made a notable contribution to scholarship in his brilliantly edited Goethe's Faust (2 vols. , 1892 - 97), one of the greatest literary commentaries in the English language. His other publications include his widely used A Practical German Grammar (1896), The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller (1901), An Anthology of German Literature (1907), and A History of German Literature (1909). Finally came the work upon which he bestowed some of his most loving care and labor, his Goethe (1917).

A complete enumeration of his edited texts, reviews, and addresses would make a list many times as long. Thirteen of his papers were published by his colleagues in 1924 under the title Scholarship, and Other Essays. As consulting editor (1909) of the New Standard Dictionary, he wrote each of the twenty-six articles on the history of the letters of the alphabet and their phonetic values. For a time he was an enthusiastic spelling reformer and a member of the Simplified Spelling Board.

In 1896 he was called to Columbia University as Gebhard Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, where the wide range of his scholarship, his tolerance and wisdom, no less than the warm glow of his sympathy and sense of humor, endeared him to his students and colleagues alike.

Achievements

• He is famous as an American scholar who served as professor of Germanic languages and literature at Columbia University.

Works

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More photos

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  • A history of German literature. By Calvin Thomas (linguist)

    (Calvin Thomas (October 28, 1854, near Lapeer, Michigan – ...)

  • Report of the Committee of Twelve of Mordern Language Association of America

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Goethe and the Conduct of Life: 1886

    (Originally published in 1886. This volume from the Cornel...)

  • A practical German grammar
  • An anthology of German literature (German Edition)
  • The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller

Membership

He also one of the founders of the Modern Language Association of America and its president for 1896-97.

Connections

He was married first, on March 25, 1880, to Mary J. Sutton of Lapeer, who died in the same year, and again, on June 16, 1884, to Mary Eleanor Allen of Grand Rapids, by whom he had two sons.

Father:

Stephen Van Rensselaer Thomas

Mother:

Caroline Louisa (Lord) Thomas

Second wife:

Mary Eleanor Allen

First wife:

Mary J. Sutton of Lapeer