Necrology: Daniel Aaron (1912–2016)

Abstract

Present at the creation of American Studies, Daniel Aaron belongs on the short list of the academy's most learned and admired custodians of the nation's culture, for which President Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal in 2011. That would have been close to seven decades after the inauguration of Aaron's teaching career. A president of the American Studies Association (ASA), he held the rank of Victor S. Thomas Professor of English and American Literature at Harvard, where his service included chairing its Committee on American Civilization. The lengthy span of Aaron's life in the profession, punctuated by many other honors (including the ASA's Bode-Pearson Prize), has few, if any, counterparts in duration and distinction. Such was the arc of his career and concerns that, as this necrology is intended to suggest, the field of American Studies will not see his like again.