Bemis, Samuel Flagg

views updated

Samuel Flagg Bemis (bē´mĬs), 1891–1973, American historian, b. Worcester, Mass. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1916 and taught history at various schools before becoming Farnum professor of diplomatic history at Yale (1935). In 1945 he was appointed Sterling professor of history and international relations. Considered one of the nation's leading diplomatic historians he twice received the Pulitzer Prize, once for history, Pinckney's Treaty (1926, rev. ed. 1960), and once for biography, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy (1950). His other works include Jay's Treaty (1923, 2d ed. 1962), The Diplomacy of the American Revolution (1935), A Diplomatic History of the United States (1936, 5th ed. 1965), The Latin American Policy of the United States (1943), and John Quincy Adams and the Union (1956). He was the editor of The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy (18 vol., 1963–72).

More From encyclopedia.com