Dumas Malone (1892 - 1986)

Born 10 Jan 1892 in Coldwater, Tate, Mississippi, United States

Died 27 Dec 1986 at age 94 in Charlottesville, Charlottesville City, Virginia, United States

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Biography

Dumas Malone was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson and His Time, for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history. In 1983 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.^[1]

The future biographer was born Jan. 10, 1892, in Coldwater, Miss., the son of John W. and Lillian Kemp Malone. In 1910, he graduated from Emory University in Atlanta where he was a brother in the Sigma Nu fraternity^[2]; and went on to study and teach at Yale University, where, after an interruption for Marine Corps service in World War I, he was awarded a doctorate in 1923.

In that year he became an associate professor of history at the University of Virginia, rising to full professor in 1926.

Dr. Malone went on to serve as an editor of The Dictionary of American Biography from 1929 to 1931 and as its editor-in-chief from then until 1936, when he began six years as editor-in-chief of the Harvard University Press.

After returning to Charlottesville and beginning work on the Jefferson biography - making use of Jefferson's handwritten and printed writings and a wide range of other historical materials - Dr. Malone was a professor of history at Columbia University from 1945 to 1959.

Then he returned to Virginia as Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History, retiring to the biographer-in-residence post in 1962.

Dr. Malone wrote, co-authored or was editor of several other books and articles. He was awarded numerous honorary degrees and prizes, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983.

After his death, he was interred at the University of Virginia Cemetery & Columbarium.^[3]

Dr. Malone, who spent many summers in West Falmouth, Mass., is survived by his wife, the former Elisabeth Gifford, whom he married in 1925; a son, Gifford Dumas Malone of McLean, Va.; a daughter, Pamela Malone of Charlottesville, and a granddaughter.^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ Wikipedia entry for Dumas Malone
2. ↑ Notable Sigma Nu Members: Dumas Malone, Xi (Emory University)
3. ↑ Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/22290780), memorial page for Dr Dumas Malone (10 Jan 1892–27 Dec 1986), Find A Grave Memorial no. 22290780, citing University of Virginia Cemetery and Columbarium, Charlottesville, Charlottesville City, Virginia, USA
4. ↑ New York Times, 28 December 1986