Carpenter, Frederic Ives, 1861-1925

Epithet: Professor of English at Chicago

Professor of English. A.B., Harvard University, 1885. Ph. D., University of Chicago, 1895. Docent, University of Chicago, 1895-1897; instructor, 1897-1902; assistant professor, 1902-1904; associate professor, 1904-1910; professor, 1911.

Professor of English. A.B., Harvard University, 1885. Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1895. Docent, University of Chicago, 1895-1897; instructor, 1897-1902; assistant professor, 1902-1904; associate professor, 1904-1910; professor, 1911.

F. I. Carpenter was born in Monroe, Wisconsin on November 29, 1861. After completing Chicago High School, he attended Harvard College from which he was graduated in 1885. While at Harvard he displayed an interest in literature, music and art, and was managing editor of the Herald, later known as the Harvard Crimson.

In 1885-1886 he was a student in France and Germany, and in 1886-1887 attended the Union College of Law, Chicago. He then entered into his father's business, a large lumbering firm in northern Michigan. Carpenter's interest in research and the study of literature, however, steadily became more dominant, and in 1892 he left the firm to become one of the first graduate students in English Literature at the University of Chicago. After receiving his doctorate in 1895, he remained at the University as a teacher and stayed until his retirement in 1911.

Carpenter, both as a graduate student and as a professor, was keenly interested in the problems of research in literature. He was aware of the inadequacies and the inaccuracies of the available bibliographies and reference books, and worked to correct the situation. Other contributions to scholarship which Carpenter made were his work in the establishment of Modern Philology and his long service as library adviser to the University of Chicago and trustee to the Newberry Library.

In 1911 Carpenter retired to manage the large estate that his father had left him. His interest in scholarship, though, never waned, and he continued to serve as a trustee for the Newberry Library; to purchase books for the English Department at the University of Chicago; to serve as secretary of the Modern Language Association's Committee on the Reproduction of Books and Manuscripts; and in 1923 to publish his Reference Guide to Edmund Spenser. He died January 28, 1925