Gabriel, Ralph Henry, 1890-1987

Ralph Henry Gabriel was born in 1890. He taught history at Yale University for forty-three years (1915-1958) and served as chairman of the History Department (1931-1934). Gabriel also taught at the United States School of Military Government (1943-1946) and was active in the American Historical Association. He was the general editor of the Pageant of America series and the Library of Congress Series in American Civilization.

Ralph Henry Gabriel was born in 1890. He taught history at Yale University for forty-three years (1915-1958) and served as chairman of the History Department (1931-1934). Gabriel also taught at the United States School of Military Government (1943-1946) and was active in the American Historical Association. He was the general editor of the series and the Library of Congress Series in American Civilization.

Ralph Henry Gabriel was born on April 29, 1890, in Reading, New York, the son of Cleveland and Alta Monroe Gabriel. He earned a B.A. at Yale University in 1913 and continued his scholarly studies there, receiving an M.A. in 1915 and a Ph.D. in 1919. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry during World War I and was overseas from July-November, 1918.

Starting as an instructor in history at Yale in 1915, he became assistant professor in 1919, associate professor six years later, and professor in 1923. He held a Larned professorship from 1935 to 1948, when he was appointed to a Sterling professorship. He specialized in American intellectual history. Gabriel achieved the rank of a professor emeritus in 1958.

During his Yale tenure Gabriel served as chairman of the history department from 1931 to 1934 and as director of Yale Studies for Returning Service Men from 1944 to 1946. He became a trustee of Yale-in-China in 1922 and a fellow of Trumbull College in 1933. In 1930 he chaired the program committee of the American Historical Association.

Gabriel also taught as a visiting professor at New York University (1933), Stanford University (1934 and 1949), University of Colorado (1941 and 1942), the United States War Department School of Military Government (1943-1946), Sydney University (1946), Cambridge University (1951-1952), University of Wyoming (1954), American University (1958-1964), Tokyo University (1964), and George Washington University (1965).

Gabriel was the general editor of The Pageant of America (15 volumes), published by Yale Press, 1926-1929; in this series he wrote Toilers on Land and Sea (1926) and The Lure of the Frontier (1929) and was the joint author with William Wood of The Winning of Freedom (1927) and In Defense of Liberty (1928). He is also the author of The Evolution of Long Island (Yale Press, 1921); Elias Boudinot, Cherokee, and His America (University of Oklahoma Press, 1941); Course of American Democratic Thought (Ronald Press, 1940, revised 1956); a textbook for junior high school with Mabel Casner (Harcourt, Brace and Co., first published in 1931); Religion and Learning at Yale (Yale University Press, 1958); and American Values, Continuity and Change (Greenwood Press, 1974). Gabriel was also the editor of the Library of Congress Series in American Civilization (Harvard University Press), Christian and Modern Thought (Yale Press, 1924) and A Frontier Lady (Yale Press, 1932). He was a joint editor of Sketches of Eighteenth Century America with Stanley T. Williams and Henri L. Bourdin (1925) and of The American Mind, an Anthology with Stanley T. Williams and Harry R. Warfel (American Book Company, 1937).

Gabriel married Mary Christine Davis in 1917. They had three children: Robert Todd Gabriel, John Cleveland Gabriel, and Susan Gabriel Cunliffe.

Based on International Who's Who, 1982-1983, 46th ed., page 436; Yale Class of 1913 History, 45th year record, 1958, pp. 121-24.