1901, July 2
Born, San Antonio, Tex.
1921
A.B., Capital University, Columbus,
Ohio
1922
A.M., Ohio State University
1926
1927
Assistant Professor of English, Southern
Methodist University, Dallas, Tex.
1928
M.A., Harvard University
1929
1930
Instructor in English, New York
University
1930
1938
Assistant and Associate Professor of
English, Duke University
1931
Ph.D., Columbia University
Published
The Periodicals of
American Transcendentalism
1932
1954
Managing Editor,
American
Literature (journal)
1932
Published
Uncollected Lectures
of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Reports on American Life and
Natural Religion (editor)
Visiting lecturer, Columbia
University
1938
Married Celestine Marie Beamer
1938
1961
Professor of English, Duke
University
1944
Published
American Literature in
Nineteenth-Century England
1949
Published
Faint Clews and
Indirections: Manuscripts of Walt Whitman and His
Family (co-editor)
1951
Published
Literature of the
American People (contributor)
1954
1969
Editor-in-chief,
American
Literature (journal)
1955
Published
America's
Literature (co-editor)
1959
Published
Bibliographical Guide
to the Study of the Literature of the
U.S.A.
Served as Chairman, Modern Language
Association, American Literature Group
1961
1971
James B. Duke Professor of American
Literature, Duke University
1962
Guggenheim Fellow
1967
Published
Essays on American
Literature in Honor of Jay B. Hubbell
(editor)
Published
Hunting in the Old
South (editor)
Published
Literature and Theater
of the States and Regions of the U.S.A.: A Historical
Bibliography
1971
Retired from Duke University
1982
Published
Scuppernong, North
Carolina's Grape and Its Wines
1988
Published
Pioneers in English at
Trinity and Duke
1997
Died, Durham, N.C.
Clarence Louis Frank Gohdes began his post-undergraduate studies at Harvard, where he turned his attention from Latin to American literature under the tutelage of Bliss Perry, J. L. Lowes, G. L. Kittredge, and Kenneth B. Murdock. At Columbia, Gohdes wrote his dissertation under Ralph L. Rusk.
Gohdes earned his scholarly reputation through his work in American literature. He published two texts, one on Ralph Waldo Emerson and the other on Walt Whitman, that contributed to American literary scholarship through his original research and archival work. Gohdes also influenced the formation of American literary studies through his long-standing position as Managing Editor (under Jay B. Hubbell, founding editor) and then Editor-in-Chief of American Literature, the discipline's foundational academic journal. Similarly, Gohdes's A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of the Literature of the U.S.A., which went through five editions, played a key role in documenting and making accessible American literary criticism. Gohdes's career achievements attest to his role in extending the work of scholars of American literature.
From the guide to the Clarence Louis Frank Gohdes Papers, and undated, bulk, 1811-1990s, 1905-1981, (David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University)