Paull Franklin Baum was born in Dover, Delaware on May 13, 1886. He was educated at Hamilton College and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1915. He also studied at the Universities of Munich, Vienna, Lausanne, and the Sorbonne. Professor Baum taught at Harvard until coming to Duke University in 1922.
As one of the original members of the Council on Graduate Studies, he took an active part in establishing Duke's Graduate School. As Chairman of the Library Council, he helped to shape the policies of acquisition which have made the University's library one of the largest and most important collections of research materials in the Southeast. As Editorial Director of the Duke Press from 1926-1928, he aided in making plans governing this agency for the publication of scholarly books and periodicals. His distinction as a scholar and his contributions to the University were officially honored in 1953 when Dr. Baum was selected as one the original group of Duke faculty members to be designated a James B. Duke Professor, the highest academic rank at the institution.
He was an honored member of the Medieval Academy of America, the Modern Language Association, the Modern Humanities Research Association, the Authors' Club of London, and the Cosmos Club of Washington, DC. He was an internationally famed scholar in the field of medieval and Victorian studies and was considered an authority in the principles of English versification and the works of Chaucer, Rossetti, Tennyson and Matthew Arnold. Dr. Baum authored numerous books, including a translation of the Anglo-Saxon riddles of the Exeter book, Tennyson Sixty Years After, and Ten Studies in the Poetry of Matthew Arnold . Professor Baum died in Durham, NC on July 15, 1964.
From the guide to the Paull Franklin Baum Papers, 1928-1989, (University Archives, Duke University)
