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Samuel Eliot Morison
Born: 9-Jul-1887
Birthplace: Boston, MA
Died: 15-May-1976
Location of death: Boston, MA
Cause of death: unspecified

Gender: Male
Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Historian, Military

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Rear Admiral and naval historian

Emily Marshall (Eliot) Morison;

Father: John Holms Morison
Mother: Emily Marshal Eliot Morison
Wife:
Elizabeth S. Greene (a painter), May 28, 1910 (died August, 1945);
Priscilla Barton, December 29, 1949 (died February, 1973);

Daughter: Emily Morison Beck
children: (first marriage)
Elizabeth Gray (Mrs. Edward Spingarn),
Emily Marshall (Mrs. Brooks Beck), (editor of Bartlett's Quotations)
Peter Greene (deceased),
Catharine (Mrs. Julian Cooper).

Education:
Harvard University, B.A., 1908,
Harvard University, Ph.D., 1912;
Ecole des Sciences Politiques, graduate study, 1908-09;
Oxford University, M.A., 1922.


Professor at Harvard University for forty years.

    Legion of Merit
    Emerson Thoreau Medal 1961
    Balzan Prize 1962
    Presidential Medal of Freedom 1964
    Pulitzer Prize for Biography 1943 for Admiral of the Ocean Sea
    Pulitzer Prize for Biography 1960 for John Paul Jones

·American Historical Association (former president),
·American Antiquarian Society (former president),
·Society of Antiquarians (fellow),
·American Philosophical Society (fellow),
·American Academy of Arts and Sciences (fellow),
·American Academy of Arts and Letters,
·Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid; fellow),
·Naval Historical Foundation (former vice-president),
·British Academy (fellow),
·Colonial Society of Massachusetts (former president),
·Massachusetts Historical Society,
·Charitable Irish Society (Boston),
·St. Botolph Club,
·Cruising Club,
·Tavern Club (Boston).

American Historical Association (former president),
American Antiquarian Society (former president),
Society of Antiquarians (fellow),
American Philosophical Society (fellow),
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (fellow),
American Academy of Arts and Letters,
Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid; fellow),
Naval Historical Foundation (former vice-president),
British Academy (fellow),
Colonial Society of Massachusetts (former president),
Massachusetts Historical Society,
Charitable Irish Society (Boston),
St. Botolph Club,
Cruising Club,
Tavern Club (Boston).

Author of books:

Emily Morison Beck
Born: c. 1916
Birthplace: Boston, MA
Died: 28-Mar-2004
Location of death: Canton, MA
Cause of death: Kidney failure

Gender: Female
Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Author

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Editor of Bartlett's Quotations

Modernized the publication, producing the 13th through 15th editions (1955, 1968, 1980), removing "members of the Crappy Poetry Society", the long winded nature poems typical of early 20th century editions of Bartlett's.

Father: Samuel Eliot Morison (USN Rear Admiral and historian, d. 1976)
Mother: Elizabeth Greene Shaw
Sister: Catharine Cooper (of Islington, England)
Husband: Brooks Beck (m. 1946, three children)
Son: Cameron W. Beck
Son: Gordon M. Beck
Daughter: Emily M. Beck

    University: Oxford University
    University: Radcliffe College (1937)

    Phi Beta Kappa Society

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Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, USNR (1887 - 1976) was one of the nation's most distinguished naval historians. His legacy to his country comprises over forty books and more than a hundred articles, including The Oxford History of the United States (1927); Growth of the American Republic (with) Commander (1930); The European Discovery of America (Southern and Northern voyages 1971, 1974). Born in Boston, and a faculty member of Harvard University for more than half a century, he was the recipient of many honors. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences awarded him the Emerson-Thoreau Medal in 1961 for distinguished literary achievement, and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 as one of the great Americans whose life and works have made freedom stronger for all of us in our time.

But he was, first and always, a Sailor. Before he wrote the biography of Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea in 1942, he and several friends purchased and fitted out the barkentine "Capitana" to sail the ocean in Columbus' wake, and view island and coasts as he must have seen them. This book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

The way was now clear for another seagoing project that was to become the most extensive and difficult of any in Morison's career - The History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II (fifteen volumes). President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had a lifelong taste for naval history, after reading some of "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," accepted Morison's request to be the Navy's Historian. In May 1942, the professor was commissioned a Lieutenant Commander in the Naval Reserve, and given a set of orders that permitted him to move about the world at will. But having such a set of orders is one thing, and getting to a good vantage point to observe an action whose planning has been cloaked in deep secrecy is another. That he was invariably in the right place at the right time for the next three and a half years, was due more to his qualities as a man and a Sailor, than to his formal credentials. He later recalled the problem thus:

"As my position in the Navy was unprecedented, I had to move warily and gingerly in order to obtain cooperation from those who were doing the fighting. Amusingly enough, their initial suspicions of a 'long-haired professor in uniform' were dissolved by a perusal of my "Admiral of the Ocean Sea," which told them that I was a Sailor before I became a professor, and thus exorcised the academic curse. So, thanks to Columbus, the Navy accepted me, and with many of its members I made warm friendships, which even survived when I felt obliged to write about some of their mistakes."

After his death in 1976, one of his daughters, Emily Morison Beck, edited a highly readable treasury of the best and most representative of his writings. She says, "I was fortunate that my father lived long enough to examine and approve the final choices, after discarding a number of pieces as 'old hat,' 'hackneyed,' or 'of little interest to the general reader.'" Therefore, "Sailor-Historian" is aimed to give pleasure to the general reader, who will find chapters from favorite books and prized articles, as well as forgotten pieces never before printed in a book.

President Lyndon B. Johnson remarked: "Scholar and Sailor, this amphibious historian has combined a life of action and literary craftsmanship to lead two generations of Americans on countless voyages of discovery." As a naval historian on active duty in World War II, he earned seven engagement stars and a Legion of Merit, while serving in combat areas of the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Pacific.

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