Louis Filler


Louis Filler was a Russian-born American teacher and a widely published scholar specializing in American studies.
He was born in Dubăsari, in the Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire, to Jewish parents, and emigrated to the United States in 1914. Raised in Philadelphia, Filler attended Central High School. He received his bachelor's degree from Temple University in 1934, and his master's degree and doctorate from Columbia University.
He worked as a historian for the American Council of Learned Societies from 1942 to 1944 and then as a research historian for the Quartermaster General in Washington, D.C., from 1944 to 1946. He taught at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, first as professor of American civilization from 1953 until 1976, and then as Distinguished University Professor of American Culture and Society, beginning in 1976.
His scholarly writings focused on muckrakers, abolition, and other reform movements. He also edited anthologies and other scholarly works.
He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bristol, England, for the academic year 1950-1951 and at the University of Erlangen in Germany for the academic year 1979–80.
He lived in Ovid, Michigan and died on December 22, 1998, in Austin, Texas.

Awards

Works

Books

Crusaders for American Liberalism: The Story of the Muckrakers, 1939 ff. Randolph Bourne, 1943, 1965The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860, 1960 ffA Dictionary of American Social Reform, 1963, 1970; revised 1982 as A Dictionary of American Social ChangeThe Unknown Edwin Markham: His Mystery and Its Significance, 1966Muckraking and Progressivism: an Interpretive Bibliography, 1976Appointment at Armageddon: Muckraking and Progressivism in American Life, 1976; Muckraking and Progressivism in the American Tradition, new intro, 1996Voice of the Democracy: A Critical Biography of David Graham Phillips: Journalist, Novelist, Progressive, 1978Abolition and Social Justice in the Era of Reform, 1972Crusade Against Slavery: Friends, Foes, and Reforms 1820-1860, 1986Dictionary of American Conservatism, 1987Distinguished Shades: Americans Whose Lives Live On, 1992

Edited works

The New Stars: Life and Labor in Old Missouri, Manie Kendley Morgan, 1940 Mr. Dooley: Now and Forever, Finley Peter Dunne, 1954 The Removal of the Cherokee Nation: Manifest Destiny or National Dishonor?, 1962, 1977 The World of Mr. Dooley, Finley Peter Dunne, 1962Late Nineteenth-Century Liberalism: Representative Selections 1880-1900, 1962, 1978The Anxious Years - America in the Nineteen Thirties: A Collection of Contemporary Writings, 1963; as American Anxieties, 1993Horace Mann and Others, Robert L. Straker, 1963Democrats and Republicans: Ten Years of the Republic, Harry Thurston Peck, 1964A History of the People of the United States, John Bach McMaster, 1964 The President Speaks: From McKinley to Lyndon Johnson, 1964 Horace Mann on the Crisis in Education, 1965; Spanish translation 1972Wendell Phillips on Civil Rights and Freedom, 1965The Ballad of the Gallows-Bird, Edwin Markham, 1967Old Wolfville: Chapters from the Fiction of A.H. Lewis, 1968Slavery in the United States, 1972, 1998Abolition and Social Justice, 1972From Populism to Progressivism, 1978, anthologyA Question of Quality, series : Popularity and Value in Modern Creative Writing and Seasoned Authors for a New Season, 1976–80Vanguards and Followers: Youth in the American Tradition, 1978, 1995An Ohio Schoolmistress: the Memoirs of Irene Hardy, 1980Contemporaries: Portraits in the Progressive Era, David Graham Phillips, 1981The President in the 20th Century, 1983

Introductions

  • Ernest Lacy, Chatterton, 1952
  • John Bach McMaster, The Acquisition of Political, Social and Industrial Rights of Man in America, 1961
  • S.S. McClure, My Autobiography, 1962
  • G. Lowes Dickinson,A Modern Symposium, 1963
  • Robert Lincoln Straker, Horace Mann and Others: Chapters from the History of Antioch College, 1963
  • Svend Petersen, A Statistical History of the American Presidential Elections, 1963
  • Bernard Mandel, Samuel Gompers: A Biography, 1963
  • John Bach McMaster, The Political Depravity of the Founding Fathers, 1964
  • William Henry Smith, A Political History of Slavery, 1966
  • Ulrich B. Phillips, Georgia and States' Rights, 1967
  • Madeleine B. Stern, The Pantarch: A Biography of Stephen Pearl Andrews, 1968
  • David Graham Phillips, The Cost, 1969
  • David Graham Phillips, The Deluge, 1969
  • David Graham Phillips, The Grain of Dust, 1970
  • Brand Whitlock, Forty Years of It, 1970
  • William Hapgood, The Columbia Conserve Company: An Experiment in Workers' Management and Ownership, 1975
  • Benjamin A. Botkin, The American People: Stories, Legends, Folklore|Tales, Traditions and Songs, 1998

Also in published volumes

  • "Movements to Abolish the Death Penalty in the United States," in Murder and the Death Penalty, 1952
  • "The Dilemma, So-Called, of the American Liberal," in Antioch Review Anthology, 1953
  • "The Muckrakers: in Flower and in Failure," in Essays in American Historiography: in Honor of Allan Nevins, 1960
  • "Anti-Slavery Movements in the United States," in Collier’s Encyclopedia, 1962
  • "Slavery and Anti-Slavery," in Main Problems in American History, 1964
  • "A Tale of Two Authors: Theodore Dreiser and David Graham Phillips," in New Voices in American Studies, 1966

Among other articles and reviews

  • "Susan Lenox: an American Odyssey," Accent, Fall 1940
  • "Wolfville: the Fiction of A.H. Lewis," New Mexico] Quarterly, Spring, 1943
  • "Murder in Gramercy Park," Antioch Review 11, December 1946
  • "Edward Bellamy and the Spirited Unrest," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, April 1948
  • "Randolph Bourne: Reality and Myth," The Humanist, Spring 1951
  • "Harry Alan Potamkin," Midwest Journal, Winter 1951
  • "Why Historians Ignore Folklore," Midwest Folklore, Summer 1954
  • "John Chamberlain and American Liberalism," Colorado Quarterly, Fall 1957
  • "The Question of Social Significance," Union Review 1:1:66-71, 1962
  • "John M. Harlan", Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, eds., The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 1995),

Verse

  • Two Poems, 1935