| 1 | Name: | Dr. Sheldon Hackney | |
| Institution: | University of Pennsylvania | ||
| Year Elected: | 1988 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1933 | ||
| Death Date: | September 12, 2013 | ||
Sheldon Hackney was Professor Emeritus of History and President Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. His special interests were in the history of the South since the Civil War, the 1960s, and the American identity. He received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 1955 and Ph.D. from Yale University in 1966, studying under C. Vann Woodward. His first book, Populism to Progressivism in Alabama (1969) won the Albert J. Beveridge Prize of the American Historical Association and the Charles Sydnor Award of the Southern Historical Association. Professor Hackney served as Provost of Princeton University (1972-75); President of Tulane University (1975-81); and President of the University of Pennsylvania (1981-93). In 1993 he became chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, returning to the Penn faculty in 1997. He had written and spoken widely about Southern history, higher education, and the role of the humanities in American life. His wife was Lucy Durr Hackney, an attorney and advocate for public policy affecting children. They had three children and eight grandchildren. Sheldon Hackney was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1988. He died September 12, 2013, at the age of 79. | |||