Michael Kammen facts for kids

Michael Gedaliah Kammen (born October 25, 1936 – died November 29, 2013) was an American history professor. He taught about American culture and history at Cornell University. When he passed away, he was known as the "Newton C. Farr professor emeritus of American history and culture." This means he was a highly respected professor who had retired but still held an honorary title.

Michael Kammen was born in 1936 in Rochester, New York. He grew up near Washington, D.C.. He went to college at George Washington University and then to Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. (a high-level degree) in 1964. After finishing his studies, he started teaching at Cornell University. He taught there until 2008 when he retired.

Professor Kammen first studied the early history of America, known as the colonial period. But over time, his interests grew. He began to study American law, culture, and social issues from the 1800s and 1900s.

One of his most important books was People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization. This book won the famous Pulitzer Prize for History in 1973. Another important book, A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture (published in 1986), also won two big awards: the Francis Parkman Prize and the Henry Adams Prize. In this book, Kammen wrote about how Americans' ideas about the United States Constitution changed over time. He showed how people thought about the Constitution as both a fixed set of rules and something that could grow and change.

Michael Kammen was also very involved in groups that promote the study of history. He even served as the president of the Organization of American Historians from 1995 to 1996.

He was the father of Daniel Kammen, who is also a professor at University of California, Berkeley.

Important Books

• People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American Civilization (1973)
• Colonial New York: A History (1975)
• The Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History (1986) (Kammen edited this book)
• A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture (1986)
• A Season of Youth: The American Revolution in the Historical Imagination (1988)
• Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (1991)
• Contested Values: Democracy and Diversity in American Culture (1995)
• In The Past Lane: Historical Perspectives on American Culture (1997)
• American Culture, American Tastes: Social Change and the 20th Century (1999)
• A Time to Every Purpose: The Four Seasons in American Culture (2004)
• Digging Up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials (2010)

See also

• In Spanish: Michael Kammen para niños