WISH, HARVEY (4 Sept. 1909-7 March 1968) was named Elbert J. Benton Distinguished Professor of History at CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIV. in recognition of his renown in the field of American social and intellectual history. A Chicagoan by birth, he earned a baccalaureate from Illinois Institute of Technology, a master's from the Univ. of Chicago, and the doctorate from Northwestern. After marrying Anne Kruger in 1932, he taught at De Paul Univ. (1936-43) and Smith College (1944-45) before becoming the first Jew to be appointed to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Western Reserve Univ. in 1945. Having previously published George Fitzhugh, Propagandist of the Old South (1943), Wish soon added Contemporary America (1945) and Society and Thought in America (2 vols., 1950-52) to his catalogue. Named a Fulbright Professor in 1954, he lectured in American history in Munich, Vienna, and Scandinavia. He was also a Carnegie Visiting Professor at the Univ. of Hawaii (l956) and John G. Winant Distinguished Professor in American Institutions in London (1961). At Western Reserve, Wish was a co-founder of the graduate program in American Studies. His editing of classic works on the history of American slavery placed him on the cutting edge of the Black Studies movement of the 1960s. After the publication of his The American Historian (1960), Wish was elected president of the Ohio Academy of History in 1965. He died in Denver of a heart attack suffered on a train returning from California to Cleveland, survived by his wife and a daughter, Mrs. Dorothy Braroe.
Siney, Marion C. Ups and Downs: The History Department, Western Reserve University-Case Western Reserve University (1980).