William L. Langer

For the North Dakota politician, see William Langer. For the Wisconsin politician, see William Langer (Wisconsin politician).

William L. Langer
Historian William L. Langer looking slightly to his right Coolidge Professor of History, Harvard, 1946
Born	(1896-03-16)March 16, 1896 South Boston, Massachusetts
Died	Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Monuments	William Langer Award (Central Intelligence Agency#Directorate of Analysis)
Education	Boston Latin Harvard University, B.A. 1915, M.A. 1920, Ph.D. history 1923 Clark University, attended c:a 1915–1917
Occupation	academic historian, intelligence analyst, policy advisor
Employer	Worcester Academy (1915–1917) Clark University assistant professor of history (1923–1925) Clark University associate professor (1925–1927) Harvard University assistant professor (1927–1931) Harvard University associate professor (1931–1936) Harvard University Coolidge Professor of History (1936–1964) Harvard University professor emeritus 1964 University of Chicago visiting professor or lecturer (1926) Columbia University (1931) Yale University (1933) Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (1933–1934, 1936–1941)
Spouse(s)	Susanne Katherina Knauth, philosopher (Sept. 3, 1921 - div. 1942) Rowena Morse Nelson (Apr. 9, 1943-)
Children	two, with Susanne: Leonard C. R. Langer Bertrand W. Langer
Parent(s)	Karl Rudolf Langer, a florist Johanna Rockenbach
Relatives	Rudolf Ernest Langer, elder brother Walter Charles Langer, younger brother
Awards	member, American Philosophical Society LL.D. Hamburg University, 1955 Bancroft Prize 1954 Medal for Merit, 1945 LL.D. Yale, 1945 LL.D. Harvard, 1945
Military career
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	December 1917-
Rank	engineer Sergeant
Unit	Company E 1st Gas Regiment United States Army Chemical Warfare Service
Battles/wars	World War I St. Mihiel Offensive Meuse-Argonne Offensive World War II Office of Strategic Services
Notes

William Leonard Langer (March 16, 1896 – December 26, 1977) was an American historian, intelligence analyst and policy advisor. He served as chairman of the history department at Harvard University. He was on leave during World War II as head of the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services. He was a specialist on the diplomacy of the periods 1840–1900 and World War II. He edited many books, including a series on European history, a large-scale reference book, and a university textbook.

Early life

Born in South Boston, Massachusetts, he was the second of three sons of recent German immigrants, Charles Rudolph and Johanna Rockenbach. His elder brother, Rudolf Ernest Langer, became a mathematician and his younger brother, Walter Charles Langer, a psychoanalyst.

When William was only three, his father died unexpectedly, leaving the family in difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, his mother, who supported the family by working as a dressmaker, made education a priority for her children.

Education and career

After studying at the Boston Latin School, Langer attended Harvard University.

Langer was fluent in German, and taught German at Worcester Academy while furthering his own education with courses on international relations at Clark University.

His job and education were interrupted by military service World War I. After the war, he returned to his studies and obtained his Ph.D. in 1923. In 1921 he married Susanne Katherina Langer (née Knauth) who became a noted philosopher. They had two sons together before divorcing in 1942.

He taught modern European history at Clark University for four years before accepting an assistant professorship at Harvard. In 1936 Langer became the first to hold the Archibald Coolidge chair.

Langer was remembered at Harvard especially for his History 132 course on modern European history, History 157 on the Ottoman Empire, and the graduate seminars held at his home. He also taught at the Harvard Extension School.

With the help of other scholars during the 1930s, Langer completely revised the Epitome of History by German Scholar Karl Ploetz. Langer's massive work was published in 1940 under the title An Encyclopedia of World History. Its fifth edition (1972) is the last to be edited by Langer. Peter N. Stearns and thirty other prominent historians edited the sixth edition, published in 2001. Stearns paid tribute to Langer's great achievement in the introduction to the new edition.

Later career

In 1957, Langer urged historians to expand their insights with techniques from modern psychology.

War service

Langer was an enlisted man in the United States Army Chemical Service in World War I, and saw combat in a chemical weapons unit on the Western Front in France. He described the experience in a book he wrote with another man in his company.

During World War II, Langer served in the new Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as deputy chief and later chief of the Research and Analysis Branch until the end of the war. In correspondence he was identified as OSS 117, a codename which entered French popular culture in 1949 for an unrelated iconic fictional character of books and film. He was special assistant for intelligence analysis to U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes. In 1950 Langer organized the office of National Estimates in the newly established Central Intelligence Agency

After war

After the war, Langer returned to academia, but from 1961 to 1977 he served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Honors

William Langer was awarded the Medal for Merit by President Truman in July 1946 in recognition of his wartime service. He was also awarded the Bancroft Prize in 1954. Postwar, both Harvard and Yale University awarded Langer LL.D. degrees as did the University of Hamburg in 1955. Among his many involvements, Langer served as president of the American Historical Association for 1957. Langer received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1965.

Selected bibliography

• revised as: Gas and Flame in World War I (1965) online
• An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. © 1972, 1968, 1952, 1948, & 1940. 1948 edition online
• The Franco-Russian Alliance 1890–1894 (1929) online
• European Alliances and Alignments 1871–1890 (1931) (second edition with supplementary bibliographies, Vintage, 1950). online
• The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902 (1935) (two volumes) online review; online copy
• Our Vichy Gamble (1947)
• The Challenge to Isolation, 1937–1940 (1952) with S. Everett Gleason online
• The Undeclared War, 1940–1941 (1953) with S. Everett Gleason
• Conyers Read, 1881–1959: Scholar, Teacher, Public Servant (M. and V. Dean, 1963)
• Political and Social Upheaval, 1832–1852 (1969) online
• In and out of the ivory tower(1977), autobiography online

Sources

• In and Out of the Ivory Tower: The Autobiography of William L. Langer (Neele Watson Academic Publications, 1977) ISBN 978-0-88202-177-5