William Carpenter

William Henry Carpenter (1853–1936) was an American philologist, and provost for Columbia University.

Biography

William Henry Carpenter was born in Utica, New York on July 15, 1853. He was educated at Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Hamilton College, Leipzig, and Freiburg. He then became instructor in rhetoric and lecturer on North European literature at Cornell in 1883. At Columbia University, he was instructor of German and Scandinavian languages, 1883–89; assistant professor of Germanic languages and literature, 1889–90; adjunct professor, 1890–95; and in 1895 professor of German philology. In 1912 he became the provost of Columbia. He was trustee and secretary of the Columbia University Press.

He was elected vice president of the Germanistic Society of America, and edited the Germanistic Society Quarterly. He was a member of the Authors Club and Century Club of New York City.

Among his students in Germanics were linguist Edward Sapir.

He married Anna Morgan Douglass on July 2, 1884, and they had three children.

William Henry Carpenter died in Downingtown, Pennsylvania on November 25, 1936. He was buried at Northwood Cemetery.