Wallace Trevethic MacCaffrey
Wallace MacCaffrey, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History, Emeritus, began his twenty-two year career at Harvard in 1968. He served as department chair twice, during 1972-1974 and 1979- 1982. As the relationship among students, faculty, and administration slowly changed, MacCaffrey was trusted by all. He had an open, friendly personality and was completely loyal to Harvard.
That loyalty was a product of his graduate work, which he undertook after having served in the army during the last phases of World War II. He had graduated from Reed College in 1942, where he had developed a strong interest in, and aptitude for, historical study. During the war, his army service included an assignment to interrogate Italian prisoners who had been brought to New York. Due to that experience and because he gained a proficiency in the language, MacCaffrey developed a strong interest in Italian history. As a graduate student at Harvard, however, he focused on the study of British history. His principal advisor was Professor W. K. Jordan, a specialist in Tudor and Stuart era England, and he wrote his dissertation on the city of Exeter from 1540 to 1640. The dissertation was published in 1958 and established his reputation as a meticulous scholar of political institutions and personnel as they guided the fortunes of an urban community. His work became a model for numerous similar studies.