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Claude M Fuess Biography & Facts

Claude Moore Fuess (January 12, 1885 – September 11, 1963) was an American author, historian, educator, and the 10th Headmaster of Phillips Academy Andover from 1933 to 1948. After attending Amherst College and earning a PhD at Columbia University, Fuess taught English at Phillips Academy from 1908 to 1933. As Headmaster he guided the school in a new era as it faced the Great Depression and Second World War. Concurrent with his teaching and position, Fuess led a writing career spanning several decades. He is credited as the author or editor of over 30 books and articles including biographies of Caleb Cushing, Calvin Coolidge, Rufus Choate, Daniel Webster, and Carl Schurz. Early life Family and ancestry Fuess was born on January 12, 1885, in Waterville, New York, to Louis Phillip Fuess and Helen Augusta Moore. His paternal grandfather Jacob Fuess was from Annweiler am Trifels, Germany in the Bavarian Palatinate. He fled Germany during the Revolution in 1848 and emigrated to the United States, landing in New Orleans and making his way to New York City. He had one younger brother named Harold L. Fuess, an active member of local government in and around Waterville including Town Clerk of Sangerfield, New York. Originally spelled Füsz, the family changed the spelling to Fuess due to its difficult pronunciation for Americans. According to Fuess, he and his family pronounce their name Fease. Oftentimes he would go by one his nicknames. Those he knew in high school and at Amherst College called him "Dutch." At Phillips Academy he was known as either "Jack" or "Claudie" or once Headmaster "B.D." (Bald Doctor). Someone even wrote the following poem titled "Fuess Please" in 1930 to illustrate the difficulty of his name: Despite such difficulty Fuess decided not to simplify his name because of the legal obstacles he would face and the honor it held to him personally and in Bavaria. Education Fuess was an avid reader at an early age. He played football for Waterville High School's first team and cycled for the school's first track team. Cycling events included half and one-mile races around a half-mile dirt track. He entered Amherst College in the autumn of 1901 at the age of 16 and graduated in 1905. While at Amherst he grew interests in forensics, debate, and public speaking. He continued to train for Amherst's cycling team but was unable to race when the New England Committee abolished the cycling races from its athletic program. He was a member of the fraternity Alpha Delta Phi. He took courses in debate, public speaking, and German. In the fall of 1905 he entered Columbia University. After earning his M.A. in 1906, he accepted in 1908 an invitation to be an assistant in Columbia's English Department. He earned his Ph.D at the same institution in 1912, his thesis titled "Lord Byron as a Satirist in Verse". He was awarded a Doctorate of Letters, an honorary degree from Amherst College in 1929 for his career as an English teacher and author. Fuess continued to keep close connections with Amherst for the rest of his life. He was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Alumni Council, President of the Society of the Alumni, for two years National President of Alpha Delta Phi, and President of the Amherst Corporate Chapter of Alpha Delta Phi. In addition, he published Amherst, The Story of a New England College in 1935 to illustrate the evolution of educational thought. Frederick Allis, who discusses Fuess in his book Youth From Every Quarter: A Bicentennial History of Phillips Academy, Andover characterizes his relationship with Amherst "clearly a love affair." Fuess earned a total of eight honorary degrees over his lifetime. Career Fuess began his career in teaching while a student and assistant in the English Department at Columbia. He took the advice of his mentor, Professor William P. Trent, and took a year off from school to teach at the George School, a coeducational secondary school in Pennsylvania, before making his way unexpectedly to Phillips Academy where he would settle. Phillips Academy Fuess spent a substantial portion of his career at Phillips Academy, a coeducational secondary boarding school which was at the time an all boys school. Fuess received an invitation from the current headmaster Alfred E. Stearns to a position in the English Department. At first he declined, convinced he would join the faculty at Columbia University. Stearns knew their English Department was short one teacher and needed someone in the area with a college degree. After making a convincing job offer, $1200 a year with room and board, and receiving a telegram from a professor at Columbia urging him to take the job, he accepted. He began his tenure in the fall of 1908 living in Draper Cottage. As an English teacher he focused on teaching his students to articulate themselves and nurturing their natural instincts of curiosity and a desire to learn. In 1913 he assumed editorship of the quarterly publication Phillips Bulletin. In the summer of 1918 he was asked by John Pershing to commission 200 of his students as Second Lieutenants to serve in the First World War, which he did. That September Fuess himself was commissioned as a Major in the Quartermaster Corps at Camp Johnston in Jacksonville, Florida. He soon caught influenza and was honorably discharged in January 1919. He soon became a popular figure among the younger alumni who knew him and known as one of the best English teachers of his time. John U. Monro, Class of 1930 and later Trustee of Phillips Academy, found himself throughout his life "dependent for survival" on the "solid growing pleasure he takes in the use of language he traces back easily to Jack Fuess." In March 1933, Alfred Stearns was forced to resign in the midst of a scandal. He was a widower and married his housekeeper, someone "beneath his social class." Upon the resignation of Alfred Stearns, Fuess was appointed acting headmaster of the school which had just begun a new era. The successful banker Thomas Cochran had worked closely with architect Charles Platt over the past several years to transform the campus and construct a number of new buildings, notably the Addison Gallery of American Art. At the same time however, the Academy was in the middle of a traumatic moment in its history. Professor and Judge James Hardy Ropes, President of the Board of Trustees, died suddenly; Thomas Cochran, now considered a driving force of the school, was in poor health among others on the Board of Trustees. Similar to when Fuess accepted the job as an English teacher in 1908, he was reluctant. This time he was interested in a job as Professor of Biography at Amherst College, which would allow him to continue his writing career more freely. For the next month, the Board of Trustees interviewed a number of candidates for Headmaster outside of the school. They soon concluded to "stick with someone whom they knew and respected, .... Discover the Claude M Fuess popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Claude M Fuess books.