A repository of materials relating to early American maritime history compiled by Bob McCaughey, Professor of History Emeritus, Barnard College, Columbia University.

Family Notes for an  Autobiography

Born — April 13, 1939 – Memorial Hospital, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Dr. Farrell?
Probably conceived in September in West Indies when mother on vacation
visiting father in West Indies
No reason to think I was not a surprise appearance
Resided 109 Benedict Street from birth through 7^th grade; St. Theresa Parish, Newport
Avenue.
Four sets of McCaughey relatives within walking distance of Benedict St.

Mother— Helen  Galleshaw, age 39  at my birth (born 1900, Central Falls, RI)
Her parents Irish to RI by way of Liverpool and Canada[?]
Had several siblings – sisters May, Sally; a brother Jim…..
Left school in 9^th grade – worked as a textile worker in RI
Did not work once married; volunteered with Cancer Society as widow
Her sisters May and Sally, who had been working in California,  May as a seamstress
in Hollywood, Sally as children’s book buyer for Hollywood bookstore, lived with
her after husband  Jack’s death.
She died 1983 (age 83).

Father—John Francis McCaughey, age 43 at my birth (born 1896, Pawtucket)
Both his parents Irish, with his father to US from County Tyrone in 1877
Father’s mother lived on York Avenue
Father oldest of large family – Bothers Joe, Vin, Ray, Ed; Sisters Bertha
Left school in 10^th grade  for employment; likely briefly attended bookkeeper school
Enlisted in Army in 1917 but did not see combat or go overseas
In 1920s began career as an office manager/accountant working for US companies abroad
First overseas job in Brazil; later in Poland, Persia and West Indies before WW II
Between these jobs worked in city and state gov’t in RI
Post-WW II abroad jobs: Venezuela (1946-48);Lebanon (1948-50); Greece (1951-54)
later worked for state in Dep’t of Motor Vehicles and city of Pawtucket as Comptroller
A lifelong Democrat
Died September 1960   (age 64)

Parents married in 1925 [?}  in Catholic service in Rhode Island
Had three children before me

Bill – born 1927 in Warsaw Poland – high school star athlete at St. Raphael’s;
semi-pro boxer;  attended seminary for one year after high school à In US Navy
as enlisted man 1945-48;
Providence College for 2 years; Boston U for two years for law degree; practice in RI;
Then as president of Ohio Life Insurance Company in Hamilton, Ohio
Married Elaine McKinnon in 1951 – they had 14 children
Died January 1982, age 55
Sally – born 1929 in US – attended URI; worked in Germany with military;
married Ralph Bold – 3 children; divorced; taught Ist grade; lives on Cape Cod
Dick – born 1934 in US – attended St. Raphael’s; high school baseball pitcher:
briefly attended  St Alselm’s, Stonehill and Providence College;
Then enlisted in US Airborne for 4 years; bachelor
Worked as professional golfer in Ohio and Florida
Died 2006 (72).

My schooling
Lincoln Avenue Public School, Pawtucket – 1945-50 Kindergarten to 5^th grade
altar boy, St. Theresa Church, Pawtucket (4^th to 7^th grades)
Cross-walk Patrol (5^th grade)
J.C. Potter Public School, Newport Avenue, Pawtucket – 6^th grade
Goff Junior High School, Newport Avenue, Pawtucket – 7^th Grade (1951-52)
Anglo-American School, Kifissia, Greece – 8^th and 9^th grades (1952-54)
Played on school basketball team;  most classmates children of US military or diplomats
Lived in Philothei, a suburb of Athens,

High School
St. Raphael Academy, Walcott St., Pawtucket – 10^th to 12^th grade – Christian Brothers
Science Track –graduated Ist in class of 75 students
Played on football team – starting center in senior year (158 lbs.)
Caddied at Pawtucket Golf Club;
Worked at Bob Gray’s Men’s Clothing Shop – 1955-57;
Apex Tire Company as truckdriver/delivery – summer 1956
Block Island gas station – summer of 1957 before going to college
Bought first car, a 1952 2-door Ford, at beginning of senior year in high school.
Sold before going to UR.

College
University of Rochester – 1957-1961
Went on a late-developing NROTC scholarship that involved a 4-year commitment
to serve in US Navy as a regular officer
Three weeks as chemical engineer major; thereafter  a history major;
Honors Program as junior and senior
Alpha Delta Phi fraternity
Worked Saturdays at Bob Ryan Clothing Store, Rochester
and some evenings at UR Book Store on campus
Summers when not on midshipman cruises, worked on Block Island.
Graduated summa cum laude but not PBK (frosh year grades)

First eligible to vote in 1960 — for John F. Kennedy (and every Democratic presidential
nominee since)

US Navy
Ensign to Lieutenant  1961-1965
Supply Corps School, Athens, Georgia —  7/61-12/61
Bought TR-3  sports car – drove to west coast and sold in 1963
USS Tracer AGR 15, homeported Treasure Island, San Francisco – 1/62-7/63
Seven  35-day assignments on picket duty in Pacific Ocean as ship’s supply officer
In San Diego at time of Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962; sent to help blockade
Panama Canal but crisis over before on station.
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Assistant Professor of Naval Science,
NROTC Unit –8/63-6/65 – as per request to Naval Personnel Office
Taught Naval history and supply management;  completed MA in American Studies at UNC
Resigned upon completion of required 4 years in June 1965.

Married Ann Ballantyne, August 28, 1965, in Catholic service at St. Teresa’s Church, Pawtucket, RI
Had met at U of R in 1958 (Ann, UR ’62)
Resided 26 Linnaean St, Cambridge, 1965-69
Two children born while there:
Hannah – December 30, 1966
John – February 4, 1969

Ann – Born Syracuse, NY July 26, 1940, raised in Syracuse and Auburn, NY
UR 1958-62; year in Florence, Italy studying the harp; return to Boston, secretarial work
Father, Allan,  his father a prominent Syracuse politician; he a manager for New York
Telephone Company throughout upstate NY
Had attended Syracuse University but left upon marriage in ?
Mother, Doris Chadwick, family Irish and Scottish in Syracuse – working class+
Ann  had two older sisters, Jean and Barbara, both attended Hobart/William Smith College

Harvard University – 1965-1969
Attended on a NDEA Fellowship in History PhD Program/American History
Principal adviser – Donald Fleming
Worked in History Department Library
Passed qualifying oral exam May 1967
Summer NSF Quantitative History Institute at Cornell, summer 1967
Ann, Hannah and I resided in Cascadilla Hall, with other Fellows of the Institute
Dissertation, a biography, “Josiah Quincy: The Last Federalist, 1772-1864,” accepted
for the degree in September 1969

                                  Robert A. McCaughey—Schools and Jobs

1945-50 – Lincoln Avenue Primary School. Pawtucket, Rhode Island – K -5
1950-51 – J.C. Potter School, Pawtucket — 6^th grade
1951-52 – Goff Junior High School, Pawtucket – 7^th grade
1953-55 – The British American High School, Kiffissia, Greece – 8^th and 9^th grade
1955-57 – St. Raphael’s  Academy, Pawtucket – 10^th through 12^th grade

1957-61 – University of Rochester, Rochester New York
on a NROTC scholarship; majored in history; graduated summa cum laude

1961-65 – United States Navy; Ensign to Lieutenant, USN Supply Corps
Supply Corps School, Athens, Georgia July 1961 – December 1961
Supply Officer, USS Tracer AGR 15, based in San Francisco,
January 1962 – July 1963
Assistant Professor of Naval Science, NROTC Unit, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, North Carolina —  August 1963-June 1965
MA student, American Studies, UNC – 1963-65; MA  degree June 1965
Resigned regular commission US Navy June 1965 upon completion of 4-years’service

1965-1969 – NDEA Fellowship in American History, Harvard University
Summer 1966 – NSF-funded program in quantitative history, Cornell University
1967-69 —  Section man for Donald Fleming in American intellectual history
Completed and submitted PhD dissertation in August 1969

1969- 2020 – Member of the Barnard College Faculty
1969-1972 – Assistant professor of American history
1972-73 – Charles Warren Fellow in American History, Harvard University
1975 – Promoted to associate professor with tenure
1976 – Elected member of the Columbia History Department
1976-77 – Simon Guggenheim Fellow, in residence at Teachers College
1980 – Promoted to full professor
1983 – Founding member and Director of the Freshman Seminar Program
1985 – 1987 —  Chair of the Barnard History Department

1987-1994 – Dean of the Faculty, Barnard College

Summer 1995 – NEH Fellow at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Ct.
1996-1999 – Chair of the Barnard History Department
2000 –Named Janet Robb Professor of History and Social Science
2000-2007 – Director of the Mellon-Foundation funded Barnard Electronic Archive
and  Teaching Laboratory  (BEATL)
2002-03 – Gilder-Lehrman Fellow at the New-York Historical Society

2020 – Retired to become Robb Professor of History Emeritus
2021, 2022 – Taught one seminar each fall as member of the Barnard
contingent faculty

Robert A. McCaughey – Bibliography 2025

1965
“The Flood Tide of Anti-Business Rhetoric in America: Babbitt Before the Bar,” Masters thesis submitted to History Department, University of North Carolina , in fulfillment of MA degree in  American Studies.

1969
“Josiah Quincy, 1772-1864: The Last Federalist,” doctoral dissertation submitted to Harvard University History Department, August 1969.  Awarded departmental prize for best dissertation in British or American History, 1970.

1970
“The Usable Past: The Harvard College Rebellion of 1834,” The William and Mary Law Review, Vol. 11, No. 3, (Spring 1970), 587-618.

1971
review of Eric Ashby, The Rise of the Student Estate in Britain, The Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 86 No.4, December 1971.

1973
“From Town to City: Boston in the 1820s,” The Political Science Quarterly  Vol. 88, No.2 (June 1973), 191-213

Review of Hugh Hawkins, Between Harvard and America: The Educational Leadership of Charles W. Eliot, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 88, No. 2 (June 1973)

1974
Josiah Quincy, 1772-1864: The Last Federalist (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974)

“American Political Institutions After Watergate – A Discussion,” The Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 89, No.4 9inter 1974-75), 713-749.

“The Transformation of American Academic Life: Harvard University, 1821-1892,” Perspectives in American History, Vol 8, 239-332.

Review of Dorothy Ross  G. Stanley Hall: The Psychologist as Prophet and Ray Allen Billington, Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian, Scholar, Teacher , The Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 89, No. 1 (March 1974)

1975
A Statistical Profile of the Barnard College Faculty, 1900-1974 (New York: Barnard College, 1975)

1976
“American University Teachers and Opposition to the Vietnam War,” Minerva, Vol. 14, No.3 (Autumn 1976), 307-329.

1978
Review of Roberta Frankfurt, Collegiate Women: Domesticity and Career in Turn-of-the-Century America

1979
Review of Bruce Kuklick, The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930, Minerva,  Vol. 16, No.1 (Spring 1979)

Review of Carl Diehl, Americans and German Scholarship 1770-1870, Minerva, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Autumn 1979)

“The Permanent Revolution: An Assessment of the Current State of International Studies in American Universities,” a commissioned report to the Ford Foundation, 1979

“Four Academic Ambassadors: International Studies and the American University Before the Second World War,” Perspectives in American History, Vol 12, 1979, 561-607

1980
“In the Land of the Blind: American International Studies in the 1930s,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Arts and Science, Vol. 449, Issue 1 (May 1980),1-16.

“The Current State of International Studies in American Universities: Special Consideration Reconsidered,” The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 51, Issue 4 (1980), 381-399.

1981
Review of Ronald Story, The Forging of an Aristocracy: Harvard and the Boston Upper Class, 1800-1870,
Change, Vol. 13, No.6 (1981)

1984

“International Studies and General Education: The Alliance Yet to Be,”  Liberal Education, Vol. 70, no. 4 (Winter 1984), 343-374

“American International Studies Before World War II,” Perspectives in American History (1984).

International Studies and Academic Enterprise: A Chapter in the Enclosure of American Learning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984)

1987
[With John A. Garraty as lead author], The American Nation, 6^th edition (New York: Harper Collins, 1987]

1989
“Shaking Things Up at Chicago,” a review of a biography by Harry Ashmore of Robert Hutchins, The New York Times Book Review,” September 3, 1989.

1992
“Why Research and Teaching Can Coexist,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 5, 1992

Academic Profiles: The Faculty of Barnard College, Columbia University, 1991-92 (New York: Barnard College, 1992)

Review of Jaroslav Pelikan, The Idea of the University: A Rexamination, American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 1 9 (February 1993), 118-19.

1993
“But Can They Teach: In Praise of College professors Who Publish,” Teachers College Record, Vol. 95. No. 2 (Winter 1993)

1994
Scholars and Teachers: The Faculties of Select Liberal Arts Colleges and Their Place in American Higher Learning (The Mellon Foundation, 1994)

2000
Review of The Prize Game: Lawful Looting on the High Seas in the Days of Fighting Sail, Long Island Historical Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2  (Summer 2000) ”

2003
Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1754-2004 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003)

2004
“The Education of Alexander Hamilton,” The New-York Journal of American History, 2004

2005
“Maritime History as World History,” The Historian, Vol. 67, issue No. 4 (Winter 2005)

2011
[Talk] — “A Usable Past: International Studies Before the Fall,” NEH Seminar/ Columbia/Academic Commons, 2011

2013
[Talk] — “Columbia College and the Gibbs Affair: The Last Stand of New York Knickerbockerdom,” Henry Bellows Lecture, All Souls Church, New York City, October 20, 2013

[Talk] — “Islam in the Columbia Curriculum,” Columbia University Seminar on Religion and Writing,
January 31, 2013

[Talk] — “A History of College Histories,” Barnard Alumnae Club of Philadelphia, April 24, 2013

2014
A Lever Long Enough: A History of Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science Since 1864 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014)

“Columbia Engineering at 150,” Columbia Engineering Magazine, November 2014

[Lecture] — “A Lever Long Enough,” The Annual Archimedes Lecture to faculty and alumni of Columbia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science,  February 18, 2014

2015
[Talk] — “A Tale of Two Cities: Or, Guess Who’s Coming to Barnard,“ University Seminar on the History of Columbia University, March 14, 2015

2019
A College of Her Own: The History of Barnard (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019)

2020
“Still Here: Change and Persistence in the Place of the Liberal Arts in American Higher Education,”
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — https://mellon.org/resources/news/articles/still-here-change-and-persistence-place-liberal-arts-american-higher-education/

2024
[Talk] –  with Rebecca Korbin — “Columbia’s Seven Ages – A Conversation with Columbia’s Deans,”
October 23, 2024.

Works in Progress

2nd edition of Stand, Columbia, with five new chapters encompassing the Bollinger presidency

Columbia by Other Means: A History of Columbia’s School of General Studies

Last updated, March 1, 2025

This is the beginning of a website devoted to providing assistance in the college application process

An informal repository and blog  for all materials
relating to Barnard history

Among its early contributors:

History sub-committee of the Barnard 125 celebration
Lisa Gordis, English Department
Hilary Callahan, Biology Department
Bob McCaughey, History Department

2018 Inaugural Sub-Committee on Barnard History
Anne Higonnet, Art History Department
David Weiman, Economics Department
Karen Farbanks, Architecture Department

Members of the “Making Barnard History” Evening Seminar Program
Sponsors Include:
Linda A. Bell,  Office of the Barnard Provost
Jamie Coffey, Alumnae Relations Office
Lisa Tiersten, History Department
Joanne Kwong, Barnard 125 Steering Committee

Barnard undergraduates enrolled in History 4491/Spring 2015
Adele Bernhard
Leora Boussi
Amanda Breen,
Jennifer Davis
Mollie Galchus
Caroline Lange
Lauren Malotta-Gaudet
Gina Masino
Elizabeth Moye
Paulina Pinsky
Kelly Reller
Frederica Rottaris
Sarah Thieneman

Barnard College Archives
Shannon O’Neill, Director  [email protected]
Martha Tenney, Digital Archivist [email protected]

Other Administrative Contributors

Beth Saidel, Communications
Alisa Rod, Empirical Reasoning Center
Becky Friedkin,  Office of Institutional Research

Blog maintained by:
Bob McCaughey, [email protected]