HYMAN, HAROLD MELVIN

HYMAN, HAROLD MELVIN (1924– ), U.S. historian. Hyman received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1952. In 1957 he was appointed professor of history at UCLA. From 1963 to 1968 he taught at the University of Illinois and from 1968 at Rice University. In 1968 he became the William P. Hobby Professor of History at Rice University, holding the position until 1996. He was also the director of the university's Center for the History of Leadership Institutions. A leading authority on 19th-century legal history, Hyman specialized in both American constitutional history and Civil War reconstruction history. He was a fellow of the Ford Foundation, a senior Fulbright lecturer, a lecturer with the Organization of American Historians, and a judge for the Pulitzer Prize. He also served as president of the American Society for Legal History. He was co-author (with Benjamin Thomas) of Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln's Secretary of War (1962). Among his other well-known books are Era of the Oath: Northern Loyalty Tests during the Civil War and Reconstruction (1954); To Try Men's Souls: Loyalty Tests in American History (1959); Soldiers and Spruce (1963); A More Perfect Union (1975); Equal Justice under Law (with W. Wiecek, 1982); American Singularity (1986); and Craftsmanship and Character (1998). (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)