Archibald Cary Coolidge

Archibald Cary Coolidge (March 6, 1866 – January 14, 1928) was an American educator and diplomat. He was a professor of history at Harvard College from 1908 and the first director of the Harvard University Library from 1910 until his death. Coolidge was also a scholar in international affairs, a planner of the Widener Library, a member of the United States Foreign Service, and editor-in-chief of the policy journal Foreign Affairs.

Through his mother, Archibald was the nephew of John Lowell Gardner II. His mother and uncle John were the grandchildren of merchant Joseph Peabody, one of the wealthiest men in the United States at the time of his death in 1844.

Coolidge attended seven different elementary and preparatory schools, the Adams Academy in Quincy, and Harvard College, where he became associated with the Owl Club and graduated summa cum laude in history in 1887. He also attended the University of Berlin and the École des Sciences Politiques in Paris. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg in Germany 1892.

Career From 1893 on, he taught various history courses at Harvard, first as an instructor, from 1899 on as assistant professor, and in 1908, he was made a full professor of history. He is further credited with bringing the study of history of Latin America, the Far East, and the Slavic countries to the history department of Harvard. In 1908, he was appointed to the Harvard Library Council and was chairman of this council in 1909. In 1910, he became the first director of the Harvard University Library. Coolidge's tenure saw the building of the Widener Library.

An obituary in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences noted the following regarding his efforts to make the Library into a centerpiece for Harvard Students: The first to hold this office, Professor Coolidge gave a creative interpretation to its functions and made it an essential part of University organization. He kept before the University and its friends a broad and comprehensive idea of the Library and its possibilities, and had the satisfaction of seeing the Harvard Library under his administration reach an assured position among the great libraries of the world. This result was due in large to his own wisdom, vision, patient skill, and interest in every side of the Library's welfare. He encouraged equally the acquisition of unique special collections, the prompt and steady purchase of books asked for, and improved facilities for work by members of the University and by visiting scholars. Secretary of State Robert Lansing informed Coolidge in a telegram dated December 26, 1918, that "You are hereby assigned to the American Commission to observe political conditions in Austria-Hungary and neighboring countries.". Coolidge and his group in Vienna analyzed the state of affairs on Central Europe and the Balkans and made recommendations for the benefit of the U.S. participants at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919.

In 1921, Coolidge worked as a negotiator for the American Relief Administration and helped organize the humanitarian aid to Russia after the famine of 1921.

Personal life Coolidge was a member of the Monticello Association, which was created in 1913 to care for and preserve President Jefferson's home, Monticello, serving as its president from 1919 to 1925.

Coolidge died at his home in Boston, Massachusetts on January 14, 1928.

Publications The United States as a World Power (1908) The Origins of the Triple Alliance (1917) Ten Years of War and Peace (1927) Editor-in-Chief, Foreign Affairs, a journal of the Council on Foreign Relations.