Sylvia L. Thrupp

Sylvia Lettice Thrupp (3 September 1903, Surbiton, UK – 9 September 1997) was an English-born, Canadian-American medievalist, comparative historian and social scientist. She is sometimes described as a "foremother of medievalists."

Early life and education In 1909, Sylvia Thrupp, with her parents, sister, and brother, immigrated to Kamloops, British Columbia from England.

In 1921, Thrupp matriculated at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where she graduated in 1925 with a First Class honors B.A. in history. After studying for a Diploma in Education, granted in 1926, she taught for two years in high schools. In 1928 she obtained a part-time assistantship in UBC's history department and studied there for her M.A., completed in 1929. Her 97-page M.A. thesis, supervised by Walter Noble Sage (1888–1971), is entitled History of the Cranbook District in East Kootenary. in 1929 Thrupp obtained a scholarship to study at the University of London, where she was taught by Hilda Johnstone, Eliza Jeffries Davis, and Michael Postan. Thrupp began work on her doctoral thesis under the supervision of John E. Neale. Her thesis A Study of the Merchant Class of Medieval London in the Fifteenth Century with special reference to the Company of Grocers was completed in June 1931. Her examiners in her defense of her thesis were Michael Postan, Arthur Hermann Thomas (1877–1971), and Eileen Power (who was for many years a friend and mentor to Sylvia Thrupp). During the years 1931–1934 Thrupp received very little scholarship money and struggled financially. She might have received a small commission for her 1933 book A short history of the Worshipful Company of Bakers of London. For the academic year 1934–1935, she received a fellowship from Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to visit American universities (Columbia U., Harvard U., Yale U., U. Michigan, and U. Chicago) and study aspects of history and social sciences.

Career Thrupp encountered considerable academic misogyny in attempting to find permanent employment at institutions such as McGill University and the University of Toronto. Thrupp was, from 1935 to 1944, an instructor in history at the University of British Columbia and for the academic year 1944–1945, a special lecturer in history at the University of Toronto. upon written recommendations made by Michael Postan, Frank Knight, N. S. B. Gras, Edwin Francis Gay, R. M. MacIver, and Frederic C. Lane. From 1945 to 1961, at the University of Chicago, Thrupp was an assistant professor and then an associate professor.

Thrupp's 1948 book The merchant class of medieval London, 1300-1500 established an outstanding reputation for her in medieval urban history. In 1958, she established the journal Comparative Studies in Society and History (CSSH), which for several years was a one-person operation. The initial issues of CSSH dealt primarily with history, sociology, and anthropology. In 1961 she was appointed to the University of Michigan's newly established Alice Freeman Palmer Chair of History (funded by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). At the University of Michigan, Thrupp held her professorial chair and continued as editor-in-chief of CSSH until her retirement as professor emerita in 1974.

Personal life At the age of 83, in 1986, Thrupp married a fellow medievalist, Joseph Reese Strayer, whose first wife died in February 1984. He retired in 1962 from Princeton University as professor emeritus. Joseph and Sylvia Strayer lived in Princeton, New Jersey for about year until he died in July 1987. After his death, she moved to California to live with her nephew, Lauri D. Trupp, M.D. In 1981 Thrupp was elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.

Selected publications Articles

Books

entry at University of Toronto website