W. Edwin Hemphill
Dr. William Edwin Hemphill (June 28, 1912 – September 4, 1983), was an American historian, teacher, editor, and archivist. Born in Willow Springs, North Carolina, "Ed" Hemphill earned an B.A. from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia in 1932. In 1933, he received an M.A. from from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia for his thesis, "America's First Law Professor and the Teacher of Jefferson, Marshall, and Clay."[1] In 1937 he received a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, writing his dissertation on "George Wythe the Colonial Briton: A Biographical Study of the Pre-Revolutionary Era in Virginia."[2] Hemphill was a founding member of the Society of American Archivists in 1936.
Hemphill taught history at Hampden-Sydney College from 1934-1935; at Davidson College in North Carolina from 1937-1938; at the University of Virginia in 1938-1939; and at Emory University from 1940-1941. He was an assistant professor of history at Mary Washington College in Virginia from 1939-1940 and again from 1941-1944.
From 1944-1945 Hemphill was assistant director of the Virginia World War II History Commission, and its director from 1946-1950. In 1947, he published Gold Star Honor Roll of Virginians in the Second World War. In 1948 he began working at the Virginia State Library in Richmond; he was the educational director of the library's history division from 1950-1959. During this time he edited Pursuits of War: The People of Albemarle County, Virginia, in the Second World War (1948), and wrote Aerial Gunner from Virginia: The Letters of Don Moody to His Family During 1944 (1950). Hemphill was the editor of the Virginia Library's local history journal, the Virginia Cavalcade Magazine, from 1950-1959. In 1957 he published (with Marvin Schlegel and S. E. Engelbery) Cavalier Commonwealth: History and Government of Virginia.
In 1959, Hemphill became the editor for the South Carolina Archives Department, working on eight volumes of the Papers of John C. Calhoun until his retirement in 1977. During his time as editor, he also published Extracts from the Journals of the Provincial Congresses of South Carolina, 1775-1776 (1960), Journals of the General Assembly and House of Representatives, 1776-1780 (1970), and Journals of the Privy Council, 1783-1789 (1971).
Research on George Wythe
- "George Wythe, America's First Law Professor," 1933
- "George Wythe the Colonial Briton," 1937
- "George Wythe Courts the Muses," 1952
- "Examinations of George Wythe Swinney for Forgery and Murder," 1955
References
- ↑ Hemphill, William Edwin, "George Wythe: America's First Law Professor and the Teacher of Jefferson, Marshall and Clay," master's thesis, Emory University, 1933.
- ↑ William Edwin Hemphill, "George Wythe the Colonial Briton: A Biographical Study of the Pre-Revolutionary Era in Virginia," PhD diss., University of Virginia, 1937.
