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Max Farrand

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Max Farrand
Max Farrand in 1931
Born(1869-03-29)March 29, 1869
DiedJune 17, 1945(1945-06-17) (aged 76)
Alma materPrinceton University
OccupationHistorian
Known forFirst director of the Huntington Library
Spouse
(m. 1913)
RelativesLivingston Farrand (brother)

Max Farrand (March 29, 1869 – June 17, 1945) was an American historian and university professor. Farrand served as the first director of the Huntington Library.[1]

Early life

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He was born in Newark, New Jersey, United States. He graduated from Princeton with a Bachelors of Arts in 1892 and a PhD in 1896.

Career

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From 1908-1925, he was a professor of history at Yale University. Prior to his position at Yale, Farrand also taught at Wesleyan University, Stanford University, and Cornell University. Farrand's area of expertise was constitutional history.[1] Farrand served as director of the Commonwealth Fund, founded in 1918 by Anna M. Harkness.[2]

Farrand assisted Henry E. Huntington in establishing the Huntington Library, located on the historic Rancho Huerta de Cuati' in San Marino, California. Following Huntington's death in 1927, Farrand became the library's first director, serving until 1941.

In 1921, Farrand was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[3] He was elected in 1926 a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).[4] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1928.[5]

In 1940, Farrand, as President of the American Historical Society delivered an address describing his views on history.[1]

Farrand's final work, an examination of the letters of Benjamin Franklin was published posthumously in 1949. [6]

Publications

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Family

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In 1913, Farrand married the landscape architect Beatrix Farrand.[7] They remodeled her family's home, Reef Point Estate in Bar Harbor, Maine, where they spent their summers. They had no children. Farrand's brother was the researcher Livingston Farrand.[8]

Death and legacy

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The Farrands retired to Reef Point estate in Bar Harbor, which they planned to establish as an independent and self-perpetuating educational corporation.[citation needed] Max Farrand died in 1945 before this could be accomplished. After a wildfire destroyed part of the property in 1955, Beatrix demolished the main house and uprooted the garden. She also donated their extensive library and herbarium specimens to the University of California at Berkeley.[9] John D. Rockefeller purchasing the azaleas from the uprooted gardens for his own Asticou Azalea Garden in Northeast Harbor, Maine. [10]

The Farrands are both buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City.

During the Bicentennial Celebrations, James Hutson, head of the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, edited a revised edition of Farrand's four volume, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (Yale University Press, 1976).[11]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Beatrix Farrand at The Huntington | The Huntington". www.huntington.org. Retrieved 2025-04-26.
  2. ^ "Farrand (Max) Papers". oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2025-04-26.
  3. ^ "Max Farrand". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 2023-02-09. Retrieved 2023-07-25.
  4. ^ "Historic Fellows". American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
  5. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-07-25.
  6. ^ Vernor W. Crane, Max Farrand and Benjamin Franklin's Memoirs, Modern Philology Vol 47, no. 2 (November, 1949) p. 127
  7. ^ Beatrix Farrand profile, beatrixfarrandsociety.org; accessed September 27, 2015.
  8. ^ Hannan, Caryn (2008-01-01). New Jersey Biographical Dictionary. State History Publications. ISBN 978-1-878592-45-3.
  9. ^ "Beatrix Farrand Society".
  10. ^ Nolan, David, Beatrix. The Gardening Life of Beatrix Farrand, 1872–1959. (Viking, Penguin Group,1995), p. 90. ISBN 978-0-670-83217-0
  11. ^ "Supplement to Max Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787". Yale University Press. Retrieved 2022-09-26.

Sources

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