Professor Pauline Maier,like
the great 19th century
American historian George
Bancroft and writers Julia Ward
Howe, Edward Everett Hale,
Owen Wister, and Clement
Clarke Moore, was a long-time
summer resident of Rhode
Island. Little Compton was her
retreat. She now joins these
luminaries and fellow authors in
the Rhode Island Heritage Hall
of Fame.
Pauline was born in 1938 as
Pauline Rubbelke in St. Paul,
Minnesota, where she attended
parochial schools. Her father was
a firefighter and her mother was
a homemaker with five children.
On entering Radcliffe (now part
of Harvard University) as an
undergraduate, her original
ambition was to be in the
newspaper business.
She was a writer on T^e
Harvard Crimson and worked
summers at the Quincy,
Massachusetts Patriot Ledger.
She graduated from Radcliffe
College in 1960 with a bachelors
degree in History and Literature.
While on the Cr~^^so^ staff she
met her future husband, Charles
S. Maier.
After graduation Pauline and
Charles attended schools in
England on fellowships. Upon
completing their studies, they
married and toured Europe
together. Then the couple
returned to Harvard to pursue
doctoral degrees, Charles in
European History and Pauline in
American studies. After earning
their Ph.D. degrees, Charles
(1938-2013)
began his career at Harvard.
Pauline taught at the
University of Massachusetts
Boston for nine years, and one
year at the University of
Wisconsin before taking her
position in Cambridge at the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 1978 as William
R. Kenan Jr. Professor of
American History. Her career
has included various
appointments at five prestigious
universities, and numerous
fellowships and awards.
Maier s best-known books
include A’mer’ican Scripture:
Mak^^g the Declarat~io^ of
L^nde’pe^de^ce (1997), a finalist
for the National Book Critics
Circle Award and Ratification:
The People Debate the
Constitution, 1787-1788 (2010),
winner of the George
Washington Book Prize. Both
works demonstrated the vitality
of local and state-level political
debates at the nations founding.
Both have received rave reviews
and high scholarly praise.
Paulines books were
intended for both general and
scholarly audiences, and she
invested additional effort in
furthering public understanding
of history. She wrote Tha American People:
A History (1986), a middle-school textbook
covering American history from
its beginnings through 1984. She
also co-authored a 2002 college
textbook, Inventing America: A
History of the United States.
In addition to her books and
textbooks, Pauline produced
more than 30 articles for
scholarly journals, edited other
publications, and wrote many
scholarly book reviews. In 1998,
Maier won MITS James R.
Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement
Award, which recognizes
extraordinary professional
accomplishment and is given to
only one faculty member each
year.
In 2012, the Center for the
Study of the American
Constitution dedicated volume 2
of its 3-volume Rhode Island
ratification set to Pauline as a
tribute to her work on this topic.
Sadly, on August 12, 2013
Pauline died in Cambridge,
Massachusetts after a long battle
with lung cancer. She is survived
by her three children and her
husband and partner Dr. Charles
Maier who receives this
induction today on Paulines
behalf.