Paul Samuel Boyer

Paul Boyer, an influential scholar of religious history, died on March 17, 2012. After beginning undergraduate studies at Upland College in California, he worked for two years at the headquarters of the International Voluntary Work Camps in Paris and built homes in post-war Germany. He transferred to Harvard University where he completed his A.B., earning his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1966. Paul Boyer taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, from 1967 to 1980, moving to the University of Wisconsin in 1980. He retired in 2002 as the Merle Curti Chair Emeritus in American History. From 1993 to 2001, he also directed the Institute for Research in the Humanities. He was a visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, Northwestern University, and the College of William & Mary. His work centered on the impact of religion on American life and the topics of his books spanned the late seventeenth century witch trials in Salem to modern American culture. He was also a contributor to A History of the Book in America, Volume 4. A dedicated and generous scholar, colleagues remarked that the only topic that provoked his ire was the continual association of Orville and Wilbur Wright with Kitty Hawk. Although the Wright brothers did fly their plane for the first time in North Carolina, they hailed from Dayton, Ohio. Paul Boyer, a proud son of Dayton, made sure that fact was not forgotten.