Herschel Webb oral history interview

1979-05-11

Webb, Herschel; Mayo, Marlene J.

Oral history interview with Herschel Webb conducted by Marlene Mayo on May 11, 1979. Herschel Webb (1924 - January 8, 1983) was born in David City, Nebraska. He attended the University of Chicago before interrupting his studies to enter the Navy in 1943. In 1945, he reached the rank of officer and also became a student at the Oriental Language School, where he began studying Japanese. Once he was discharged in 1946, he was recruited by the Army as a civilian to go to Japan with Department of Army Civilians, arriving in late 1946. Once there, Webb was assigned to the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), where he worked as a translator, an editor, and a checker. While in Japan, he also taught English and English literature to Japanese high school students. He left Japan in 1948 and went back to the University of Chicago to get his bachelor’s in history, going on to receive his doctorate in Japanese history from Columbia University in 1958. He became a full professor at Columbia in 1974. During his career, he authored three books and became an authority on the Japanese emperors and imperial institutions. He had also served as the chairman of Columbia's department of East Asian languages and Cultures. In 1983, Herschel Webb passed away at the age of 58.

University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)

Oral histories

Japan--History--Allied occupation, 1945-1952

Japan; New York (N.Y.); Columbia University

Postwar Japan

Special Collections and University Archives

English

Collection may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the University of Maryland Libraries at http://www.lib.umd.edu/special/contact/home.

Recording: 01:58:00 (audiocassette; mp3); Transcript: 42 pages (PDF)

This oral history interview is part of the Marlene J. Mayo oral histories. A guide to the full collection of Marlene J. Mayo oral histories is available in our archival collections: http://hdl.handle.net/1903.1/42478.
Accession 2009-209-GWP
An interview transcript is available.

Filename: prange-087595