Martin Duberman Biography

Historian and playwright Martin Bauml Duberman is a prolific, creative talent who has published and produced significant work. Known as a radical scholar and activist, he was born to Joseph M. Duberman, a dress manufacturer, and Josephine Duberman in New York City and grew up in the suburb of Mount Vernon. In 1948, he graduated from the Horace Mann School. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University in 1952 and master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1953 and 1957, respectively. After teaching American history at Yale from 1957 until 1962, he joined the history department at Princeton University. In 1971, he accepted an appointment as Distinguished Professor of History at Lehman College, City University of New York.

Duberman is renowned in academia as a historian and in literature and the theater as a playwright. He also has conducted research in nineteenth century American social and intellectual history, radical social movements, the history of gender roles, and sexual ideology and behavior. He has a particular interest in the gay rights and Civil Rights movements and has written extensively on both.

Of particular interest are the Martin B. Duberman Papers, which contain manuscripts, typescripts, drafts of his writings, professional and personal correspondence, organization and topical files, recorded interviews, photographs, films and memorabilia which date from his childhood through 1979. Duberman is a noted...