In Memoriam: Peter Gay | Department of History

Contents:

• PETER GAY, HISTORIAN WHO EXPLORED SOCIAL HISTORY OF IAS, DI AT 91
• ALUMN, HISTORIAN PETER GAY DI AT AGE 91
• IN MEMORIAM: PETER GAY
• PETER GAY OBUARY
• PETER GAY

PETER GAY, HISTORIAN WHO EXPLORED SOCIAL HISTORY OF IAS, DI AT 91

Yee/The New York TimMay 12, 2015Peter Gay, a German-born historian whose sense of tellectual adventure led him to wre groundbreakg books on the Enlightenment, the Victorian middle class, Sigmund Frd, Weimar culture and the cultural suatn of Jews Germany, died on Tuday at his home Manhattan. He was ath was nfirmed by his stepdghter Elizabeth Gay, a refugee om Nazi Germany, voted his reer to explorg the social history of ias, a qut that took him far om his origal area of specializatn, Voltaire and the Enlightenment. Gay’s reputatn as one of the pre-ement historians of his generatn.

ALUMN, HISTORIAN PETER GAY DI AT AGE 91

Gay to tra at the Wtern New England Instute for Psychoanalysis and motivated him to wre a revisnist psychohistory of the Victorian middle class, “The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Frd, ” whose five volum were published the 1980s and 1990s. Gay were both assiated, nonrelig Jews nourished by and trapped a Germanic culture whose anti-Semic unrcurrents gathered strength around them.

Gay’s most personal and anguished historil wrg, notably the says “Frd, Jews and Other Germans” (1978) and the tobgraphil “My German Qutn: Growg Up Nazi Berl” (1998). Gay relled the pleasur of attendg the 1936 Olympics — spoiled only by the sight of Hler and Görg the stands — and the nfg mix of savage reprsn and tolerance that characterized life unr the Nazis until 1938. Gay was forced out of his school, and his father’s gentile partner appropriated the glassware bs.

Gay attend bs school and tght himself English by readg magaz like Time and Collier’s. Gay changed to s English graduatg om the Universy of Denver 1946, Mr.

IN MEMORIAM: PETER GAY

Gay entered Columbia Universy, where he earned a master’s gree history 1947 and a Ph.

Gay wrote “Voltaire’s Polics” a revisnist spir. Gay signaled a Frdian turn his terpretatn of history that was ratified by his formal psychoanalytic trag the 1970s. Gay’s Frdian tour of the 19th century long on lorful stanc but short on analytic rigor, suggtive rather than persuasive.

Gay’s nonil thkers. Gay remaed an unignorable historian long after his retirement. Gay received his Ph.

PETER GAY OBUARY

A rrectn was ma onMay 15, 2015: An obuary on Wednday about the historian Peter Gay referred imprecisely to the ship on which he and his fay left Germany 1939. Gay’s “The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Frd. ” They me out the 1980s and the 1990s, not jt the we handle rrectnsA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn A, Page 25 of the New York edn wh the headle: Peter Gay, Historian and Frd Bgrapher, Di at 91.

PETER GAY

Renowned tellectual historian Peter Gay — thor of more than 25 books, cludg a much-herald history of the Enlightenment and a btsellg bgraphy of Sigmund Frd — died on May 12, 2015, at the age of 91. A 1946 graduate of the Universy of Denver, Gay was born as Peter Fröhlich to a fay of Jewish anctry Berl 1923.

Wh the rise of the Nazis, the Fröhlichs emigrated to Cuba 1939 and later to the Uned Stat, where they changed their name to Gay, the English translatn of their surname. The fay eventually moved to Denver so that Gay’s mother uld be treated for tuberculosis.