Published on Tuesday, September 2

Franklin L. Ford, a former dean of the Faculty who spent nearly 40 years as a prominent member of the history department, died on Sunday at a retirement home in Lexington, Mass., following complications from a stroke. He was 82.

During his tenure as dean, from 1962 to 1970, Ford navigated Harvard through tumultuous times, including the student takeover of University Hall, with his signature composure and tact.

As a professor, Ford was known for his understated style and generosity, as a mentor to many students, and as a model to his colleagues. His office hours in Widener had a waiting list.

As a scholar, Ford avoided specialization in a narrow field, conducting his research and teaching in several areas and time periods in Western European History. His efforts were rewarded with grants, accolades and prestigious fellowships.

In spite of the social turmoil that defined his deanship, Ford oversaw a period of great physical growth in Harvard’s history, authorizing the construction of the Science Center and Mather House, as well as the renovation of many buildings in Harvard Yard. In a 1968 profile in the Crimson, Ford was quoted as saying that his idea of improvement at Harvard was “doing more of some things without doing less of others.”

Friends and colleagues say Ford will be remembered as a tempering figure during contentious times at the University.

“He did what the great professors do—he was a great scholar and teacher. He was there all the time as a resource of advice and encouragement,” said Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, a history professor who earned his Ph.D. under Ford’s guidance.

Born in Waukeegan, Ill., in 1920, Ford graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He served in the United States Army Signal Corps and the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency, doing intelligence work in Germany, studying the German resistance and visiting the liberated concentration camp at Dachow.

Ford went on to get his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1948 and 1950, respectively, and taught at Bennington College from 1949 to 1952.

Ford first joined the Harvard faculty in 1953 as an assistant history professor specializing in 17th century France and modern Germany, although he quickly gained a reputation as a European historian with a broad area of expertise. He served as the Allston Burr Senior Tutor of Lowell House from 1956 to 1961. He received became a full professor in 1959 at the age of 39, and in 1968 was named McLean professor of ancient and modern history. Just three years later, he was named dean of the Faculty but continued to teach lecture and seminar courses for undergraduate and graduate students.

Kirby noted that Ford’s title reflected the breadth of his scholarship and the scope of his academic interest.

“He was a European historian who had interests ranging across French and German history in both the early and modern periods, which was very unusual in the post-World War II era, when historians increasingly specialized in one national history, and one period,” Kirby said.

Ford mentored some of today’s leading academic historians and wrote on diverse subjects ranging from Louis XIV to political assassination.

“I think [Ford’s] real strength was that, as the historical profession developed, there tended to be an emphasis on national histories, and he really didn’t do that—he wrote on multicultural concerns,” said Thomas C. Childers, Hackney professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, who studied under Ford from 1971 to 1976. “He was cosmopolitan and comparative, that was his strength.”

Ford was known for his meticulously organized lectures, delivered with his signature dry humor.

In fact, the only subject that could prompt Ford to stray from the topic of a lecture was his pet sport, baseball. Ford, who played baseball in high school and college, was an avid fan. According to his son, one of his greatest disappointments was that neither of his two favorite teams—the Chicago Cubs of his hometown and the Boston Red Sox of his adopted city—won the World Series during his lifetime.

As a scholar and professor, Ford received many awards and fellowships, including a Harvard Sheldon Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University and the American Philosophical Society.

He also wrote several books, including “Robe and Sword: The Regrouping of the French Aristocracy After Louis XIV,” “Strasbourg in Transition, 1648-1919,” “Europe, 1780-1830” and “Political Murder: From Tyrannicide to Terrorism.” When he died, he had written several chapters for a book on the Huguenots.

Despite all the accolades, Ford earned a reputation among his students as a private and modest teacher with a lean, yet erudite lecture style. He was known to offer tacit guidance rather than overbearing direction.

“[Ford] was the master of understatement,” Childers said. “When you went in to see him, it wasn’t so much what he said as what he didn’t say. All he had to do was raise an eyebrow.”

When then-Dean of the Faculty McGeorge Bundy announced his departure in December 1960, a long search for his successor ultimately culminated in the appointment of Ford in June 1962.

At the time, the campus was in a state of relative calm—the General Education system, put into place in the late 1940s, was running relatively smoothly under President Nathan M. Pusey '28. Harvard was expanding, grappling with competition from other rising institutions.

But the latent social turmoil of the 1960s was soon to erupt on college campuses across the nation—and Harvard was no exception. As the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war gathered momentum, Ford found himself at the helm of a faculty beset by social and political strife.

Faculty meetings were marked by heated debates on subjects ranging from the formation of an African-American studies department to the university’s position on the conflict in Vietnam. In addition to his duties as dean, Ford had to mediate the escalating disputes between faculty members, students and administrators, which he did with patience and forbearance.

"When one reads transcripts of interviews with Dean Ford during the time he was in University Hall, it's clear that he had a wonderful clarity about—and concern for—the undergraduate experience," said former Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles. "The troubles of the late 1960s were testing—and sometimes distressing—for everyone in the Harvard administration, and we can only be grateful that Franklin Ford generously gave us more than two decades after that, as a distinguished historian and teacher in the College."

His composure served him well when, in 1969, campus tensions reached a boiling point and student protestors took over University Hall. The last dean to leave the building during the student siege, Ford sat in his office and said: “I am prepared to remain in the building for as long as you like, to discuss things.”

During the occupation, students seized many of Ford’s documents, including correspondence with fellow deans and professors, some of which were printed in campus publications.

Stephen J. Ford ’69, the dean’s son, said that the stress of those tumultuous days had a harmful effect on his father, who suffered a mild stroke within a month after the University Hall takeover.

“I think he believed deeply in the traditional values of a university—freedom of expression and thought, a collegial search for understanding, rigorous scholarship and intense debate,” Stephen Ford said. “I think that was behind a lot of his disappointment with what happened at Harvard in those days. He was under an awful lot of strain.”

Stephen Ford said that despite his father’s anti-war stance the dean nevertheless considered the student uprising a “dangerous and destructive exercise that went against the fabric of the University.”

“He signed on to build a better faculty and curriculum, to advance work that he had begun earlier in his career to develop a broader and more diverse student body. He did not relish that time,” Stephen Ford said.

Though he tended to stay out of the political fray on campus, Ford spoke out against the Vietnam war in a Commencement speech in 1967, and was one of several top American educators to pay a visit to President Johnson that year to express concern for the repercussions of the war on foreign policy, the nation and higher education.

Despite the chaos that marked Harvard during the 1960s, Ford’s tenure was also a time of pronounced growth for Harvard.

“Many remember his time particularly because of 1969, with the occupation of University Hall and the great debates in the faculty on the Vietnam war,” Kirby said. “But we should also remember that he was dean for eight years and oversaw a great period of expansion—in many ways, he helped to create what is now modern Harvard.”

The most visible remnant of Ford’s deanship is the physical expansion he oversaw.

Ford also worked to expand Harvard’s student body. In 1960, he chaired a committee that recommended a diversification of Harvard students, and he worked tirelessly to broaden recruitment practices and provide more financial aid opportunities throughout his tenure as dean.

Indeed, Ford was a committee enthusiast—not only did he sit on several committees, including the Educational Policy Committee, during his 40 year career at Harvard, but he also authorized and presided over many as a dean. In 1964, Ford set up a committee to review and amend the 20-year-old General Education program. While he concluded that the system was still adequate, he helped to modernize the curriculum by allowing faculty members more freedom in their courses.

Ford retired in 1991, but remained a professor emeritus at the University.

Because of his non-confrontational style and willingness to listen, Ford commanded the respect of Harvard’s professors and students alike, earning a reputation as a diplomat rather than an agitator. Above all, he appeared to be a voice of reason in an era of upheaval, keeping a cool head despite the noise around him.

Ford is survived by his wife of 59 years, Eleanor R. Ford, two sisters, two sons and a granddaughter.

A memorial service will be held at Harvard in the fall, according to University officials.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. O’Brien can be reached at robrien@fas.harvard.edu.