The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Carpenter, William Henry

CARPENTER, William Henry, American philologist: b. Utica, N. Y., 15 July 1853. He received a university education at Cornell and Johns Hopkins, and at Leipzig and Freiburg universities; became instructor in rhetoric and lecturer on North European literature in Cornell University in 1883; instructor of German and Scandinavian languages in Columbia University, 1883-89; assistant professor of Germanic languages and literature in the same institution, 1889-90; adjunct professor, 1890-95; and in 1895 professor of German philology there. Since 1912 he has been provost of the university. He is vice-president of the Germanistic Society of America and editor of the Germanistic Society Quarterly; and trustee and secretary of the Columbia University Press. He is a member of the Authors and Century Clubs of New York. He has published several works in the line of his specialty, and has contributed largely to dictionaries and encyclopedias and to magazines and reviews.