Washington County ArArchives Biographies.....Thomas, David Yancey 
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Robert Sanchez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00027.html#0006574 July 29, 2009, 8:23 pm

Source: See Additional Comments Below
Author: S. J. Clarke (Publisher, 1922)

DAVID YANCEY THOMAS, Ph. D.
    David Yancey Thomas, Ph. D. educator and author, who is filling the chair of
history and political science in the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, was
born in Fulton county, Kentucky, January 19, 1872, his parents being James
Fuller and Eliza Ann (Ratliff) Thomas. He comes of Scotch-Irish, English and
German ancestry, but the family from whom he is descended has lived in America
from colonial days and its representatives have fought in the Revolutionary and
subsequent wars of the country. His grandmother in the maternal line was one of
the few pensioners of the War of 1812 at the time of her death, which occurred
in 1896.

    The public schools of Kentucky afforded Professor Thomas his early
educational privileges. He spent two years in preparatory work in Marvin College
at Clinton. Kentucky, and then matriculated at Emory College of Georgia, from
which he was graduated in 1S94 with the Bachelor of Arts degree. During his
student days he won several prizes and was also editor of the college magazine,
while in a class of thirty-five he won second position in scholarship. On
commencement day he delivered the salutatory in Greek and one of his prize
essays was afterward published in the Methodist Review of Nashville under the
title, The Origin of the English Drama.

    Following the completion of his college course Professor Thomas devoted two
years to public school teaching in Perote, Alabama, and Coleman, Georgia. He was
then awarded a scholastic fellowship in Vanderbilt University, which he held for
two years and on the completion of his course there he was awarded the Master of
Arts degree. Continuing his work in the educational field he filled the chair of
Latin and Greek in Hendrix College for three years and during that period he
decided to specialize in history and political science, so that he devoted the
long summer vacation periods to study along those lines in the University of
Chicago. In 1901 he was awarded a university fellowship in history at Columbia
University and spent a year as a member of the student body there, passing all
the examinations for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, but his thesis not being
quite ready for publication the degree was not formally awarded until the
following year, 1903.

    In September, 1902, Professor Thomas resumed his connection with Hendrix
College, accepting the chair of history and political science, which he filled
for three years. He next became identified with the University of Florida,
occupying a similar position for two years, when he resigned to become professor
of history and political science in the University of Arkansas.

    In the meantime, or on the 21st of June, 1905, Professor Thomas was married
to Miss Elizabeth Janney of Conway, Arkansas, and they have become parents of
two children: Mary Elizabeth and Albert Janney. Mrs. Thomas is a lady of liberal
culture. who was president of the University Club of Fayetteville in 1920 and is
now the president of the local missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal
church. Professor Thomas gives his entire time to teaching and writing and
through the latter connection has become most widely known. He is the author of
A History of Military Government in Newly Acquired Territory of the United
States, which was published in New York in 1904. He has written numerous
magazine articles on literary, educational, historical and political subjects.
In October, 1902, his article on The South and Her History, appeared in the
Review of Reviews and from July until October, 1905, there appeared in the South
Atlantic Quarterly a series of articles from his pen on The Development of the
Executive Prerogative. His Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in Modern
Society, was published in October, 1907, and an article on The Impending Crisis
Fifty Years After, was published in Uncle Remus Magazine in November, 1907. His
other writings include A Forgotten Work of Victor Hugo, published by the
Methodist Review in January, 190S; The Law of Impeachment in the United States,
appearing in the American Political Science Review in May, 1908; A Year of Bench
Labor Law, published in the Political Science Quarterly in March, 1909; The Need
of Agricultural Education in the South, in the Annals of the Academy of Social
and Political Science in January, 1910; and he was one of the contributors to
The South, in Building of the Nation, to the Cyclopedia of American Government,
and to the Encyclopedia Americana (1919). His Next Step in Railway Legislation,
appeared in the Unpopular Review of 1917 and an article on The Land and the
People appeared in the Nation in January. 1920. He also wrote an article on
Filling the Coal Bin, which appeared in the Independent in January. 1918. and he
is the author of Syllabus on Studies in Citizenship, published by the general
extension department of the University of Arkansas; also Reorganization of State
Government with Special Reference to Arkansas. He also published Commerce,
Concession and War, in the South Atlantic quarterly in April, 1921. While in the
University of Florida Professor Thomas prepared reports on the Florida archives
for the annual report of the American Historical Association. The Carnegie
Institution also engaged him to wrile a history of banking in Florida and a
history of the free negro in that state before 18f,5. He belongs to the American
Historical Association, to the Arkansas Historical Association, the American
Political Science Association, the Arkansas Educational Association, the
Southwestern Political Science Association, of which he is the vice president,
the University Commission on Race Relations and the Delta Tau Delta fraternity.
Aside from his connection with the Arkansas State University he has been a
member of the summer faculty of Peabody College for Teachers at Nashville,
Tennessee, and practically his entire time is devoted to teaching and
authorship. Fraternally he is a Mason, politically, a democrat and religiously,
a Methodist. These connections indicate the nature of his interests outside of
professional life. His studies and researches have resulted in valuable
contribution to the world's work and the University of Arkansas has reason to be
congratulated upon having at the head of its history and political science
department a man as capable as David Yancey Thomas.


Additional Comments:
Citation:
Centennial History of Arkansas
Volume II
Chicago-Little Rock: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1922



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