Sydney E. Ahlstrom

Who was Sydney E. Ahlstrom?

Sydney Eckman Ahlstrom was an American historian. He was a Yale University professor and a specialist in the religious history of the United States.

Ahlstrom was born in Cokato, Minnesota, the son of Joseph T. and Selma Eckman Ahlstrom, who were Swedish Lutherans. He graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota with a B.A. degree in 1941, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He earned a master's degree at the University of Minnesota in 1946 and a Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1952. He was a Fulbright fellow at the University of Strasbourg, France, and an instructor at Harvard before joining Yale in 1954.

In 1973 he received the National Book Award in category Philosophy and Religion for A Religious History of the American People.

He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978. In 1979 he was awarded The Christian Century Award for the Decade's Most Outstanding Book on Religion.

At the time of his retirement from Yale in 1984 he held the position of Samuel Knight Professor of American History and Modern Religious History.