Obituary: C. Herman Pritchett, Political Science

C. Herman Pritchett (Ph.D.'37), Professor Emeritus in Political Science and an expert on constitutional law, died April 28 in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 88.

Pritchett joined the University faculty in 1940. He was Chairman of Political Science from 1948 to 1955 and again from 1958 to 1964. He became emeritus in 1966. Pritchett then joined the political science department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he taught until 1974.

He was the author of a dozen books, including The Roosevelt Court (1948), The American Constitution (1959), The American Constitutional System (1963) and several widely used textbooks on the Constitution and the American judicial system.

He received his A.B. in 1927 from Millikin University and his Ph.D. in 1937 from Chicago. He worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority and the U.S. Department of Labor before joining the University faculty. In addition to his appointment at Chicago, he was a visiting professor at Makerere University, Uganda, in 1963 and at Stanford in 1966.

Pritchett was president of the American Political Science Association from 1963 to 1964, and he was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is survived by his wife, Marguerite; a son, Philip; and two grandchildren.