The Historical Methodology of John Tracy Ellis

John Tracy Ellis, the dean of American Catholic historians of the mid- to late-twentieth century, never published a treatise on historical methodology, but did write about the subject when faced with the most difficult challenge of his academic career. In 1960, David Francis Sweeney, Ellis's student at The Catholic University of America, unearthed allegations that John Lancaster Spalding, bishop of Peoria, had conducted a sexual affair for nearly twenty years. In numerous letters, Ellis and Sweeney agonized about how to handle this information. Neither Ellis nor Sweeney believed the accusation was true, but both recognized that it had influenced Spalding's career, which was the focus of Sweeney's dissertation. Ellis concluded that Spalding's story should not be told in full, yet set the stage for future historians not only to revisit Spalding's career but also to explore Ellis's deliberations, and thus to reconsider what he routinely had encouraged—telling the whole truth.