Born in Queens, New York City, on December 24, 1916, McCormick moved with his family to Tenafly, New Jersey.[1] He graduated from Tenafly High School in 1933, and was encouraged to apply for college by a typing teacher in his senior year. He had not planned on attending college and had been in enrolled in a "general curriculum" that lacked the required courses he needed to apply for college. During a post-graduate year at Tenafly High School, he completed the four years of math courses he needed to be eligible for college enrollment.[2]
McCormick was chair of the Rutgers College history department from 1966 to 1969 and dean of Rutgers College from 1974 to 1977. In 1971, he chaired a committee on coeducation at Rutgers College (which had previously admitted men only) and in 1969 he chaired a special faculty committee to address issues raised by African-American students at Rutgers.
McCormick retired from teaching in 1982.
McCormick was instrumental in the establishment of several influential historical organizations, including the New Jersey Historical Commission, the New Jersey State Historical Records Advisory Board and the New Jersey Tercentenary Commission, and served as research adviser to Colonial Williamsburg, and as a member of the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission.
His books The Second American Party System: Party Formations in the Jacksonian Era (1966) and Rutgers: A Bicentennial History (1966) received the biennial book prize from American Association for State and Local History in 1965 and 1968, respectively. In 2002, McCormick was recognized with the Award for Scholarly Distinction from the American Historical Association.
McCormick died on January 16, 2006, in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, at the age of 89 following an extended illness. He was the father of two children, Dorothy (b. 1950), and Richard Levis McCormick (b. 1947), who was the 19th president of Rutgers University. After Richard L. McCormick became a history professor at Rutgers in the mid-1970s, the two McCormicks taught at least one history course together on American political history.
The History of Voting in New Jersey: A Study of the Development of Election Machinery, 1664-1911. Rutgers University studies in history, v. 8. New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press. 1953. LCCN54007430. OCLC906074787.
New Jersey from Colony to State, 1609-1789 (1st ed.—Princeton, New Jersey: Van Nostrand, 1964; 2nd ed.—New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1970). ISBN0-8135-0662-X
The Second American Party System: Party Formations in the Jacksonian Era (Chapel Hill, North Carolina:University of North Carolina Press, 1966). ISBN0-8078-0977-2
Rutgers: A Bicentennial History (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1966). ISBN0-8135-0521-6
The Selected Speeches of Mason Welch Gross with Richard Schlatter. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1980). ISBN0-87855-388-6
The Presidential Game: The Origins of American Presidential Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982). ISBN0-19-503455-4
The Case of the Nazi Professor with David M. Oshinsky and Daniel Horn (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1989). ISBN0-8135-1427-4
The Black Student Protest Movement at Rutgers (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1990). ISBN0-8135-1575-0
McCormick, Katheryne C., ed. (1994). Equality Deferred: Women Candidates for the New Jersey Assembly, 1920-1993. New Brunswick, N.J: Center for the American Woman and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. OCLC32677532.
References
^Pallone, Frank. "In Recognition of Dr. Richard P. McCormick", Congressional Record, Volume 152, Part 1, February 14, 2006. Accessed May 11, 2017. "Born December 14, 1916, in Queens, New York, Richard Patrick McCormick moved to Tenafly, New Jersey, and attended Rutgers College, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1938."
^Birkner, Michael J. McCormick of Rutgers: Scholar, Teacher, Public Historian, p 3. Accessed May 11, 2017. "Never having considered that he might aspire to a college education, McCormick followed the 'general curriculum' at Tenafly High School."
^"Richard P. McCormick: 89, father of the Rutgers president", History News Network, January 18, 2006. Accessed September 4, 2019. "After living most of his adult life in Piscataway, Dr. McCormick moved with his wife Katheryne to Bridgewater in Somerset County in 2003."
Sources
Birkner, Michael J. McCormick of Rutgers: Scholar, Teacher, Public Historian (Greenwood Press, 2001). ISBN0-313-30356-8