Caroline Farrar Ware (1899-1990) was a professor of history at American University and a New Deal activist. Ware received her A.B. from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie in 1920, her A.M. from Radcliffe College, a women's college associated with Harvard University in 1924, and her Ph.D. in 1925. Ware was an associate professor of history at Vassar from 1925-1930 and from 1932-1934. She taught social science at Sarah Lawrence College from 1935-1937, and was an associate professor at American University from 1936-1940, a lecturer at the American University School of Social Sciences and Public Affairs from 1940-1954, and a professor at the Howard University School of Social Work from 1945-1961. Ware edited the influential book The Cultural Approach to History (1940), which featured distinguished historians such as Merle Curti, Ray Allen Billington, Constance Green and Ralph Gabriel. The cultural approach involved shifting the focus of historical analysis away from institutions and elites toward social realities among Americans, placing heavy emphasis on social and economic context and explicitly recognizing the diminishing roles of individuals in the modern industrial world. It also stressed the interdependence of social, economic, and cultural forces.
