Korean History Scholar, Professor Dies at 77

Edward Willet Wagner ’49, longtime Harvard professor and founder of the Korean Institute in 1981, died Dec. 7 of pneumonia and other complications from Alzheimer’s disease in Concord, Mass. He was 77.

Born in Cleveland, Wagner was drafted into the Army during his sophomore year as an undergraduate at Harvard. He served in Asia during the Second World War and then as a civilian adviser to the American military government in Korea from 1946 to 1948. He helped South Korea make the transition back to independence after existing under Japanese control for 35 years.

Wagner returned to Harvard and earned his bachelor’s degree in 1949. He continued his study of history and East Asian languages at the University, earning his master’s degree in 1951 and a Ph.D. in 1959. He joined the Harvard Faculty in 1958.

“He was very involved in the gathering of knowledge and very warm and generous to his students,” said his stepdaughter Sanghi Choi Wagner.

One of the leading scholars on pre-modern Korean history, Wagner was instrumental in fostering Korean studies at Harvard and around the United States. He was first acting chair and later chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in the 1960s and 1970s and director of the Korean Institute from 1981 until his retirement in 1993.

The major scholarly undertaking of Wagner’s career was the Munkwa Project, a detailed study of the 14,607 Korean men known to have passed the civil service examination during the Choson dynasty, which lasted from 1392 to 1910 C.E. Wagner used the records of this period to glean significant insights into the social and political dynamics of Korean society and to make the material more accessible to other scholars.

In 1975, Wagner published The Literati Purges: Political Conflict in Early Yi Korea, which analyzed the nature of the Korean monarchy and bureaucratic system early in the Choson dynasty.

For his work, Wagner was given two cultural awards by the Korean government and was often consulted by Koreans looking for information on their ancestors. He was also the recipient of numerous fellowships, including a Fulbright.

“He was an extraordinarily engaging and generous teacher and colleague, whose office door was always open,” said Carter Eckert, professor of Korean history and director of the Korean Institute, in the Harvard Gazette.

He is survived by his wife, Namhi Kim Wagner; two sons, Robert Camner and J. Christopher Wagner, both of Washington State; three stepdaughters, Yunghi Choi of Washington, D.C., and Sokhi Choi Wagner and Sanghi Choi Wagner, both of Manhattan; and a brother, John, of Brooklyn.

A memorial service will be held at Harvard in April.