Early Years and Education
Barker was born near Riverside in Walker County in east Texas. As a young man, he worked in the railroad shops in Palestine in Anderson County. When he arrived at UT as a student in 1895, he was still a night mail clerk for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Barker received the bachelor of arts and the master of arts from UT in 1899 and 1900, respectively. He procured his Ph.D. from the private University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin. He also studied at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and taught for a time there at Radcliffe College.
In 1940, Barker received an honorary LL.D. from Transylvania College in Lexington, Kentucky, the ‘’alma mater’’ of Stephen F. Austin, whom Barker considered to have been the most important person in Texas history. Barker was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta social fraternity.
Read more about this topic: Eugene C. Barker
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