After three years at Oberlin College, Richard Amacher went to Ohio University, where he received his AB degree in 1939. From 1939 to 1942, he attended the University of Chicago, studying Old English and neo-Aristotelian criticism in his spare time and taking an advanced course in Franklin under Clarence Faust. In 1944 he took his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh. He taught at Carnegie Tech, at Yale, and served as a member of the English faculty at Rutgers University.
Mr. Amacher contributed articles to American Literature, New England Quarterly and Explicator. His hobby was playing second violin in "a good amateur string quartet." Mr. Amacher passed away in 2015.