Frederick Merk (August 15, 1887 – September 24, 1977) was an American historian. He taught at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

from 1924 to 1956.

Biography

Frederick Merk was born in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...

in 1887. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1911 and then worked for five years at the

Wisconsin Historical Society The Wisconsin Historical Society (officially the State Historical Society of Wisconsin) is simultaneously a state agency and a private membership organization whose purpose is to maintain, promote and spread knowledge relating to the history of N ...

. In 1916 he went to

to study under

Frederick Jackson Turner Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861 – March 14, 1932) was an American historian during the early 20th century, based at the University of Wisconsin until 1910, and then Harvard University. He was known primarily for his frontier thes ...

. Upon Turner's retirement in 1924, Merk took up his position with Turner's support. He taught at Harvard until 1956, and oversaw several dozen graduate students.

Scholarly impact

John Morton Blum John Morton Blum (; April 29, 1921 – October 17, 2011) was an American historian, active from 1948 to 1991. He was a specialist in 20th-century American political history, and was a senior advisor to Yale officials. Life and career Blum was bo ...

, one of Merk's graduate students after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, recalled of his mentor that Merk emphasized integrity, "an integrity of mind and process, of the way in which to understand and to write history, an integrity by his standards so severe that perhaps no one of his students could ever achieve it, but a quality he made so important that all of them would try."Blum, A Celebration of Frederick Merk, 448.

Bibliography

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Merk, Frederick 1887 births 1977 deaths Writers from Milwaukee 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers Harvard University faculty Harvard University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Historians of American foreign relations Historians of the United States Writers from Massachusetts Historians from Wisconsin 20th-century American male writers