Merrill Monroe Jensen (July 16, 1905 in Elk Horn, Iowa – January 30, 1980 in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th ...

) was an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

, whose research and writing focused on the ratification of the

United States Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the natio ...

. His historical interpretations are generally considered to be of the "Progressive School" of American history, the most famous exponent of which was

Charles A. Beard Charles Austin Beard (1874–1948) was an American historian and professor, who wrote primarily during the first half of the 20th century. A history professor at Columbia University, Beard's influence is primarily due to his publications in the f ...

. Jensen was a professor of history at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

(1935–1944), where he was editor of

Pacific Northwest Quarterly ''Pacific Northwest Quarterly'' (commonly referred to as ''PNQ'') is a peer-reviewed academic journal of history that publishes scholarship relating to the Pacific Northwest of the United States, including Alaska, and adjacent areas of western Can ...

, and the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

(1944–1976).

Life

Born in Iowa, Jensen took a job as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large po ...

upon graduating from high school. In 1929 he earned a bachelor's degree at the

. He completed a Ph.D. at the

in 1934, under the guidance of

William B. Hesseltine William Best Hesseltine (February 21, 1902 – December 8, 1963) was an American historian and politician who became the Socialist Party candidate for U.S. president in 1948. As a historian and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madi ...

. Except for a short stint as a historian for the

Army Air Corps Army Air Corps may refer to the following army aviation corps: * Army Air Corps (United Kingdom), the army aviation element of the British Army * Philippine Army Air Corps (1935–1941) * United States Army Air Corps (1926–1942), or its p ...

in 1944, his career was spent at his undergraduate and graduate alma maters. He was appointed

Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History The Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professorship is an endowed chair in American history at the University of Oxford, tenable for one year. The Harmsworth Professorship was established by Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere (1868–194 ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in 1949-1950. He and his wife Genevieve Margaret Privet had one daughter. He died in

, on January 30, 1980.

Views

Jensen viewed the American Revolution was "an internal revolution carried on by the masses of the people against the local aristocracy."allthingsliberty.com
/ref> His early scholarship challenged the "consensus" interpretation of the Constitutional ratification process, arguing that the

Articles of Confederation The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 Colonies of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate (between July 1776 and November 1777) by ...

were a better expression of genuine democratic values than was the Constitution. The replacement of the Articles with the Constitution, Jensen argued, created a system of government that minimized the influence of radical democracy rooted in local politics. From his reading of the documentary evidence, Jensen identified deep ideological conflicts among Americans at the time of the ratification. His later scholarship focused heavily on primary documents, and he edited a number of substantial document collections, including ''The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788-1790'' (launched in 1976 and completed in 1989 by his students Robert A. Becker and Gordon denBoer) and
The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
'' (launched in 1976 and as of 5 June 2018 filling 29 of a projected 31 volumes).

Books authored

*''The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774-1781'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 1940

*''The New Nation: A History of the United States during the Confederation, 1781-1789'' (1950
read online
*''The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763-1776'' (Oxford University Press, 1968

*''The American Revolution within America'' (New York University Press, 1974

Works edited

*''Regionalism in America'' (1951) *''

English Historical Documents '' English Historical Documents'' (''EHD'') is a series of publications of source material on English history by the academic publisher Eyre and Spottiswoode, now part of Oxford University Press. Some later volumes were published by Routledge. The ...

, Volume IX, American Colonial Documents to 1776'' (1955) *''The Making of the American Constitution'' (1964) *''Tracts of the American Revolution, 1763-1776'' (1967
read online
*''The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, Volume I, 1788-1790'' (1976), edited with Robert A. Becker

*
The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution
Vols. I-III:'', edited with John P. Kaminski and Gaspare J. Saladino.

References

External links