Silas Marcus MacVane (Macvane) (June 4, 1842 – January 19, 1914) was a Canadian-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 ...

, the

McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History The McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History is a senior professorship at Harvard University. It was endowed by the will of wealthy merchant John McLean. The first McLean Professor was Jared Sparks who held the chair between 1838 and 1849; h ...

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 high ...

starting in 1887 after the death of Ephraim Whitman Gurney (1829-1886).books.google.com
/ref> He was a professor at Harvard from 1873 until 1911. MacVane was born in the town of

Bothwell Bothwell is a conservation village in the South Lanarkshire council area of Scotland. It lies on the north bank of the River Clyde, adjacent to Uddingston and Hamilton, east-south-east of Glasgow city centre. Description and history An anc ...

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has several nicknames: "Garden of the Gulf", ...

. He received his undergraduate degree from

Acadia College Acadia University is a public, predominantly undergraduate university located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada, with some graduate programs at the master's level and one at the doctoral level. The enabling legislation consists of the Acadi ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native En ...

in 1865. From 1865 until 1870 he taught at a school in Nova Scotia, then studied at

in 1871-1873 under

Henry Adams Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918) was an American historian and a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. Presidents. As a young Harvard graduate, he served as secretary to his father, Charles Fran ...

, who instilled in him a love for scientific history. He joined the faculty of Harvard in 1875 in the department of

political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

, but transferred to the history department in 1878. MacVane's main focus of study was modern political history of both the United States and European countries. He was a frequent contributor to ''

The Quarterly Journal of Economics ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Oxford University Press for the Harvard University Department of Economics. Its current editors-in-chief are Robert J. Barro, Lawrence F. Katz, Nathan ...

''. One of his most popular books was ''Working Principles of Political Economy'' (1890; 4th ed., 1897). Both Presidents Roosevelt have been attending History course by Professor MacVane at Harvard. MacVane was the father of Dorothea Alastair MacVane. He died in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

in 1914, shortly before the start of

WWI World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

References

Sources

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (born Lawrence Joshua Chamberlain, September 8, 1828February 24, 1914) was an American college professor from Maine who volunteered during the American Civil War to join the Union Army. He became a highly respected and ...

, John de Witt and

John Howard Van Amringe John Howard Van Amringe (April 3, 1836 – September 10, 1915) was an American educator and mathematician. Life and career Van Amringe was born in Philadelphia on April 3, 1835. He was a son of William Frederick Van Amringe (1791–1873) and S ...

.''Universities and Their Sons: History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities, with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees'' (R. Herndon Company, 1899), p. 18.
Jan. 17, 1911 article from ''Harvard Crimson'' on MacVane's resignation
{{DEFAULTSORT:MacVane, Silas 1842 births Canadian emigrants to the United States American historians 1914 deaths Harvard University alumni Harvard University faculty Harvard University Department of History faculty