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 higher le ...
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, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...
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
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 higher le ...
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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, 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
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{{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