John "Jack" Lovell Thomas (28 October 1926 – June 11, 2005) was the George L. Littlefield Professor of American History at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, Rhode Island, USA. He entered

Bowdoin College Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...

, Maine in 1944 to study history. He then taught for a year at Washington Academy, East Machias, Maine before enrolling for a year at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, New York, where he was awarded an M.A. degree in 1950. He then taught for four years at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

, New York and for a further five at Brown University, where he received his Ph.D. After a further three years teaching at Harvard University he returned to Brown University as Littlefield Professor, remaining there until his retirement in 2002. He was awarded the 1964

Bancroft Prize The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas. It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, ...

for his biography of

William Lloyd Garrison William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he found ...

, ''The Liberator''. His other books include ''Alternative America'' and ''A Country in the Mind''. He benefitted from a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1966 and was a

Woodrow Wilson Fellow The Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly known as the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation) is a nonpartisan, non-profit based in Princeton, New Jersey that aims to strengthen American democracy by “cultivating the talent, ideas, ...

in 1982. He was married with one son and one daughter.

References

1926 births 2005 deaths Brown University alumni American historians of education Harvard University faculty Brown University faculty Academics from Portland, Maine Historians from Maine Bowdoin College alumni Columbia University alumni {{US-historian-stub