Albert E. (Albert Edward) McKinley

Albert Edward McKinley (September 11, 1870 – February 26, 1936) was an American historian and educator. Sources available during this search identify him as a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, a former dean of the Liberal Arts College at Temple University, and the first president of the organization that later became the National Council for the Social Studies.

A memorial notice from The Social Studies says he was born in Philadelphia, the son of Albert Barnes and Margaret Johnson McKinley, and that he graduated first in his class from Central Manual Training High School in 1888. That same notice describes a path from factory work and night school into academic life, suggesting a career built on persistence as much as talent.

Readers are most likely to know him through A School History of the Great War, a 1918 book written with Charles A. Coulomb and Armand J. Gerson. In its opening pages, McKinley is identified as Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and the preface explains that the book was prepared to turn an educational outline on the war into a readable history for students in grades seven and eight.