Clarence Edwin Carter

Clarence Edwin Carter was an American historian, editor, author, and professor of history. The Library of Congress describes his papers as centering chiefly on his editorial career, and notes his work on the Illinois Historical Collections, The Territorial Papers of the United States, and The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage.

His name is most closely tied to The Territorial Papers of the United States, a major documentary series issued by the U.S. government. Catalog records note that he edited volumes 1 through 26 of the series, beginning in 1934, a project that helped bring together official records from the territorial period of many future U.S. states.

The surviving archival record suggests a career shaped by careful scholarship rather than public celebrity. His papers, now at the Library of Congress, include correspondence, reports, reviews, financial papers, transcripts, and family material, offering a picture of a historian deeply involved in the patient work of editing and preserving sources for others to use.