
author
1878–1951
A leading American political scientist and historian, he helped shape how generations of students understood government, public opinion, and modern politics. His books and editorial work made big civic ideas readable and practical for a wide audience.

by Frederic Austin Ogg

by Frederic Austin Ogg
Born in Indiana in 1878, Frederic Austin Ogg became an influential scholar of political science and history in the United States. He studied at DePauw University and later earned advanced degrees at Harvard, building a career around the study of government, political institutions, and modern European history.
Ogg spent much of his professional life at the University of Wisconsin, where he taught political science and became widely known through his textbooks and reference works. He wrote and edited books on topics such as European development, national progress, and American government, and he also served for many years as editor of the American Political Science Review, one of the field's major journals.
Remembered for combining careful scholarship with clear explanation, he helped bring academic political science to a broader reading public. He died in 1951, leaving behind a body of work that reflects the growing importance of political science in American universities during the first half of the twentieth century.