author
Frederic L. (Frederic Logan) Paxson
1877–1948
A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who helped shape how readers understood the American frontier, he wrote with a broad view of the nation’s growth and the forces behind westward expansion.
2 Audiobooks
The Last American Frontier
by Frederic L. (Frederic Logan) Paxson
The New Nation
by Frederic L. (Frederic Logan) Paxson
About the author
Born in Philadelphia in 1877, Frederic Logan Paxson became one of the best-known American historians of his generation. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a master's degree at Harvard before building an academic career focused on American history, especially the West and the frontier.
Paxson taught at the University of Wisconsin and later at the University of California, Berkeley. His best-known book, History of the American Frontier, 1763–1893, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1925 and confirmed his reputation as a leading interpreter of the American past.
Alongside his teaching and writing, he also held an important professional leadership role as president of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, a major historical organization of its day. He died in Berkeley, California, in 1948, leaving behind a body of work that remained closely tied to the study of American expansion and national development.