author
Frederic L. (Frederic Logan) Paxson
1877–1948
A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the American frontier, this scholar helped shape how readers understood the West and the modern United States. His work combined big historical themes with a clear interest in how ordinary movement, migration, and expansion changed the nation.
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 leading American historians of his generation. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and also earned a master's degree from Harvard before building a career in teaching and research focused on U.S. history.
Paxson taught at the University of Wisconsin and later at the University of California, Berkeley. He was especially known for writing about the American West, the frontier, and recent American history, and he also served as president of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, a major professional organization for historians.
He won the Pulitzer Prize in History for History of the American Frontier, 1763–1893, a book that helped establish his reputation as an important interpreter of westward expansion. He died in 1948, but his books remain part of the long conversation about how the United States grew and changed.