author

Marcus Lee Hansen

1892–1938

A pioneering historian of immigration, this Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar helped shape how Americans understand the movement of peoples across the Atlantic and into the United States. His work brought together deep research, broad historical vision, and a strong interest in the lives of ordinary immigrants.

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Old Fort Snelling, 1819-1858

Old Fort Snelling, 1819-1858

by Marcus Lee Hansen

About the author

Born in Neenah, Wisconsin, in 1892 to immigrant parents from Denmark and Norway, Marcus Lee Hansen grew up with a personal connection to the subject that would define his career. He studied at Central College in Iowa, earned a master's degree from the University of Iowa, and completed his PhD at Harvard, where he studied under historian Frederick Jackson Turner.

Hansen became a leading early scholar of immigration history and taught at the University of Illinois, where he served first as an associate professor and then as a professor of history. He spent years gathering material in Europe and the United States, building a reputation for careful, wide-ranging research on migration, settlement, and ethnic communities in America.

He died in 1938, but his influence only grew after his death. His book The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 was published posthumously and won the 1941 Pulitzer Prize for History, securing his place as one of the foundational voices in the study of immigration in American history.