author
Samuel N. (Samuel Northrup) Harper
1882–1943
A pioneering American scholar of Russia, he helped bring Russian history, language, and politics into the mainstream at the University of Chicago. His work also made him one of the best-known U.S. interpreters of revolutionary Russia and the early Soviet period.
1 Audiobook
The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement
by Alexander Petrunkevitch, Frank Alfred Golder, Samuel N. (Samuel Northrup) Harper, Robert Joseph Kerner
About the author
Born in Chicago on April 9, 1882, Samuel Northrup Harper became an important early American specialist on Russia. He was the son of William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, and he went on to build his own career there as a historian and scholar of Slavic studies.
University of Chicago sources describe him as the first American to devote an academic career to the study of Russia, and as a professor of Russian language and institutions. His research, teaching, and public commentary helped establish Russian studies at Chicago, while his knowledge of the Russian Revolution and the early Soviet state made him a widely recognized interpreter of events that many Americans were struggling to understand.
Harper died on January 18, 1943. He is remembered both for his own scholarship and for helping create a lasting place for Russian studies in American academic life.