Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1879, Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker became one of the best-known American historians of his generation. He earned both his BA and PhD from the University of Virginia, then joined Princeton University in 1910 after being called there by Woodrow Wilson.

At Princeton, he taught for nearly four decades, later serving as chair of the history department and eventually as Edwards Professor of American History. He was also appointed twice to the Harmsworth Professorship of American History at Oxford and served as president of the American Historical Association in 1947.

Wertenbaker is especially remembered for influential studies of colonial America, including Patrician and Plebeian in Virginia, Virginia Under the Stuarts, and The Planters of Colonial Virginia. His work helped define the study of early Virginia and colonial society for many readers and scholars in the twentieth century.