Frederic Bancroft

Frederic Bancroft (* October 30, 1860 in Galesburg ( Illinois), † February 22, 1945 in Washington DC) was an American historian.

Life

Bancroft graduated from Amherst College with a bachelor 's degree and received his doctorate at Columbia University. After a year as a lecturer at Columbia University, he was librarian from 1888 to 1892 in the State Department. Later, he regularly gave lectures at Columbia University.

Bancroft dealt primarily with the history of slavery in the southern states, and wrote a biography of William H. Seward. His book on the history of slavery contained originary material that he received from interviews with former slaves and correspondence with stakeholders. It showed the exploitative and inhumane practices of slavery ( separation of families, breeding of slaves ) that served the economic interests of the slaveholders in the first place. He disagrees with previously held views of other historians ( such as Ulrich Bonnell Phillips).

He was active in the American Historical Association and the reform of 1915., The Bancroft Prize for historians of Columbia University is named after him.

His brother Edgar Bancroft (1857-1925) was U.S. Ambassador to Japan.

Writings

• Slave Trading in the Old South, Baltimore: Furst 1931, reprints 1959 ( New York: Ungar, Foreword by Allan Nevins ), 1996 ( University of South Carolina Press, Foreword by Michael Tadman )
• A sketch of the Negro in politics, Especially in South Carolina and Mississippi, New York: JF Pearson 1885
• Life of William H. Seward, 2 vols, New York, London: Harper and Brothers, 1900, Volume 1, Volume 2
• Calhoun and the South Carolina nullification movement, Johns Hopkins Press 1928

1907/8 he was the memories of Carl Schurz out (New York: McClure ) and 1913 whose speeches, political work and letters ( 3 volumes).