J. Franklin Jameson
John Franklin Jameson (September 19, 1859 – September 28, 1937) was an American historian, author, and journal editor who played a major role in the professional activities of American historians in the early 20th century. He helped establish the A
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John Franklin Jameson (September 19, 1859 – September 28, 1937) was an American historian, author, and journal editor who played a major role in the professional activities of American historians in the early 20th century. He helped establish the American Historical Association.A Yankee, Jameson was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, the son of John Jameson, a schoolteacher, lawyer, and postmaster, and Mariette Thompson. He graduated from Amherst College in 1879 as class valedictorian, studying with John W. Burgess and Anson D. Morse. More influential was Herbert Baxter Adams, head of the department of history and political science at the Johns Hopkins University, where Jameson received the first doctorate in history in 1882. He became an instructor; his dissertation The Origin and Development of the Municipal Government of New York City was published in article form in 1882. He moved to Brown University as professor in 1888. One of his judgments has since gained currency as a proverbial saying. In The History of Historical Writing in America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1891), Jameson remarked that the third volume of George Bancroft's History of the United States, like the first two, "continued to vote for Jackson." Subsequent versions of this saying—e.g., that "every page of Bancroft's history votes for Jackson"—may be traced to this phrasing
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