Dexter Perkins (June 20, 1889 – May 12, 1984) was an American historian who served asProfessor andChairman of the Department ofAmerican History at theUniversity of Rochester, before leaving forCornell.

Born inBoston, and educated atBoston Latin School, Perkins received his A.B. (1909) andPhD (1914) fromHarvard University, where he was admitted toPhi Beta Kappa. In his doctoral studies,Archibald Cary Coolidge was a formative influence.^[1]

Perkins's first job was at theUniversity of Cincinnati, where he taughtancient history,British history, andinternational law in 1914–1915.^[2] The following year, he took a position at the University of Rochester.

Perkins was drafted inWorld War I, and entered service in June 1918. He joined the87th Division, and shortly after it arrived inFrance he was commissioned as afirst lieutenant and sent toChaumont, where theAmerican Expeditionary Force had its headquarters. Perkins was assigned to the historical section, where he found a former teacher of his from Harvard and others whom he had known from Harvard.^[3]

Upon his return to civilian life in July 1919, Perkins resumed his appointment at the University of Rochester, where he remained on the faculty until 1953. In 1925, he became chair of the history department. From 1928 to 1932, Perkins was secretary to theAmerican Historical Association, succeeded byConyers Read. In 1945, he was the first to holdCambridge University’sPitt Professor of American History and Institutions.^[4] Dr. Perkins was also theJohn L. Senior Professor of American Civilization atCornell University from 1954 to 1959. He was a former visiting professor at theUniversity of London andCambridge University.

Perkins was the official US historian at the 1945United Nations Conference on International Organization inSan Francisco that preceded the organization of theUnited Nations. From 1950 to 1951, he served as the first president of theSalzburg Global Seminar, anon-profit organization based inSalzburg,Austria, whose mission is to challenge current and future leaders to develop creative ideas for solving global problems. As president of theAmerican Historical Association in 1956, he delivered an address that emphasized the importance of teaching alongsidescholarly research at universities. His sonBradford was a notable historian in his own right.

Perkins was the author ofA History of theMonroe Doctrine,America and Two Wars, andThe Evolution of American Foreign Policy. Perkins co-authored with Glyndon G. Van Deusen (also of the University of Rochester)The United States of America: A History. The two-volume work was published in 1962.

• The American Approach to Foreign Policy (Harvard University Press, 1952)
• The New Age ofFranklin Roosevelt, 1932–1945 (Chicago History of American Civilization, 1957)
• The American Way (Great Seal Press, 1957)

• Phi Beta Kappa (1909)
• Inaugural Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions (1945)
• President, American Historical Association (1956)

• Salzburg Global Seminar

• 20th-century American historians
• 20th-century American male writers
• Cornell University faculty
• 1984 deaths
• 1889 births
• Historians of American foreign relations
• Academics of the University of Cambridge
• University of Rochester faculty
• Harvard University alumni
• University of Cincinnati faculty
• United States Army personnel of World War I
• Presidents of the American Historical Association
• American male non-fiction writers

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles with hCards