Francis Jennings | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1918 (1918)[1] Pottsville, Pennsylvania, U.S.[1] |
| Died | November 17, 2000 (2000-11-18) (aged 81)[1] |
| Other names | Fritz Jennings[1] |
| Alma mater | Temple University |
| Occupation(s) | Historian, author |
| Organization(s) | Cedar Crest College (1968-1976)[1] Moore College of Art (1966-1968)[1] D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History (director) |
| Known for | The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (1975)[1] The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire (2000)[1] |
| Spouse | Joan Woollcott[1] |
Francis Paul "Fritz"Jennings (1918 – November 17, 2000) was an American historian, best known for his works on thecolonial history of the United States. He taught atCedar Crest College from 1968 to 1976, and at theMoore College of Art from 1966 to 1968.[1]
Jennings was born inPottsville, Pennsylvania, in 1918, just before the close ofWorld War I. He graduated fromPottsville High School in 1935 andTemple University in 1939.[1][2] After graduating from Temple University, he stayed in Philadelphia and taught high school English and history atFranklin High School.[2] He then married Joan Woollcott, and started a family.[1]
After the outbreak ofWorld War II, he joined theUnited States Army in 1942 and attended basic training inFort Eustis, Virginia.[2] He was then transferred the 231 Station Hospital atCamp Atterbury, Indiana, then to England in 1943, where he was the chief clerk of a headquarters unit.[2] He became a sergeant.[2] After returning home from the war, earned a master's degree in education and two more children were born.[1] Jennings was a teacher in Philadelphia and served as the last president of Local 192 of theAmerican Federation of Teachers before the local was purged for its connections to the Communist Party USA and replaced by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.[3]
Jennings earned a PhD in 1965 at the University of Pennsylvania.[1]
Jennings was interested in American historiography and the influence of ideology in the case ofFrancis Parkman.[4] In 1956, he purchased a used set of his works. In his reading of Parkman he argued it contained a heavy strain ofAmerican exceptionalism or ideology and revisited Parkman's sources. TheOmohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture published his own work on colonial Indian relationships offered by Parkman in the Watergate-era titledInvasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest.[5]
Jennings spent his last years as the Senior Research Fellow at theNewberry Library of Chicago and earlier as the director of the Newberry Library's D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History. He died on November 17, 2000, after a long illness.[1]
The union's last president, Francis 'Fritz' Jennings, became a lauded historian.
