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Francis "Fritz" Jennings (1918 – November 17, 2000) was an American historian, best known for his works on the colonial history of the United States. He taught at Cedar Crest College from 1968 to 1976, and at the Moore College of Art from 1966 to 1968.[1]

Francis Jennings
Born	1918 (1918)[1] Pottsville, Pennsylvania, U.S.[1]
Died	November 17, 2000 (2000-11-18) (aged 82)[1]
Nationality	American
Other names	Fritz Jennings[1]
Alma mater	Temple University
Occupation	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]

Biography

Early life and education

Jennings was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania in 1918, just before the close of World War I. He grew up in a poor coal-mining town and enrolled at Temple University in the mid-1930s.[1] After graduating, he stayed in Philadelphia and taught high school English and social studies. He then married Joan Woollcott, and started a family.[1]

After the outbreak of World War II, Jennings served in the United States Army for four years, as the chief clerk of a headquarters unit stationed in England. After returning home from the war, earned a master's degree in education and two more children were born.[1]

Jennings earned a PhD in 1965 at the University of Pennsylvania.[1]

Career

Jennings was interested in American historiography and the influence of ideology in the case of Francis Parkman.[2] In 1956, he purchased a used set of his works. In his reading of Parkman he argued it contained a heavy strain of American exceptionalism or ideology and revisited Parkman's sources. The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture published his own work on colonial Indian relationships offered by Parkman in the Watergate-era titled Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest.[3]

Later life and death

Jennings spent his last years as the Senior Research Fellow at the Newberry 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]

Bibliography

Selected works

• The "Covenant Chain" trilogy:
  • The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest (1975)
  • The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire: The Covenant Chain Confederation of Indian Tribes with English Colonies (1984); New York: Norton.
  • Empire of Fortune (1990); W. W. Norton & Company [4][5]
• The Creation of America: Through Revolution to Empire (2000); New York: Cambridge University Press.
• The Founders of America (1993)

Articles and essays

• Jennings, Francis. "James Logan". American National Biography. 13:836–37. Ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-19-512792-7.

Further reading

• Everdell, William (October 1, 2000). "The Founding Villains". The New York Times. p. 27. Retrieved 2009-03-04.
• Peterson, Mark. "How (and Why) to Read Francis Parkman" Common-Place: The Journal of Early American Life (2002) online

References

External links

• Francis Jennings at the Organization of American Historians (OAH)
• Francis Jennings Papers at the Newberry Library

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