Robert F. Berkhofer Jr.

Robert F. Berkhofer Jr.
Name	Robert F. Berkhofer Jr.
Birth date	1929
Death date	2012
Occupation	Historian, Professor
Employer	University of Wisconsin–Madison, Colgate University
Alma mater	Colgate University, Columbia University, Princeton University

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Robert F. Berkhofer Jr. was an American historian specializing in Native American history and the intellectual history of American historiography. He served as a faculty member at several institutions including Colgate University and University of Wisconsin–Madison, producing influential works that engaged with scholars across disciplines including Francis Parkman, Frederick Jackson Turner, and Richard White. His scholarship intersected debates involving American Indian Wars, Manifest Destiny, and interpretations by figures such as Henry Nash Smith and Carl Becker.

Early life and education

Berkhofer was born in the era of the Great Depression and came of age during the aftermath of World War II when debates over Cold War intellectual culture shaped many academic careers. He completed undergraduate studies at Colgate University and pursued graduate training at Columbia University and Princeton University, where he encountered mentors and contemporaries associated with traditions traced to Charles A. Beard, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and C. Vann Woodward. His dissertation work placed him in conversation with scholarship linked to Frederick Jackson Turner and historiographical currents influenced by Progressive Era historians and critics such as Merle Curti.

Berkhofer held appointments at institutions including Colgate University and University of Wisconsin–Madison, contributing to departments that counted colleagues like William Cronon and interlocutors connected to the networks of Jared Diamond and Richard Slotkin. He participated in conferences alongside scholars from Smithsonian Institution, American Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians, and he engaged editorially with journals connected to Oxford University Press and University of California Press. His academic trajectory reflected intersections with administrative histories involving universities such as Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University where debates over the canon involved figures like Samuel Eliot Morison.

Berkhofer's scholarship addressed representations of Indigenous peoples in American history, dialoguing with primary and secondary sources connected to events like the Trail of Tears, the Wounded Knee Massacre, and broader currents including Manifest Destiny and the historiography of the American West. His major books examined portrayals produced by writers from Francis Parkman to Mark Twain and critics such as Henry Adams and John L. O'Sullivan. He advanced arguments responding to interpretations by Richard White, Patricia Nelson Limerick, and E. P. Thompson, reframing narratives that had been influenced by Frederick Jackson Turner and later revised by scholars like Bernard DeVoto and Walter Prescott Webb. His analyses often intersected with archival materials associated with repositories such as the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, and regional collections tied to New York Historical Society and Wisconsin Historical Society.

As a professor at Colgate University and University of Wisconsin–Madison, Berkhofer advised graduate students who went on to work in departments including University of Michigan, University of California, Berkeley, and University of Minnesota. He taught surveys that engaged primary texts by authors like James Fenimore Cooper and John Smith, and he supervised dissertations that conversed with scholarship by Richard Hofstadter, E. H. Carr, and Gerda Lerner. His classroom practice drew comparisons to pedagogical approaches championed at institutions such as Princeton University and Columbia University, and he contributed to curricular committees interacting with organizations like the American Council of Learned Societies.

During his career Berkhofer received recognition from learned societies including the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association, and his publications were cited by prize committees associated with Pulitzer Prize–level scholarship and awards administered by Modern Language Association affiliates. He was invited to lecture at centers such as Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Chicago, and his work was reprinted or translated in venues connected to Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.

Berkhofer's work influenced subsequent generations of scholars concerned with Native American studies and the historiography of the United States, informing conversations alongside historians like Vine Deloria Jr., Philip J. Deloria, and Colin G. Calloway. His legacy is visible in collections at institutions including the Library of Congress and the Wisconsin Historical Society, and his critiques contributed to reassessments advanced by scholars associated with Native American and Indigenous Studies Association and programs at University of Arizona and University of New Mexico. He is remembered among peers from Colgate University and University of Wisconsin–Madison as a figure who bridged archival research and interpretive debates involving canonical authors such as Francis Parkman and Mark Twain.

Category:American historians Category:Native American studies scholars