{{short description|American historian (born 1953)}} {{BLP sources|date=August 2009}} {{infobox person |name=James Merrell |birth_name=James Hart Merrell |birth_date={{birth year and age|1953}} |birth_place=Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S. |education=Lawrence University<br>Johns Hopkins University (PhD) |occupation=Historian |awards=Frederick Jackson Turner Award (1990)<br>Merle Curti Award (1990)<br>Bancroft Prize (1990, 2000) }} '''James Hart Merrell''' (born 1953 in Minnesota) is the Lucy Maynard Salmon Professor of History Emeritus at Vassar College. Merrell is primarily a scholar of early American history, and has written extensively on Native American history during the colonial era. He is one of only five historians to be awarded the Bancroft Prize twice.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.vassar.edu/faculty/emeriti/merrell|title=James H. Merrell, PhD - Faculty - Vassar College|website=www.vassar.edu|access-date=2023-12-02}}</ref>
== Education == Merrell was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota.<ref name=":0" /> He earned his undergraduate degree at Lawrence University and continued his studies at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lawrence.edu/info/offices/ora/institutional-data/graduates-alumni-data|title=Student Outcomes {{!}} Lawrence University|website=www.lawrence.edu|access-date=2019-01-22}}</ref> He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1982.
== Career == Merrell was a Fellow at The Newberry Library Center for the History of the American Indian in Chicago and at the Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia. He has also received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,<ref name=":1" /> and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
He has taught at Vassar College since 1984, except for the 1998–1999 academic year, when he was a professor at Northwestern University.
== Awards == * 1991 Guggenheim Fellowship<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/james-h-merrell/|title=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation {{!}} James H. Merrell|language=en-US|access-date=2019-01-22}}</ref> * 1990 Frederick Jackson Turner Award, for ''The Indians' New World: Catawbas and their Neighbors from European Contact Through the Era of Removal '' * The Merle Curti Award from the Organization of American Historians * Bancroft Prize (twice) **1990 – ''The Indians' New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal'' **2000 – ''Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier'' * Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History for ''Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier''
== Bibliography == * {{Cite book| title=The Indians' New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal| publisher=UNC Press| year=1989| isbn=978-0-8078-1832-9| url=https://archive.org/details/indiansnewworld00merr}} * {{Cite book| title=Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the Pennsylvania Frontier| publisher=W. W. Norton & Company| year= 2000| isbn= 978-0-393-31976-7}} * {{Cite book|editor1=Peter C. Mancall |editor2=James Hart Merrell | publisher=Routledge | year= 2000 | isbn= 978-0-415-92375-0 | title=American encounters: natives and newcomers from European contact to Indian removal, 1500-1850}} * {{Cite book| title=Beyond the covenant chain: the Iroquois and their neighbors in Indian North America, 1600-1800|editor1=Daniel K. Richter |editor2=James H. Merrell| publisher=Penn State Press| year= 2003| isbn= 978-0-271-02299-4}} * {{Cite book| chapter=The Indians' New World: The Catawba Experience| title=The American Indian: past and present| editor=Roger L. Nichols| publisher=Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG| year=1986| isbn=978-0-394-35238-1| url=https://archive.org/details/americanindianpa00nich}} * {{Cite book| chapter=The Customes of Our Countrey: Indians and Colonialists in Early America| title=Diversity and unity in early North America| editor=Philip D. Morgan| publisher=Routledge| year=1993| isbn=978-0-415-08798-8| url=https://archive.org/details/diversityunityin0000unse}} * {{Cite book| chapter=Indian History During the English Colonial Era| title=A companion to Colonial America| editor=Daniel Vickers| publisher=Wiley-Blackwell| year= 2003| isbn= 978-0-631-21011-5}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Merrell, James}} Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni Category:American Rhodes Scholars Category:Living people Category:1953 births Category:Vassar College faculty Category:Historians of the Southern United States Category:History of the Thirteen Colonies Category:Lawrence University alumni Category:Northwestern University faculty Category:Historians from Minnesota Category:Bancroft Prize winners