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Charles Fanning

American historian

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ5077596 ↗
Source-derived summary

Charles F. Fanning, Jr. is an American historian and academic.

Life

He grew up in Norwood, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1964, with a master's in 1966. From the University of Pennsylvania with a master's and doctoral degrees, in 1968 and 1972.

He taught at Bridgewater State College, and at Southern Illinois University Carbondale from 1993 to 2007. He and his wife, Frances, live in St. Louis, Missouri. They have two children, Stephen, born in 1982 and Ellen, born in 1984.

A Medal and Lecture in Irish Studies are named for him.

Editorial summary

“Charles Fanning” enters the record as american historian. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Charles, Fanning and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1964, 1966, 1968, 1972—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1942-11-11, 1942-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Charles, Fanning and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Charles Fanning” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Charles, Fanning and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5077596. VIAF identifies the subject as 7476774. The Library of Congress control number is n79034578. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1966, 1968 and 1972.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Charles Fanning”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Charles Fanning primary sources, Charles Fanning archive and Charles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Charles Fanning”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Charles Fanning” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.