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Jon H. Roberts

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 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ30122520 ↗
Source-derived summary

Jon Harlan Roberts is an American historian and the Tomorrow Foundation Professor of History at Boston University.

Education and career

Roberts graduated in 1969 from the University of Missouri. He continued his education at Harvard University, earning a master's degree in 1970 and completing his PhD in 1980.

He continued at Harvard as an assistant professor of history until 1985, when he moved to the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. He earned tenure there in 1988 and was promoted to full professor in 1995. In 2001 he moved again to Boston University and in 2007 he was named the Tomorrow Foundation Professor.

Selected publications

Roberts is the author or coauthor of books including:

Darwinism and the Divine in America: Protestant Intellectuals and Organic Evolution, 1859–1900 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). ISBN 978-0-299-11590-6.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Jon H. Roberts” is american historian. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Roberts, American and historian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1969, 1970, 1980, 1985—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1947-11-07. For this dossier, Roberts, American and historian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american historian” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q30122520. VIAF identifies the subject as 109888776. The Library of Congress control number is n87844923. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 1970, 1980 and 1985.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. 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 “Jon H. Roberts”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Jon H. Roberts primary sources, Jon H. Roberts archive and Roberts 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 “Jon H. Roberts”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Jon H. Roberts” 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.