Wilbur Jacobs

Wilbur R. Jacobs (June 30, 1918 – June 15, 1998) was an American historian, with a special interest in Native American, Western, and Environmental history.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1918, Jacobs moved west at a young age and settled in the Los Angeles area. He started college at Pasadena City College, then earned his B.A. (1940) and M.A. (1942) in History at the University of California, Los Angeles. After military service during World War II, Jacobs started doctoral study at Johns Hopkins University, but decided to return to UCLA to pursue Western Frontier history under the direction of Lewis Knott Koontz. He finished his doctorate in 1947 and then taught Western Civilization at Stanford University for two years, before accepting a call to the History program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (known at that time as the University of California, Santa Barbara College). At the University of California, Santa Barbara, Jacobs served as a founding member of the History Department and also served as department chair from 1961 to 1964.

Jacobs revised his doctoral dissertation, which had won a prize from the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, and published it as Diplomacy and the Indian Gifts: Anglo-French Rivalry among the Ohio and Northwest Frontiers, 1748-1763 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1950). Jacobs’ interest in frontier history continued with his edited book The Appalachian Indian Frontier: The Edmond Atkin Report and Plan of 1755 (Columbia, SC: The University of South Carolina Press, 1954). His interest in Western history continued with his edited collection of Letters of Francis Parkman, 2 vols. (Norman, 1960), which was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in History.