Tannenbaum, Frank (1893–1969)

US historian of central European origin. During his long career as a Latin American historian at Columbia University (1935–61), he originated (1945) and for 25 years directed Columbia's famous University Seminar Program. His interests and contributions were unusually diverse, ranging from prison reform to race relations. His Crime and the Community (1938) became a standard text; his most famous book, Slave and Citizen (1947), was a pioneering work on the historiography of American slavery.

Tannenbaum was born in Brod, Galicia, Austria-Hungary. He emigrated to the USA in 1905, two years later enrolling in night classes at the radical Ferrer School. As a young member of the Industrial Workers of the World, or ‘Wobblies’, he worked as a labour activist and was briefly imprisoned. He later earned degrees at Columbia College and the Brookings Institution.

Long interested in Mexican history, particularly the revolution, he came to be regarded as the dean of North American Mexicanists; his awards included the Mexican government's National Order of the Águila Azteca.