Winsor, Justin (1831–1897)

US historian and librarian. As a historian, he wrote such groundbreaking works as The Reader's Handbook of the American Revolution (1880), A Narrative and Critical History of America (1884–89), The Mississippi Basin (1895), and The Westward Movement (1897). His interest in and use of maps made him the leading historical cartographer of his day.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, his first book, A History of the Town of Duxbury was published in 1849 during his freshman year at Harvard. He left Harvard in 1852 without taking a degree and travelled in Europe. He returned to Boston in 1854 and began writing criticism, poetry, and fiction for various periodicals. He became a trustee and then director (1868–77) of the Boston Public Library. During his 20-year tenure as librarian of Harvard College (1877–97) he became the first president of the American Library Association (1876–85) and a cofounder of the American Library Journal.