Awards

Pulitzer Prize (1929)

History

About Fred Albert Shannon

Fred Albert Shannon was an American historian and Pulitzer Prize winner for History for The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861-1865.

He was born February 12, 1893, in Sedalia, Missouri. By the time he was old enough to go to school, his family moved to Harrison Township, Clay County, Indiana. Shannon completed a B.A degree at the Indiana State Teachers College and an M.A. degree at Indiana University in 1918. He began teaching school, eventually becoming a professor of history at Iowa Wesleyan College in 1919. Five years later, when he completed a Ph.D. degree at the University of Iowa, he became assistant professor of history at the Iowa State Teachers College.

In 1926 he moved to the Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, where he was associate professor of history for several years. At the time, he was also teaching at Cornell College and Ohio State University during the summer session. From 1939 to 1961, he was professor of history at the University of Illinois, additionally serving as chairman of its history department for many years.

Shannon was married to Edna M. (Jones) Shannon. They had five children, Lucile, Mary, Edna, Marjory and Frederick A. Shannon. Shannon died on February 4, 1963. He had just begun a semester as a visiting professor at the University of South Carolina. He was buried with his wife, who had passed away a decade earlier, in Urbana, Illinois.