Robert V. Wells, 1965
B.A., Denison University
Ph.D., Princeton University
Washington Irving Professor
Union College
Schenectady, N.Y.
Citation awarded May, 1990
A Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate of Denison in 1965, Robert V. Wells went to Princeton University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1969.
Since that time, Bob Wells has pursued his scholarship and his teaching at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., becoming a nationally recognized expert on the demography of Colonial America.
He has also been a fellow of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University, and a visiting professor at Stanford University.
In 1988, Bob was named the Washington Irving Professor in modern literacy and historical studies at Union College, one of Union’s twelve named professorships.
Wells has written articles and reviews for a variety of scholarly journals; his books include The Population of the British Colonies in America before 1776: A Survey of Census Data, Revolution in Americans’ Lives: A Demographic Perspective on the History of Americans, Their Families, and Their Society, and Uncle Sam’s Family: Issues in and Perspectives on American Demographic History.
