J. A. Leo Lemay

1935-2008

Leo Lemay, one of the nation’s foremost Benjamin Franklin scholars, died on October 15, 2008. He earned his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Maryland and his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Professor of English literature at the university of Delaware, a post he had held since 1977. An expert in the field of early American studies, he was a founder of the Society of Early Americanists. Decades of research are represented in his seven volume biography of Franklin being published by the University of Pennsylvania press. The first three volumes have already garnered high praise, including these remarks in a 2006 Journal of American History review: “His Life of Benjamin Franklin is the fruit of a lifetime of careful, dedicated and loving research, and we are all the richer for it.” He launched a website about Benjamin Franklin in 1997 under the auspices of the University of Delaware, and was also the author of the critically acclaimed Benjamin Franklin: Writings; Robert Bolling Woos Anne Miller; The American Dream of Captain John Smith; and Did Pocahontas Save John Smith?.

Newark, DE
United States

Elected to AAS
October 1971