Leonard Woods Labaree

Leonard W. Labaree (August 26, 1897, near Urumia, Persia – May 5, 1980, in Northford, Connecticut) was a distinguished documentary editor, a professor of history at Yale University for more than forty years, a historian of Colonial America, and the founding editor of the multivolume publication of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin.

Early life and education Leonard W. Labaree was the son of Benjamin Labaree, an American missionary in Persia. He obtained his bachelor's degree at Williams College in 1920, and graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors, after qualifying as a balloon pilot in the U.S. Army Air Service and as a second lieutenant in 1917–1919. In 1924 went on to Yale University, where he earned his master's degree in history in 1923 and his Ph.D. in 1926. In 1920, he married Elizabeth Mary Calkins, with whom he had two sons, Arthur C. Labaree and the historian Benjamin Woods Labaree. In 1930, Labaree wrote and published a work entitled, Royal Government in America: a Study of the British Colonial System before 1783, for which he received the Justin Winsor Prize of the American Historical Association. Labaree's exemplary work on the Franklin Papers consolidated his reputation for the highest standards of documentary editing with thoroughness, accuracy, and clarity of explication.

He served on the Council of the Institute of Early American History and Culture, the Secretary of the Navy's Advisory Committee on Naval History, and was a member of the editorial board of the New England Quarterly, succeeding Samuel Eliot Morison as its chairman. In addition, he was a member of the American Antiquarian Society, the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the American Philosophical Society.

Labaree died at his home in Northford, Connecticut on May 5, 1980, at the age of 83.

Awards Justin Winsor Prize of the American Historical Association, 1930. Honorary Litt. D., Williams College, 1955, Bucknell University, 1955; Franklin College, 1956; Franklin and Marshall College, 1956; Dickinson College, 1963, and Lehigh University, 1970. Gold Medal of the International Benjamin Franklin Society, 1961. He was Anson G. Phelps lecturer, New York University, 1947.

Published works Royal government in America; a study of the British colonial system before 1783, 1930; repr. 1958 Yale Historical Publications, general editor for forty volumes, 1933–1936 Royal instructions to British colonial governors, 1670-1776, 1935 Records of the State of Connecticut, 1782-1796, volumes IV-VIII, 1942–1951 Conservatism in early American history, 1948 Mr. Franklin, a selection from his personal letters. Edited by Leonard W. Labaree and Whitfield J. Bell Jr., 1956 The Papers of Benjamin Franklin , editor in chief for eighteen volumes, 1959–74