R. B. Merriman

Roger Bigelow Merriman (May 24, 1876 – September 7, 1945) was an American historian and a practitioner of scientific historiography developed by German historians. He is known especially for his multivolume history of the Spanish Empire.

Biography R. B. Merriman was born in Boston on May 24, 1876, the only child of Daniel Merriman, minister of the Central Congregational Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the artist and art collector Helen Bigelow Merriman. His maternal grandfather was Erastus Brigham Bigelow, an inventor of weaving machinery. In 1902 Merriman was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Merriman taught at Harvard for many years. He was initially hired in 1902 as an instructor and was later promoted to assistant professor (1908) and full professor (1918). He served for a time as master of Eliot House.