Ford, Paul Leicester

Related Category: Historians, U.S.: Biographies

(lĕs´tər), 1865–1902, American historian and novelist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. His father, Gordon L. Ford, then possessed probably the best library of Americana in the country; Paul edited, with his brother Worthington Chauncey Ford, rare material from this library in Winnowings in American History (15 vol., 1890–91) and made valuable bibliographies, including ones on Hamilton (1886) and Franklin (1889). He was the editor of many documents of the early Republic. His True George Washington (1896, repr. 1970) was the first to present Washington as human and fallible. Ford also wrote several novels.