Philip D. Curtin

22 M–4 Ju

**Philip De Armond Curtin** (22 May 1922-4 June 2009) Philip De Armond Curtin was born in Philadelphia, United States on the 22 May 1922 and was the author of 19 tropical historical studies. Philip grew up in Webster Springs, West Virginia (where his family owned a coal and timber business), sailed for three years with the Merchant Marine during the Second World War, was educated at Swarthmore College where he received his Bachelor of Arts (1948), and at Harvard University where he received his Masters of Art a year later. By the time he was studying for his Doctor of Philosophy in history (Harvard, 1953), with a dissertation on '*the history and economy of Jamaica in the mid-19th century*', he had divorced his first wife (Phyllis Smith) and married his second (Patricia Romero) and began teaching at Swarthmore College (1953-1956). After his second divorce he joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (1956-1975) and married Anne Gilbert in 1957 (he has three sons). Whilst at Wisconsin-Madison he teamed up with Jan Vansina to create the nation’s first department of African languages and literature, and wrote a very important work, his 1969 book, "*The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census*", which details his research into the number of Africans exported to the New World by slavers of all nationalities. The numbers most often cited as fact before Curtin’s research ranged from 15 million to 20 million. He scrutinized shipping contracts and port data, applied modern q

19 books in the database