Fox, Dixon Ryan

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Dixon Ryan Fox, 1887–1945, American historian and educator, b. Potsdam, N.Y. He taught at Columbia from 1912 to 1934, becoming full professor in 1927. From 1934 until his death he was president of Union College and chancellor of Union Univ. His writings include The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York (1919, repr. 1971); a biography of the historian Herbert L. Osgood, his father-in-law (1924); and Yankees and Yorkers (1940). Fox was a leader of research in social history and with Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., was editor of the excellent "A History of American Life" series. The Completion of Independence, 1790–1830, (1944, repr. 1971), Vol. V in the series, was written by John A. Krout and Fox.