U.S. Intellectual History Blog

Charles Capper, 1944-2021

Charles Capper, one of the most respected historians of American thought of the last generation, died on July 1, 2021, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he and his wife, Carole, had recently moved after Charlie’s retirement from Boston University. Charlie died of complications attendant upon Parkinson’s Disease, from which had suffered for several years.

Charlie was best known for his two-volume biography of Margaret Fuller. He was also a founding and long-serving editor of Modern Intellectual History, and co-editor of the sourcebook, The American Intellectual Tradition. A splendid appreciation of his career was posted at the time of his retirement by his colleagues at Boston University. A longer account of his career is David A. Hollinger, “Charles Capper, Romantic America, and Intellectual History,” Modern Intellectual History XVI (2019), 281-293.

-David Hollinger