Carl Frederick Wittke

Carl Frederick Wittke, (13 November 1892 – 24 May 1971) was an American historian and academic administrator. He was a specialist on ethnic history in America, especially regarding the German Americans. He was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1892; his father was a German immigrant who owned a factory. In 1913 he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Ohio State University, and gained a PhD in history under Professor Charles Howard McIlwain at Harvard in 1921. He taught history at Ohio State University (1921–37), and for a few years was chair of the history department and later, dean of the graduate school. He was the dean at Oberlin College (1937–1948). He then became dean of the graduate school at Western Reserve University, until his retirement in 1963.

Wittke wrote 13 scholarly books, edited a comprehensive six volume history of Ohio, wrote hundreds of articles for scholarly journals and popular magazines, and wrote 262 critical book reviews. Wittke served on the editorial boards of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Canadian Historical Review, and the Ohio Historical Society Quarterly. He helped establish ethnic studies as a major specialty in American history.