He thereafter attended the University of Wisconsin, and became acquainted with Frederick Jackson Turner, noted for his famous, yet historically controversial, Frontier Thesis.

In writing the biography Ambler received helpful assistance from Doctor George B. Johnston, and Ann Mason Lee, both from Richmond, who were direct descendants of Floyd.

[7] In the following thirty years Ambler was a member of the West Virginia University history department, and served as its chairman from 1929 until 1946.

[1] Ambler was the president of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association in 1942–43 and received numerous other recognitions of this sort.

Here he discusses the prominent geological divisions, i.e.the vast mountain ranges that divided the original region of Virginia, and how they led to the social divisions and sectionalism that, after years of political and Constitutional debate, led to the creation and establishment of the State of West Virginia.

His works involved considerable research, exploring numerous topics that previously had received little attention from historians.