Orin Grant Libby

Orin Grant Libby (June 9, 1864, near Hammond, Wisconsin – March 29, 1952, Grand Forks, North Dakota) was an American historian.

In 1893, he submitted a master's thesis with an emphasis on economic history entitled “De Witt Clinton and the Erie Canal — A State Enterprise.”[4] He ultimately received a Ph.D. at Wisconsin in 1895, his dissertation being entitled The Geographical Distribution of the Vote of the Thirteen States on the Federal Constitution 1787–8.

[2] Afterward, he continued at Wisconsin as an instructor, and as a historical researcher seeking to apply the methodology of physical and biological sciences to his studies of Congressional voting patterns.

[2][5] He helped found the Mississippi Valley Historical Association (now the Organization of American Historians), and was president of it for a year.

Controversy with other UND faculty and its president, Thomas F. Kane, almost resulted in his dismissal in the 1920s, but alumni pressure kept him in his position.