Historian Merk Dead at Age 90

Frederick Merk, Gurney Professor Emeritus of History and Political Science and a famous expert on American westward expansion, died of a heart attack Saturday in Cambridge. He was 90 years old.

Merk, who taught at Harvard between 1918 and 1957, was renowned both for his profoundly influential works of scholarship and his consistently popular lectures.

He followed famed historian Frederick Jackson Turner to Harvard where he expanded on his mentor's well-known "frontier thesis" of American history and in so doing established himself as one of the foremost American historians.

A memorial service will be held in Memorial Church on October 14 at 3:00 p.m.