Henry Harrisse

Henry Harrisse was born Henry Herrisse in Paris on May 28, 1829. His father was Abraham Herrisse, a furrier, probably from Russia or Prague, and his mother was Nanine Marcus of Paris. At the age of eighteen, he moved to America with his family and adopted American nationality, where he studied at the University of South Carolina. He began his academic career at the University of North Carolina, where he taught writing, philosophy, and law, though he was later released from his position due to his support of abolitionism. In following years, he worked as a lawyer in Chicago and New York, before beginning his writing career. According to his biographer Henri Cordier, his early writings are devoted to Hippolyte Taine and Renan, and the analysis of the metaphysical works of Descartes. Later in his life, he moved back to Paris and turned his studies towards the origins of the modern Americas, a topic to which he was highly devoted. This led to his exploration of records of the discovery of the Americas, and to his amassing of a substantial body of critical and historical works on this subject. Harrisse was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1893.