David A. Shannon, professor of history and writer best known for his histories of socialism and the Communist Party of the United States, was born on November 30, 1920 in Terre Haute, Indiana. During his undergraduate studies at Indiana State College, he met Jane Short whom he married on August 31, 1940; he and Jane eventually had two daughters, Molly and Sarah. In 1941, he received his Bachelor of Science degree in History at Indiana State College, and in 1946 received his Masters of Science degree in History in 1946 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While pursuing a Ph.D. in History from Madison, he also worked as an instructor of history at the Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1948 to 1951. Upon completion of his doctoral thesis, “The decline of the American Socialist party,” Shannon obtained a position as an assistant professor at Columbia Teacher's College followed by a position as associate professor at the same institution. His first book, The Socialist Party of America, was published in 1955.
In 1957, he returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined the faculty as a Professor of History. During this time, he completed the manuscript “The American Communists since 1945”; this manuscript was published in 1959 under the name The Decline of American Communism. Soon after the publication of this text, Shannon published The Great Depression (1960). In 1965 he published Between the Wars and left the University of Wisconsin to accept a position as Chairman of the History Department and Professor of History at the University of Maryland. In 1966, he published Progressivism and Postwar Disillusionment. In 1969, after three years at Maryland and one year at Rutgers University, Shannon became Dean of Arts and Sciences, as well as Professor of History, at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. In 1971, he was promoted to Vice President and Provost. Shannon was a member of the American Historians, where he had held positions on several executive committees. He died on November 8, 1991 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
