William Edward Leuchtenburg (born September 28, 1922) is an American historian. He is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a leading scholar of the life and career of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Career

Leuchtenburg was born in New York City on September 28, 1922. On Ken Burns' documentary series Prohibition, he described, when he was a child, how his father was reported for operating an illegal distillery during the Prohibition Era. He received his BA degree in 1943 from Cornell University, where he was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He later received his PhD from Columbia University in 1951. He won the 2007 North Carolina Award for Literature. He served as a program consultant for Ken Burns' documentary series Prohibition, which premiered on PBS in October 2011. He is a past president of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Society of American Historians. Eric Foner is the only other historian to claim that distinction. Leuchtenburg turned 100 on September 28, 2022.