Samuel Proctor

About

Samuel Proctor (March 29, 1919 – July 10, 2005) was an American history professor and author. He taught at the University of Florida (UF) and wrote about the school and the state’s history.

Proctor was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He was one of six sons of Jack Proctor, a textile salesman who was born in Poland, and Celia Proctor (née Schneider), a housewife. Proctor arrived at the University of Florida as a freshman in 1937 and received his Bachelor of Arts in 1941. As an undergraduate, he was on the staff of the Florida Alligator. He received his Master of Arts from UF in 1942 after only two semesters, in which the wrote a 560-page thesis, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward: The Portrait of a Progressive Democrat, on Florida Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward. In 1950 Proctor published Napoleon Bonaparte Broward: Florida’s Fighting Democrat with the University Press of Florida.
Proctor served in the United States Army during World War II, where he taught reading and arithmetic to illiterate Army recruits at Camp Blanding near Starke.

Discharged from the service in 1946, he was offered scholarships to pursue an international…