Karen Ordahl Kupperman Karen Ordahl Kupperman was born on April 23, 1939, in Devils Lake, North Dakota, of Swedish and Norwegian ancestry. Her father was a colonel in the United States Army. Kupperman attended elementary school in Fort Benning, Georgia, and then in Fargo, North Dakota. She attended junior high school in Fargo and then in U.S. Army schools in Japan, and high school in Springfield, Missouri. It is said that her favorite childhood books were a set of Grimm’s and Andersen’s fairy tales, she really loved these books because of the far-off worlds they recreated. Karen’s most important early influence, though, was the experience of living in different parts of the country during World War II and again in her teenage year. The young Karen became fascinated in different historical experiences of regions of the United States. The little time she spent in Japan when she was fourteen also gave her direct experience in cultural difference and insights into the ways cultures are built. Kupperman attended the University of Missouri, earning a bachelor’s degree in history in 1961. History has always been her favorite subject. After college she went to Harvard on a Woodrow Wilson fellowship, and left after she earned her master’s degree in 1962. She realized her passion was to teach and write about history when she took a teacher’s aide position at the University of Connecticut. Because of her passion she decided to go to Cambridge to get her Ph.D. in 1978. Following her completion of the doctorate, Kupperman accepted a teaching position at the University of Connecticut until 1995. She was named professor of history at New York University.
The author of four monographs, editor of four books, and co-author of an American history textbook, Kupperman is perhaps best known for her award-winning work, Providence Island, 1630–1641: The Other Puritan Colony, winner