About Paul C. Nagel

Paul Chester Nagel (August 14, 1926 – May 22, 2011) was a historian and biographer who was best known for his works for general readers on the Adams and Lee political families, and who also wrote on the history of his home state of Missouri.

Nagel was born in 1926 and raised in Independence, Missouri, and attended William Chrisman High School. His family was of German ancestry, as Nagel documented in his 2002 book The German Migration to Missouri: My Family's Story. He attended the University of Minnesota, originally to study mortuary science. Shortly after his arrival, he changed his major to history.[4] He stayed at the University of Minnesota to earn his bachelor's degree, master's degree, and Ph.D., all in history. While there, he met Joan Peterson, a librarian who worked at the university library. They married in 1948, and remained married until her death in 2010.