Vogel, Virgil J.

Virgil J. Vogel (1918-1994) was an historian, socialist political organizer, activist and University of Chicago alumnus. Born in Keota, Iowa, Vogel attended Chicago State University (B.E., 1942) and University of Chicago (M.A. 1949, Ph.D. 1966). Vogel's academic research was in the field of Native American history and language. His dissertation American Indian Medicine was published by University of Oklahoma Press in 1970 and remains a definitive text in the field. He also published Indian Place Names of Illinois (1963); This Country Was Ours: A Documentary History of the American Indian (1972); Iowa Place Names of Indian Origin (1983); Indian Names in Michigan (1986); and Indian Names on Wisconsin's Map (1991).

By his late teens, Vogel was dedicating much of his energy toward political activism and organization, particularly within the Young People's Socialist League, where he held a succession of local and national offices, eventually becoming the national chairman. He was a longtime member of the Socialist Party, and played a leading role in many smaller socialist and radical organizations. Vogel's political essays, reviews and commentary were widely published in the leftist press from the 1930s-1950s, and he was instrumental in reviving the radical publisher Charles H. Kerr Company in the 1970s. While Vogel remained committed to the Socialist Party for most of his life, he was also sympathetic to the New Left and anti-war movements of the 1950s-1970s.

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