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John Musser (November 14, 1889 – March 21, 1949) was an American historian and educator who was dean of the graduate school at New York University and an instructor of American History.

Musser attended Franklin and Marshall College before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, from which he received his bachelor's degree. He went on to also earn his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania under the direction of Herman Vandenburg Ames. An authority on Benjamin Franklin, in 1937 Musser debunked a claim made by the Nazi Party that Charles Pinkney had once recorded in his diary that Franklin had made an anti-Semitic prophecy about a future threat of Jews in the United States by noting that Pinckney had never kept a diary and that Franklin himself had once donated money for the construction of a synagogue in Philadelphia.

He was the grandfather of Charles Musser.

References

1. "Dr. John Musser". Bedford Gazette. March 25, 1949. Retrieved February 14, 2018.(subscription required)
2. "Air College Opens Spring Term". Orlando Sentinel. February 15, 1925. Retrieved February 14, 2018.
3. "Dr. John Musser, Educator, Dies". Everett Press. April 1, 1949. Retrieved February 14, 2018.
4. Memorial: Herman Vandenburg Ames. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1936. pp. 2–25.
5. "The Franklin "Prophecy"". Courier-Journal. March 12, 1937. p. 6. Retrieved February 14, 2018.(subscription required)
6. "Dr. Lynne M. Zeavin Is Married to Charles Musser". New York Times. October 16, 1988. Retrieved February 14, 2018.

• 1889 births
• 1949 deaths
• New York University faculty
• University of Pennsylvania alumni
• 20th-century American historians
• 20th-century American male writers
• American male non-fiction writers