Background
He was born in Saint Cloud, Minnesota the son of Paul and Marguerite Shaw Paludan.
He was born in Saint Cloud, Minnesota the son of Paul and Marguerite Shaw Paludan.
Degrees from Occidental College, he took his doctorate from the University of Illinois, where he studied under Harold M. Hyman.
Receiving his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts He taught at the University of Kansas for more than thirty years, and held visiting appointments at Rutgers University-Camden and University College, Dublin, Ireland. During this period he wrote four books on Lincoln and the Civil War era: A Covenant With Death: The Constitution, Law, and Equality in the Civil War Era, (Illinois, 1975), Victims: True Story Civil War (1981), A People"s Contest: The Union and Civil War 1861-1865 (Harper & Row, 1988), and The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln (Kansas, 1994). His numerous other awards include post doctoral fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Harvard Law School.
He has also received a Diploma of Honor from Lincoln Memorial University and an honorary doctorate from Lincoln College.
Paludan was named Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois, Springfield, in 2001. He died August 1, 2007 after a long illness in Springfield, Illinois.