Lyle Koehler

Lyle P. Koehler (March 6, 1944 – July 30, 2015) was an American historian and author.

Koehler was born in Sparta, Wisconsin on March 6, 1944, to parents Irene and Lyle Koehler Sr.^[1] He attended Black River Falls High School for two years and finished at Sparta High School before enrolling at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.^[2] Koehler earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966 and his Master's degree in 1968 from the University of Cincinnati.^[3] He worked towards a PhD in philosophy for three years before saying "I began generating history and never got the PhD."^[4]

Upon completing his Master's degree, Koehler began working as the director of tutorial and referral services at the University of Cincinnati.^[5] During the summer of 1973, Koehler began his research in various New England courthouses reading arrest records of 17th-century Colonial women.^[6] His work accumulated into his first book, A Search for Power: The 'Weaker Sex' in Seventeenth Century New England, which was a finalist for the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for History.^[7] Following this, Koehler left Cincinnati and became an editor and technical writer at New Mexico State University. While there, he wrote his second work, Black Peoples: A Chronology and Bibliography, 1787-1982, for the 1988 Cincinnati Arts Consortium. It "provided valuable details, dates and names for this series on black leaders."^[5]

Koehler died on July 30, 2015, at Lakeview Health Center in West Salem.^[1]