Theodore Blegen was a man of letters -- an essayist and critic and historian, who on occasion dabbled in verse and produced a weekly family newsletter for a quarter of a century. Theodore Blegen did many tasks well and exulted in his own achievements. But whether he was involved in the promotion of a state historical society, in jurisdictional squabbles, in educational theories, in the ferreting out of documentary records, or in solving an enigma which for decades had puzzled runologists and linguists, he was primarily a writer.

Blegen was head of the history department at Hamline University, superintendent of the Minnesota Historical Society, editor of Minnesota History, managing editor of the Norwegian-American Historical Association, and dean of the University of Minnesota graduate school.