Robert P. Ingalls is emeritus professor of history at the University of South Florida, where he taught from 1974 to 2008. He also served as the managing editor of Tampa Bay History. He has written extensively on southern history and is the author of several books for young adults, including Hoods: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan (1979) and Point of Order: A Profile of Senator Joe McCarthy (1981). He is also the author of Urban Vigilantes in the New South: Tampa, 1882-1936 (1988). He co-authored (with Louis Perez) Tampa Cigar Workers: A Pictorial History (2003); (with Susan Fernandez) Sunshine in the Dark: Florida in the Movies (2006); and (with David Johnson) The United States since 1945: A Documentary History (2009).
Ingalls recieved his B.A. in history from Purdue University (1963) and his M.A. and PhD from Columbia University.