Benjamin Woods Labaree is a historian of American colonial and maritime history. The son of Yale University Farnam Professor of History Leonard Woods Labaree, he earned his bachelors degree (1950) there, followed by Masters (1953) and Ph.D. (1957) in history at Harvard University.
After receiving several teaching positions at Harvard, he was appointed dean (1963-67) of Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he remained a professor of history until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1992, and continued to teach as a visiting professor at several institutions until 1998. He also served as Director of the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime History, and was Director of the Williams College-Mystic Seaport Program (commonly called Williams-Mystic) at Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut, 1977–89.