Jesse Frank Battan, historian of gender and sexuality in the United States, died April 12, 2024, in Pasadena, California. He was 75 years old.

Photo courtesy Terri L. Snyder
Born in Burbank on August 4, 1948, to parents Mary and Jesse Marcel Battan, Jesse grew up in Woodland Hills, California. He was an ardent surfer and spent much of his free time as a youth in the Pacific Ocean with his friends. With the help of his immigrant grandfather, Jesse started a small business, Surfboards by Battan, and opened a shop on Ventura Boulevard before graduating from Taft High School in 1966. Following high school, he briefly attended the University of Hawai’i and then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a BA in history in 1970 under the guidance of Robert Middlekauff. Jesse began graduate studies at New York University, working with Frank Manuel, where he completed an MA in history in 1972. He went on to complete a PhD in history at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1988, where his dissertation, directed by Daniel Walker Howe and Stanley Coben, focused on sexual radicalism and social reform in 19th-century America.
For over 40 years, Jesse was a central figure in the Department of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). He joined the department in 1980, first serving as a professor, then leading as department chair and taking on an interim position as associate dean for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Jesse was a passionate and gifted educator who taught a range of introductory and advanced courses on American studies, including on Hollywood, traditions of cultural radicalism, and the history of sexuality and emotions. His dynamic lectures inspired generations of CSUF students, and his Love in America classes were legendary, as was his kindness, humor, and dedication to his students and colleagues. Jesse also taught in an exchange program at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
Jesse published widely on 19th- and early 20th-century US sexualities and social revolution. His steady stream of publications on Free Love radical groups analyzed their critiques of traditional marriage, including marital rape, and examined their advocacy for the empowerment and autonomy of women within and outside of marriage. In addition to his work on intimacy and social revolution, he also published work on the leftists, Marxists, and their attitudes toward sexuality and marriage. Jesse was a regular participant in the Socialism and Sexuality Seminar, an international gathering that examined the sexual programs of the Left in the 19th and 20th centuries. He was a frequent contributor to their working papers series and co-editor with Thomas Bouchet and Tania Régin of Meetings and Alcôves: Gauches et Sexualités en Europe et aux Etats-Unis Depuis 1850 / The Left and Sexuality in Europe and the United States Since 1850 (Editions Univ. de Dijon, 2004). More locally, he was a reader at the Huntington Library and for many years a regular presence in their reading rooms. At his death, he was finishing a book manuscript, Intimate Revolutions: Radical Encounters with Modern Love and Desire in 20th-Century America.
Jesse leaves behind the many students and colleagues whose lives he touched, as well as devoted family members. These include his sister, Anna Albeck; nieces and nephews, Laura and Brandon Tribble, Max Albeck and Ali Day, and Holly and Herman Baltayan; and his beloved wife and fellow historian, Terri L. Snyder.
Sharon Block
University of California, Irvine
Terri L. Snyder
California State University, Fullerton
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