Lawrence A. Cardoso
Lawrence A. Cardoso, chair of the history department at the University of Wyoming, died October 15, 1989 at the age of forty-nine.
Of Hispanic descent himself, Cardoso was an expert in the field of Latin American history. He was nearing the completion of White and Brown, a study of American attitudes toward Hispanics, at the time of his death. Previous publications include Mexican Emigration to the United States, 1897-1931 and the “Wyoming” section of Collier’s Year Book 1989.
Cardoso received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. He came to the University of Wyoming as a supply instructor of history in 1973 and became chair of the department in June of 1986. He was promoted to full professor in early 1989.
John L. Clive
John L. Clive, professor of history at Harvard University and winner of the National Book Award, died January 7, 1990 at the age of sixty-five. Clive won the National Book Award in 1974 for his biography of Thomas Babington Macaulay, a nineteenth-century Scottish historian. Not by Fact Alone: Essays on the Writing and Reading of History, Clive’s latest book, is one of five books nominated for the 1990 National Book Critics Circle award for distinguished criticism.
Among his other honors, Clive received the AHA Robert Livingston Schuyler Prize in 1976 and fellowships from the Royal Historical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Born in Berlin, Clive came to the United States in 1940. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina and went on to receive his master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University where he began teaching in 1948. Since 1979 Clive had been the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History and Literature.
Margaret Gay Davies
Margaret Gay Davies, former professor of history at Pomona College, died in Santa Barbara, CA on August 3, 1989 at the age of eighty-seven. The daughter of Edwin Francis Gay, professor of economic history and first dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University, she grew up in Cambridge and attended Radcliffe College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, received an A.B. with Distinction in history in 1922, an A.M. in economics in 1923, and a Ph.D. in history in 1952.
She was tutor in history and economics at Radcliffe (1931–36), assistant professor of history at Scripps College, Claremont, CA (1936–41), and an analyst for Douglas Aircraft Co. (1942–45). In 1939 she married Godfrey Davies, a member of the research staff of the Huntington Library and editor of its Quarterly. Between 1948 and her retirement in 1967 she was first a lecturer and then professor of history at Pomona College in Claremont. She won a Wig Award for excellence in teaching and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In addition to several articles, she was the author of The Enforcement of English Apprenticement: A Study in Applied Mercantilism, 1563-1642 published by the Harvard University Press.
Mrs. Davies was a cheerful, wise, willing, and conscientious colleague. Without her the department would have been notably weaker.
John H. Gleason
Pomona College
Robert Forest Harney
Robert Forest Harney, professor of history at the University of Toronto, died on August 29, 1989 at the age of fifty. His death constitutes an incalculable loss for the field of North American immigration and ethnic studies.
Born in Salem, MA of Irish, Jewish, French Canadian, and Italian ancestry (an ethnic mix in which he delighted and which informed his catholic interest in peoples of all kinds), Harney received his A.B. from Harvard University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
He taught in the department of history at the University of Toronto from 1964 until his death. Since 1977 Harney had served as president and academic director of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario (MHSO), an institution of which he was the founding and guiding genius. In July 1989 he was appointed professor of ethnic, immigration and pluralism studies in recognition of his distinguished contributions to this field. Following his death, this has been named the Robert F. Harney Professorship in his honor.
Harney served on the editorial boards of a number of scholarly journals and as president of both the Canadian Italian Historical Association and the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association.
Although his initial field of research and teaching was Italian history, Bob Harney’s exposure to the rich cultural diversity of Toronto converted him to North American immigration and ethnic history. A pioneer in the ethnocultural approach, Harney utilized the “memory culture” as well as the historical records of the immigrants themselves.
Through the MHSO, he created a rich and vast collection of oral histories and archival materials. In the MHSO’s Polyphony he published a series of seminal essays exemplifying how such sources could be used to write the history of ethnic institutions such as theaters, churches, and benefit societies.
Harney’s publications include Immigrants: A Portrait of the Urban Experience 1890–1930 (1975), and Dalla Frontiera alle Little Italies: Gli Italiani in Canada 1800–1945 (1984). His articles include “Boarding and Belonging,” “Men Without Women,” and “The Commerce of Migration.” At the time of his death two more books were underway, one on Ontario’s People and one on Italians in Canada.
Although strongly empathetic with the people he studied, Harney never succumbed to filiopiety or sentimentality. His affection for his subjects did not prevent him from portraying them with unalloyed realism.
With his death we have lost more than a colleague who wrote excellent, innovative, and provocative history. Bob Harney had the exceptional quality of being able to make things happen. A vital force in his chosen field of study, he inspired and guided a generation of students. Twenty-five M.A.s and Ph.D.s were completed under his supervision.
The Robert F. Harney Memorial Trust for Ethnic and Immigration Studies has been established to honor his memory. Contributions should be sent to the Robert F. Harney Fund, Department of History, University of Toronto, 100 St. George St., Room 2074, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1.
Rudolph J. Vecoli
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Nathan I. Huggins
Nathan I. Huggins, one of the leading scholars in the field of African-American studies, died December 5, 1989 at the age of sixty-two.
Born in Chicago, Huggins was raised in the San Francisco Bay area. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and later his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Huggins taught at Long Beach State College, Lake Forest College, The University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Columbia University before returning to Harvard as a teacher in 1980. There he served as W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of History and Afro-American Studies and directed the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research.
Huggins wrote four books—Harlem Renaissance; Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglas; Protestant Against Poverty: Boston’s Charities; and Black Odyssey: The African-American Ordeal in Slavery—and numerous articles about the African-American experience in the United States. He served on the editorial board of The Journal of American History, The American Historical Review, and The Journal of Ethnic Histories and was a Guggenheim Fellow and a Ford Foundation travel study fellow.
In 1981 he established the W.E.B. Du Bois Lectureship in Afro-American life, history, and culture to help bring black scholars to Harvard and, in 1987, the Kathryn Huggins Prize to honor an outstanding undergraduate thesis in Afro-American history and culture.
An endowment to support the Nathan Irvin Huggins Lectureship in Intellectual and Cultural History is currently being established. Letters of support and contributions can be sent to: Dean Michael A. Spence, 5 University Hall, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Robert Leslie Jones
Robert Leslie Jones, emeritus professor of history and former chair of the history department at Marietta College, died at his home on October 3, 1989 at the age of eighty-two. To generations of students at Marietta College from 1938 to 1975, Jones was synonymous with the study of history. Those who knew him realized that his no-nonsense attitude was balanced by the warmth of his compassion. His infectious love of history is shared by all who studied with him.
Born in Ontario, Professor Jones received his B.A. and M.A. from Queen’s University. From 1932 to 1938 he was a student of Frederick Merk at Harvard University where he completed his doctoral dissertation, The History of Agriculture in Ontario, 1613–1880. That research became his first book, published by the University of Toronto Press in 1946. Praised upon its publication as a “pioneer effort in a badly neglected field,” it was described as a “classic” in a review of his second publication, History of Agriculture in Ohio to 1880 (Kent State University Press). At the time of his death he had completed the manuscript of a second volume on Ohio agriculture, bringing the story to 1920.
He is survived by his widow, Irene Neu Jones, a well-known scholar in the field of American economic history, and two daughters: Constance Jones Mathers, an associate professor of history at Randolph Macon College in Ashland, VA; and Natalie Jones Kavula who resides with her family in Mt. Morris, MI.
Memorials may be sent to the Robert L. Jones Memorial Fund, Marietta College, Marietta, OH 45750.
James H. O’Donnell III
Marietta College
John H. Kemble
John H. Kemble, noted maritime historian and professor emeritus at Pomona College, died on February 19, 1990 at the age of seventy-seven. Kemble served on the Pomona faculty from 1936 to 1977 when he retired as Warren Finney Day Professor of History. He also served as visiting professor at the U.S. Naval War College and lecutured at the Frank C. Munson Institute of Amercian Maritime History.
Kemble wrote and edited several books on maritime history including San Francisco Bay: A Pictorial Maritime History and The Panama Route, 1848–1869.
Born in Iowa, Kemble graduated from Stanford University in 1933. He received his M.A. and Ph.D from the University of California, Berkeley.
David Lindsey
David Lindsey, noted Civil War historian and professor emeritus at California State University, Los Angeles, died at home August 26, 1989 at seventy-four years of age. He received his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University (1936), his master’s from Pennsylvania State University (1938), and his doctorate from the University of Chicago (1950). He taught at Baldwin-Wallace College before joining the Cal State University history department in 1956 where he served as chair (1964–66) and taught until 1983.
Professor Lindsey wrote numerous articles and books, many focusing on the Civil War era. His publications include “Sunset” Cox: Irrepressible Democrat, Ohio’s Western Reserve, and Americans in Conflict: The Civil War and Reconstruction.
He was an active member of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians. He received a research grant from the American Philosophical Society and three Fulbright Professorships. But his colleagues and students will long remember Professor Lindsey for his devotion to teaching, which resulted in his receiving one of the university’s early “Outstanding Professor” awards. A David Lindsey Memorial has been established at 1410 Crawford St., Boys Town, NE 68010. He is survived by his wife and a son.
Richard Burns
California State University, Los Angeles
Heinz K. Meier
Heinz K. Meier, leading authority on nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. Swiss relations and Louis I. Jaffe Professor of History at Old Dominion University, died December 12, 1989 at the age of sixty. Born in Zürich, Switzerland on October 13, 1929 Meier studied at European institutions and later earned his doctorate from Emory University in 1959. Professor Meier was a naturalized U.S. citizen. During his distinguished career at Old Dominion University, which included service as Chair, Department of History (1973–75) and Dean, School of Arts and Letters (1975–85), he contributed appreciably to the development and expansion of the international mission of the university. He also served the community as president of the World Affairs Council of Greater Hampton Roads and president of the Norfolk Theater Center.
Professor Meier wrote several books including Friendship Under Stress: U.S. Swiss Relations, 1900–1950 and The United States and Switzerland in the Nineteenth Century, and published internationally in numerous learned journals. He was a member of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the American Historical Association, the Southern Historical Association, and the Swiss-American History Society, while also serving as editor of the society’s Newsletter, 1970–86.
At the time of his death, Professor Meier and his wife, Regula, a German language professor, were writing a bibliography of Switzerland. In addition to his wife, he is survived by four children and two grandchildren.
Carl Boyd
Patrick J. Rollins
Old Dominion University
Gerald T. White
Gerald T. White, noted historian of U.S. business and economic history, died on December 15, 1989 in Laguna Hills, CA at the age of seventy-seven.
After leaving his boyhood home in Seattle, White graduated from DePauw University in 1934. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1938 and, after serving in the Army during World War II, began teaching at San Francisco State College. He went on to become chair of the history departments at San Francisco State College and the University of California, Irvine.
Early in his career White developed a love of writing that resulted in the completion and publication of six books, including A History of the Standard Oil Company of California and its Predecessors, Billions for Defense: Government Financing by the Defense Plant Corporation during World War II, and Baptism in Oil. White also served as an editor for The Historian, Pacific Historical Review, and Business History Review.
He was active in numerous professional organizations and served as president of the Pacific Coast Branch American Historical Association in 1968–69.
William Appleman Williams
William Appleman Williams, noted historian of American foreign policy, died March 5, 1990 at the age of sixty-eight. Williams was best known for his sharp criticism of American foreign policy and is considered by many to be the founder of the revisionist school of American history.
He was the author of more than a dozen books that challenged traditional views of American history including: The Shaping of American Diplomacy, 1750–1955, America Confronts a Revolutionary World: 1776–1976, and The Roots of the Modern American Empire.
Williams received his B.A. at the U.S. Naval Academy and M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. He went on to teach at the University of Wisconsin from 1957 to 1968 and then at Oregon State University from 1968 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1986. Williams served as president of the Organization of American Historians in 1980.
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