obituaries

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/8/2021
  

  Phil Schaap, Grammy-Winning Jazz D.J. and Historian, Dies at 70

  “They say I’m a history teacher,” he said in a video interview for the National Endowment for the Arts, which this year named him a Jazz Master, the country’s highest official honor for a living jazz figure, but he viewed his role differently. “I teach listening.” 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/1/2021
  

  Robert Middlekauff, Historian of Washington and His War, Dies at 91

  Robert Middlekauff wrote what was long considered the best single-volume study of the American Revolution, "The Glorious Cause." 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/27/2021
  

  Stephen B. Oates, Civil War Historian, Dies at 85

  In his best-known works, Dr. Oates explored the lives of four prominent figures — John Brown, Nat Turner, Lincoln and Dr. King — in what he called his “Civil War quartet.”

• 
• SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
  8/25/2021
  

  Noel Swerdlow, U. of C. Professor who Won a Macarthur ‘Genius Grant,’ Dies at 79

  Noel Swerdlow wove together the humanities and the sciences through his study of the history of science.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/21/2021
  

  Historian Gary Nash, Who Fought to Update History Teaching, Dies at 88

  Dr. Nash led a project to update national history teaching standards which was denounced by Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives, after a long career as an influential scholar of early American history who reconstructed the lives of ordinary Americans.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/20/2021
  

  James W. Loewen, Who Challenged How History Is Taught, Dies at 79

  James W. Loewen, a sociologist and civil rights champion, took high school teachers and textbook publishers to task for distorting American history.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/22/2021
  

  Lucille Times, Who Inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dies at 100

  “You’ve got to fight,” Mrs. Times said in 2017. “You don’t get nothing for free. I’ve been a fighter all of my days.”

• 
• 8/20/2021
  

  HNN Honors James W. Loewen, 1942-2021

  by HNN Staff

  HNN honors the life and work of James W. Loewen, author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and numerous other books, and an HNN contributor. He passed at the age of 79 on August 19. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/14/2021
  

  Leon Litwack, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Scholar of America’s Racial Divide, Dies at 91

  "History teaches, after all, that it is not the rebels, the iconoclasts, the curious, the dissidents who endanger a democratic society but rather the accepting, the unthinking, the unquestioning, the docile, the obedient, the silent, and the indifferent.”

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/10/2021
  

  Ying-shih Yu, Renowned Scholar of Chinese Thought, Dies at 91

  "Professor Yu often returned to the theme that China’s long traditions could be a wellspring, not an enemy, of enlightenment, individual dignity and democracy."

• 
• SOURCE: Yale News
  8/10/2021
  

  Yale, Historians Honor the Contributions of Donald Kagan

  Donald Kagan is remembered as a prolific and influential scholar of Ancient Greece and an engaging teacher with a gift for narrative and storytelling. He was also a key figure in the linkage between political conservatism and classical tradition.

• 
• SOURCE: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
  7/8/2021
  

  Marquette's Athan Theoharis Used Hoover's Secret Files to Document the FBI's Illegal Actions

  "Theoharis' research proved or verified many episodes of FBI skullduggery, including multiple instances of Sen. Joseph McCarthy enlisting the FBI to seek sexual or political dirt on government officials and workers, even President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself."

• 
• SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  7/8/2021
  

  Obituary: Henry Parham, Last of A Black Unit that Fought at D-Day, Dies at 99

  “'We landed in water up to our necks,' Mr. Parham said, recalling a shorter man in his unit who had to be carried onto the beach because the water was over his head and he couldn’t swim."

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  4/22/2021
  

  Walter Mondale Remade the Vice Presidency

  by Stuart E. Eizenstat

  "Walter Mondale created the modern vice presidency out of a position that was an afterthought at the Constitutional Convention. Mondale was a great public servant and a decent man, and his death comes at a time when his progressive politics have gotten a second breath in the Democratic Party."

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  

  Walter F. Mondale, Carter’s Vice President Who Lost White House Bid, Dies At 93

  "Years later, in an interview with the University of Minnesota Foundation, he begged off reflecting on his legacy. 'Well, you know, Minnesota doesn’t believe much in bragging. I did the best I could'."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/10/2021
  

  Marshall D. Sahlins, Groundbreaking Anthropologist, Dies at 90

  Marshal Sahlins was an innovator in the practice of campus "teach-ins," developed as a way for he and colleagues to protest the war in Vietnam without disengaging from contact with their students. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/30/2021
  

  G. Gordon Liddy, Undercover Operative Convicted in Watergate Scandal, Dies at 90

  "Mr. Liddy’s combination of can-do ruthlessness, loyalty to Nixon and ends-justify-the-means philosophy made him a natural fit in a White House determined to get even with its political enemies."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/26/2021
  

  Morris Dickstein, Critic and Cultural Historian, Dies at 81

  Morris Dickstein was a fierce advocate for the necessity of cultural criticism as part of public discourse, to elevate public understanding of art above the vagaries of hype and trend. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  3/26/2021
  

  Beverly Cleary, Legendary Children's Author Who Quietly Revolutionized Kid Lit, Dies at 104

  "She often credited one young library patron for launching her literary career after the boy stubbornly lamented––as she once did––that he couldn’t find any books about kids 'like us'."

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  3/21/2021
  

  Jonathan Steinberg: Wrote Influential English Study of Bismarck's Germany

  Jonathan Steinberg's scholarly work ranged from evaluating participation in the Holocaust to a biographical study of the influential German chancellor, and his teaching work resulted in him supervising the Prince of Wales in his undergraduate history studies.