In Memoriam

John Allen Gable

Nadine Ishitani Hata

Glover Moore

LaWanda Fenlason Cox

LaWanda Fenlason Cox passed away February 2, 2005 in her home in New York City at the age of ninety-five. Born in Aberdeen , Washington , on September 24, 1909, LaWanda Fenlason attended the University of Oregon , where she earned a B.A. in history in 1931. There she met John Cox whom she married in 1935. After graduation, she accepted a graduate fellowship at Smith College where she completed her Master’s under the direction of Merle Curti, a pioneering social historian whose concern for social justice deeply influenced her. After working as a research assistant for Curti and completing her Master’s, Cox returned to the West Coast to begin work on her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, where her future husband had already enrolled.

At Berkeley , she studied with John Schuster Taylor, an economist, who collaborated with the great documentary photographer Dorothea Lange on a study of the plight of the impoverished agricultural workers who migrated to California to escape the ravages of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. Taylor challenged her to write the history of migratory farm labor, a timely subject that had been ignored by historians. Never one to avoid a challenge, Cox produced a brilliant dissertation on the subject, “Agricultural Labor in the United States , 1865-1900, with Special Reference to the South,” which she defended in 1941.

She began her teaching career in 1940 as a temporary instructor at Northeast Missouri State Teacher’s College in Kirksville . In 1941, she took a position at Hunter College and with the exception of a two-year stint at Goucher College in Baltimore (1944-1946), she taught at Hunter and the City University of New York’s Graduate Center until her retirement in 1971.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Cox’s writings transformed our understanding of Reconstruction. She challenged the conventional view of the period, which held that Republicans championed civil rights for African Americans out of vindictiveness toward the South and a cynical desire to establish political hegemony in service to the interests of northern capitalists. Through meticulous research in manuscript sources, she demonstrated that civil rights was the central issue of Reconstruction. Because Republican leaders considered emancipation one of the fruits of the North’s victory in the Civil War, she argued, they were determined to secure basic civil rights for former slaves.

Their bitter conflict with President Andrew Johnson, Cox established, was the product of his intransigent commitment to white supremacy and their determination to guarantee African Americans basic civil rights. The most complete and eloquent statement of her position came in Politics, Principle, and Prejudice, 1865-1866: Dilemma of Reconstruction America (Free Press, 1963) which won the American Historical Association’s John H. Dunning Prize. Subsequent work, including Reconstruction, the Negro, and the New South (Harper & Row, 1971) extended the argument to emphasize the far reaching if hotly contested changes Reconstruction era civil rights policy effected.

Cox was also a highly influential Lincoln scholar. In Lincoln and Black Freedom (1981), she boldly challenged the reigning scholarly consensus that held that Lincoln was, at best, a reluctant emancipator. Cox argued that Lincoln ’s circumspect and indirect style of leadership&emdash;while highly effective in advancing the cause of black freedom&emdash;had misled historians about his commitment to emancipation and critical role in achieving it. While acknowledging the role African Americans themselves played in ending slavery, her characteristically meticulous research and careful reading of the sources made a compelling case for Lincoln ’s pivotal role in emancipation and his commitment to civil rights for the former slaves.

Throughout the 1980s, Cox remained actively engaged in scholarship, conducting research and publishing essays that examined the demise of Reconstruction and its failure to achieve substantive freedom for former slaves. Her thinking on this subject was the inspiration for the Symposium on Emancipation and Its Aftermath, which she organized and guided for a decade (1979-89). Each Memorial Day weekend about forty scholars gathered in New York City to discuss two papers that reflected work-in-progress by their authors. The symposium offered an opportunity for those working in the field to discuss critical issues and served as an incubator for a number of important studies that appeared in the 1980s and 1990s, including Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Harper & Row, 1988).

Failing vision brought an end to Cox’s historical research and writing in 1989. Nevertheless, in a career that spanned almost fifty years, she left an indelible imprint on the field of Reconstruction, Lincoln studies, and American history more generally. While some of her contemporaries published more, few produced scholarship that equaled hers in its originality, depth of research, analytical power, and enduring significance. Few historians of any generation can equal the crisp lucidity of her writing and analysis. Indeed, her writing remained so fresh and relevant that in 1997, fifty-three years after she published her first scholarly article, the University of Georgia Press published a collection of her writings, Freedom, Racism, and Reconstruction. And perhaps no historian was as generous in nurturing the scholarship of young scholars. She frequently spoke of the “treasury of good works.” We may not be able to repay those who help us, she believed, but we have an obligation to do for others what our benefactors did for us. In her case, she certainly contributed more to the treasury than she ever withdrew.

&emdash;Donald G. Nieman
Bowling Green State University

John Allen Gable

John Allen Gable, executive director, friend, and guiding light of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, died February 18, 2005. Gable was widely considered the world’s leading authority on Theodore Roosevelt. He became executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association in 1974. He founded and began editing the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, a quarterly publication, in 1975.

Gable graduated from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio , in 1965 and received his Ph.D. in history from Brown University , in 1972. He held teaching positions at various colleges and universities (C.W. Post Campus, Long Island University, 1977-1989; Briarcliff College, 1974-1977; Brown University, 1972-1973). Since 1989, he had served as adjunct professor of history at New College , Hofstra University .

Gable was a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Committee at the American Museum of Natural History and served on the Advisory Board of the Roosevelt Study Center in The Netherlands. He was on the Vestry of Christ (Episcopal) Church, Oyster Bay , New York , and was a past trustee of the Oyster Bay Historical Society.

Gable published extensively on Theodore Roosevelt and related topics. His The Bull Moose Years: Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Party (Kennikat Press, 1978) is considered a classic in the literature. His other writings about Theodore Roosevelt include numerous magazine and journal articles, forewords, introductions, contributed chapters, and prefaces, along with a number of books for which he served as editor. Most recently, he had been especially proud to serve as the editor for a special armed forces edition of Theodore Roosevelt’s The Man in the Arena, a compendium of speeches, letters and essays. Gable also wrote a highly respected history of his boyhood church, The Goodness That Doth Crown Our Days: A History of Trinity Parish, Lenox, Massachusetts (Trinity Parish, 1993), and a history of his adopted church in Oyster Bay, How Firm a Foundation: the Anglican Church in Oyster Bay, New York and Colonial America (Christ Church, 2004).

Gable did extensive television and film work. He served as historical consultant and on-camera commentator for TR: An American Lion, produced and directed by David de Vries and shown as a History Channel special in 2003. Additionally, he appeared in the PBS American Experience film TR: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (1996), and in numerous productions for A&E, C-SPAN and NBC (including The Today Show).

Shortly before his death, Gable received the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal&emdash;an honor previously granted to such scholars, statesman and artists as David McCullough, George H.W. Bush, Hamilton Fish, Paul Nitze, Philip Habib, Ralph Bunche, and Robert Frost. (Another recipient was Gable’s own mentor and forerunner as executive director of the Association, Herman Hagedorn, who received the Medal in 1956.) As well, in January 2005, Gable was presented with a special book of personal tributes composed by more than two dozen of his friends and colleagues, among them the Pulitzer Prize winners Edmund Morris, James MacGregor Burns, David McCullough and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

A memorial service was held on February 25th at Christ Church, 61 East Main Street, Oyster Bay, New York. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to Christ Church or the Theodore Roosevelt Association, P.O. Box 719, Oyster Bay, New York 11771.

&emdash;Edward J. Renehan Jr.

Nadine Ishitani Hata

Nadine Ishitani Hata died at her home on Friday, February 25, 2005. For a look at Nadine’s life, see “A California Love Story&emdash;Professional and Personal” in the February 2005 OAH Newsletter <http://www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2005feb/formwalt.html>. Contributions in her honor may be sent to the OAH, Hata Education Fund, P.O. Box 5457, Bloomington, IN, 47408-5457. 

Glover Moore

Glover Moore, professor emeritus of history at Mississippi State University, died November 9, 2004 in Birmingham, Alabama, at the age of ninety-three. A native of that city, Glover graduated from Birmingham-Southern College as class valedictorian in 1932. He went on to graduate study at Vanderbilt University where he earned his Master’s degree (1932) and Ph.D. (1936) under the tutelage of Frank L. Owsley. In 1936 he joined the history faculty at Mississippi State, where he continued, with one four-year leave of absence for military service in World War II, until his retirement in 1977.

During his long career at Mississippi State, Glover taught U.S. and southern history to two generations of students. The first member of the history faculty to hold the Ph.D., he played a major role in developing the graduate history program at the university. He directed the theses and dissertations of some forty students, more than any other member of the faculty. His students remember him fondly as a master teacher whose support and encouragement inspired them to become teachers themselves.

Glover’s scholarly reputation rests largely on his first book, The Missouri Controversy, 1819-1821 (University of Kentucky Press,1953), a widely acclaimed study of the nation’s first major sectional contest which remains after more than half a century the standard work on the subject. He published three other books subsequently. One of these, The Afro-American Story (1970) was written for use by high school history teachers. The other two, William Jemison Mims, Soldier and Squire (Birmingham Printing Co., 1966), and A Calhoun County, Alabama, Boy in the 1860s (University Press of Mississippi, 1978) were family histories of his grandfathers. His graduate students honored him with a festschrift published in 1981, Southern Miscellany: Essays in Honor of Glover Moore (University Press of Mississippi, 1981), edited by Frank Allen Dennis.

In 1965 Glover was the first faculty recipient of the MSU Alumni Association’s Outstanding Faculty Award for Teaching and Research. A few years later he was named Outstanding Educator of America for 1970. In the same year he was elected president of the Mississippi Historical Society, of which he was a life member. In 1989 that organization established the Glover Moore Prize to recognize the author of what is judged to be the best Master’s thesis written during the year anywhere in the country on a Mississippi related topic. Mississippi State University’s Department of History has established a memorial scholarship honoring Glover.

&emdash;Charles D. Lowery
Mississippi State University, Emeritus

Philip Walley Warken

Philip W. Warken, an emeritus professor at the United States Naval Academy, died suddenly at his home in the Canaan Valley of West Virginia during the last days of October 2004. He was sixty-nine. An Annapolis resident for almost four decades, he spent part of every year in West Virginia since his retirement in 1999. During his thirty-four year career at the Academy, he established himself as a demanding teacher, brilliant debate coach, and dedicated faculty leader.

A native of Columbus, Ohio, Warken received his A.B. degree from Capital University in 1957 and did his graduate work at The Ohio State University, completing his Ph.D in 1969. While pursuing his graduate degrees, he served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1958 to 1963. He came to the Naval Academy as an instructor in 1965 with a teaching specialization in American political history and later would develop courses in American social history and popular culture. He subsequently saw his doctoral dissertation on the National Resources Planning Board published. While establishing himself as a dynamic teacher, Warken quickly became the head of the Academy’s Debate Program, a position which he held for over three decades. Under his guidance the activity expanded and flourished. By the seventies his teams routinely received national ranking and prominence and vied for several national championships. In consequence, Warken became a significant district and national leader in debate circles, occupying the presidency of the American Debate Association, 1991-1995. The rapport he had with his midshipmen debaters became legendary. Indeed, they stayed in touch with him over the years and always referred to him not as “Coach” Warken, but simply as “the King.”

When not coaching debate and teaching, Warken proved to be an able and energetic administrator. He chaired with distinction numerous important faculty and Academy committees through the years, was chair of the history department, 1980 to 1984, and played important roles in several accreditation reviews. A recognized champion for faculty governance, he chaired the Civilian Faculty Affairs Committee several times, was one of the driving figures behind the creation of the Academy’s Faculty Senate, and was its first president. For his efforts across the spectrum of the classroom, debate, administration, and faculty governance, Warken received the Academy’s prestigious Service Excellence Award in 1995. It was an honor he richly deserved.

In essence, the Naval Academy was Philip Warken’s life. He loved midshipmen, the study of history, Ohio State football, the New York Yankees and, as a life-long bachelor, the ambience of the Officer’s and Faculty Club. He also loved cats&emdash;his devotion to his felines inspired awe from among the most ardent of cat adherents. Warken did not confine his concern to animals, however. He quietly pursued humanitarian ends as well. Indeed, his generosity has in the past and will in the future contribute significantly to the needs of many who will never know him. For those fortunate enough to have known him, his compassion as well as his ready wit will be missed.

&emdash;David Peeler
United States Naval Academy