In Memoriam |
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In this issue:
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James A. Rawley, a widely respected historian of the Civil War Era and American race relations and a biographer of Abraham Lincoln, died on November 29, 2005, in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the age of eighty nine. A native of Terre Haute, Indiana, Rawley earned his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Michigan. After serving in World War II, he studied at Columbia University under Allan Nevins, David Donald, and Merle Curti, receiving his Ph.D. in 1949. Rawley taught at Hunter College and Sweet Briar College, where he published his first book, Edwin D. Morgan: Merchant in Politics, 1811-1883 (Columbia University Press, 1955), and served as chair of the History Department for four years and chair of the Division of Social Studies for three more. After moving to the University of Nebraska in 1964, Rawley was chair of the department of history for a decade while writing four more important books on the Civil War Era, with an emphasis on race, slavery, and emancipation. His Turning Points of the Civil War (University of Nebraska Press, 1966) won an immediate and lasting audience on campuses across the country. Introducing generations of undergraduates to the political and military events of the Civil War, the book is still in print after forty years. In 1969, Rawley published what is possibly his best known book, Race and Politics: Bleeding Kansas and the Coming of the Civil War (Lippincott, 1969), recognized as that generation's definitive account of popular sovereignty in Kansas Territory during the 1850s. Meanwhile, he edited another popular book, Lincoln and Civil War Politics (Rinehart & Winston, 1969) that joined Turning Points as a perennial classroom favorite. After yet another book on the Civil War era, The Politics of Union: Northern Politics During the Civil War (Dryden Press, 1974), Rawley adopted an innovative quantitative approach to historical research in The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History (Norton, 1981). In a painstaking analysis of fragmentary sources, he contributed to the systematic attempt to identify the origins, destinations, and eventual fates of the more than ten million Africans who suffered enslavement throughout the Americas. Sharing the common themes of race, slavery, and emancipation, these six books have commanded regular use and durable respect from a generation of scholars and history students. Meanwhile, Rawley published a long list of influential articles, including his most frequently read and cited, "The Nationalism of Abraham Lincoln" in Civil War History (1963). During his twenty-three years on our faculty, Rawley won most of the highest honors that the University of Nebraska can bestow, including the Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award, the Carl Happold Distinguished Professorship, and the Pound-Howard Distinguished Career Award. Upon retiring in 1987, he continued to research and write, mentor junior colleagues, and contribute to the historical profession at large. In 1990, he published Secession: The Disruption of the American Republic, 1844-1861 (R.E. Krieger Publishing Company, 1990), tracing the origins of the Civil War for undergraduates, and then accepted the challenge of writing a complete, one-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln and a Nation Worth Fighting For (Harlan Davidson, 1996). In his last book, London: Metropolis of the Slave Trade (University of Missouri Press, 2003), Rawley returned to the subject of the transatlantic slave trade. The University of Nebraska Press will publish two additional books, A Lincoln Dialogue and New Turning Points of the Civil War, which were in manuscript at the time of his death. Throughout his sixty-year career, Rawley contributed energetically and generously to the historical profession as a longtime and active member of the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, the Southern Historical Association, the African Studies Association, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, and the Abraham Lincoln Association. Among other professional distinctions, he was a Fellow in the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow in the Society of American Historians. In Nebraska, Rawley contributed to the Nebraska State Historical Society as its president, a member of its Executive Board for twenty years, and a trustee of its foundation for nearly three decades. He was perhaps most widely recognized for establishing the OAH's James A. Rawley Prize, which honors and encourages outstanding scholarship in the history of American race relations, passing on the torch, so to speak, to the next generation of historians of race, slavery, and civil rights. Renowned for his generous support for scholars throughout our profession, Rawley was personally self-effacing but intellectually forceful, an ideal colleague and a warm friend to all who knew him. University of Nebraska President James B. Milliken, who studied under Rawley, characterized him "as an extraordinary scholar and teacher and an important presence on the campus for many years," concluding that "I am among the many who will miss him greatly." He is survived by his wife of sixty years, Ann, two sons, and three grandchildren. —Kenneth J. Winkle Richard P. McCormick, one of the most accomplished and beloved scholars, educators, administrators and social activists in the 240-year history of Rutgers University, has died after an extended illness. He was 89. McCormick, who first came to Rutgers as an undergraduate in 1934, served the university community and the state of New Jersey with distinction for more than sixty years as a professor of history, university historian, dean of Rutgers College and president of the New Jersey Historical Society. McCormick was an internationally recognized expert in New Jersey history and American political history and was instrumental in the establishment of several influential historical organizations, including the New Jersey Historical Commission, the New Jersey State Historical Records Advisory Board and the New Jersey Tercentenary Commission. Born Dec. 24, 1916, in Queens, New York, Richard Patrick McCormick graduated from Tenafly, New Jersey, High School in 1933. McCormick earned his bachelor's degree in history from Rutgers College in 1938, where he was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa. McCormick went on to earn his master's degree in history from Rutgers' Graduate School-New Brunswick in 1940. After studying for his doctoral degree at the University of Pennsylvania, McCormick returned to Rutgers in 1945 and began teaching full time in the history department. He received his doctorate from Penn in 1948, the same year he was appointed Rutgers University Historian. Also that year, McCormick inaugurated a full-year course at Rutgers on New Jersey history. During 1961-1962, McCormick was a Fellow of Jesus College, the University of Cambridge. He also served as research adviser to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia and as a member of the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. A prolific writer of history, McCormick published nine books and more than forty articles. His books included New Jersey from Colony to State, 1609-1789 (Van Nostrand, 1964); The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era (University of North Carolina Press, 1966); and The Presidential Game: The Origins of American Presidential Politics (Oxford University Press, 1982). He was widely regarded as among the most influential historians of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American politics. McCormick also was the author of Rutgers, a Bicentennial History (Rutgers University Press 1966), which documents Rutgers's growth from a colonial-era college into one of the nation's finest public universities. This work was awarded the biennial book prize from the American Association for State and Local History in 1968. In addition to his scholarly achievements, Dr. McCormick served Rutgers in a number of prominent academic and administrative positions. He was chair of the history department from 1966 to 1969, chair of the Rutgers College Coeducation Committee in 1971 and dean of Rutgers College from 1974 to 1977. In 1969, McCormick chaired a special faculty committee to address issues raised by African American students at Rutgers in the wake of protests on the Newark, New Brunswick and Camden campuses. Among other initiatives, McCormick and fellow faculty members convinced their colleagues to contribute one percent of their salaries to create a special fund to assist at-risk students in the transition from high school to college. In recognition of these efforts, this past fall the Rutgers College Educational Opportunity Fund created the Richard P. McCormick Social Justice Award. In 1974, McCormick was named a University Professor of History by the Rutgers Board of Governors. Although he formally retired from teaching in 1982, McCormick continued to be an active and gracious member of the university community. Upon his retirement from Rutgers, McCormick was awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree by the university, a rare distinction for a faculty member. In 1990, he was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni. The American Historical Association honored McCormick with the 2002 Award for Scholarly Distinction—the most prestigious award presented by the association—in recognition of his lifetime contribution to historical scholarship. —Gregory Trevor |
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