In Memoriam |
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In this issue: |
Paul Avrich By necessity, Avrich became a master of difficult-to-find primary sources, written in many languages, gathered from collections in archives and basements across the globe (and with tremendous respect and appreciation, gave due credit to the archivists and anarchists who helped him along the way). He grounded his work in the life stories of the individuals whose actions and ideas were part of the colorful and complex mix of the history of anarchism. Although he was never able to complete his vision, Avrich left a weighty bookshelf of remarkable historical works, most of which appeared in several languages. These include The Russian Anarchists (Princeton University Press, 1967), Kronstadt 1921 (Princeton University Press, 1970); Russian Rebels 1600-1800 (Schocken, 1972); American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre (Princeton University Press,1978); The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States (Princeton University Press, 1980); The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton University Press, 1984); Bakunin and Nechaev (Freedom Press, 1987); Anarchist Portraits (Princeton University Press,1988); Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background (Princeton University Press, 1991); and Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Princeton University Press, 1995). These works, along with two edited volumes on Kropotkin (1970, 1972) and one on the Anarchists of the Russian Revolution (1973), and a cascade of articles in both scholarly and anarchist journals, are testimony to his dedication to the written legacy of those who he considered "the finest people" and to his belief in the importance of their contribution, and to his underlying assumption that "every good person deep down is an anarchist." In the years before he died, he was writing a definitive biography of Alexander Berkman, who he so admired and wished to emblazon into the historical record in new ways. In keeping with his affection for the people whose lives he honored in his work, he befriended his "subjects" and enhanced his scholarly life with what evolved into a lively almost familial engagement across generations. His students came not only from Queens College in New York City where he had taught for over thirty years and where he was named a distinguished professor of history, or from CUNY Graduate Center, or from his earlier years on the faculty of Wesleyan University and Columbia University, but from many universities and mutual aid societies across the world. Filmmakers, playwrights, novelists, biographers, a variety of scholars and research historians sent him a steady flow of queries. His home was a pilgrimage destination for all those seeking accurate information about anarchism. Paul's responses were always diligently prepared, respectful, and remarkably generous. His patience with all entry level points, opened doors to further research in the field. He acted as ad hoc advisor to the Emma Goldman Papers Project--shepherding us as we harvest the pasture he sowed. Paul Avrich, the foremost historian of anarchism in the world, was a humble scholar, a spellbinding speaker, a welcoming mentor. He was quick-witted and gentle. Respect, integrity, and the quest to document the undocumented rebels of the past, were the touchstones of his life. His presence will be missed, but not forgotten. --Candace Falk C. William Heywood During his years at Cornell College he taught American, Latin American and European history but his primary interest was in the early national period. He introduced one of the first courses in African American History in 1966. A long acknowledged leader of the faculty, he served as dean of the college, 1983-1987. He was awarded the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Cornell in 1987 in honor of his distinguished service to the college and the community. He returned to serve Cornell from 1992 to 2002 as a member of the board of trustees and briefly as acting president of the college in 1994. During his retirement he began writing the first serious history of Cornell College, The Sesquicentennial History of Cornell College 1853-2000. Declining health caused him to invite a colleague and friend to complete the two-voume work. Bill published many reviews and was a frequent contributor to academic conferences. He was a lifelong member of MVHA/OAH. Heywood was active in the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) during his entire career and served two years as national vice-president. He was highly regarded as an investigator and negotiator for AAUP in difficult situations. His service to the Mount Vernon community was marked by long service on the board of education and election to the city council. Bill was one of the founders of the Iowa History Teachers annual conference and a leader of a team of scholars who authored a report on the teaching of history in Iowa schools. For his many efforts to preserve and present Iowa history he was honored by the Iowa State Historical Society. A devote Quaker, Heywood was a conscientious objector in World War II and a lifelong advocate for peace and justice. He is remembered with respect, fondness and affection. Bill married the former Vivian Yergey in 1950 and is survived by her, one daughter, two sons and three grandchildren. --Richard H. Thomas William H. Seiler Bill was born on August 21, 1918, in Clinton, Iowa, the son of Harry and Hazel Bock Seiler. He earned his bachelor's (1940), master's (1941), and doctorate (1948) degrees from the University of Iowa. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, he married Eulalia M. Klingbeil on June 19, 1941, in Postville, Iowa. Following his first semester in Iowa's Ph.D. program, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bill enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant and served in the Second World War, seeing action in North Africa as well as the invasions at Sicily, Salerno, and Omaha Beach. Following the war, Bill resumed his Ph.D. work, completing it in the summer of 1948. Bill's scholarly abilities caught the eye of the rising scholar George L. Mosse, who enlisted the young veteran while yet a graduate student as coeditor of a manual for teaching the comparative history of Europe and the United States in the early modern period, published in 1947. The following year, as a newly-minted Ph.D., Bill began teaching at Kansas State Teachers College (later Emporia State University). He remained there his entire career, retiring in 1983, and for two full decades served as chair of the Division of Social Sciences, from 1958 to 1978. Bill's professional work focused especially on the southern colonies, and his doctoral dissertation, directed by H. T. Thornton, was entitled "The Anglican Parish in Tidewater Virginia." Although never published as a monograph, the dissertation yielded three articles, including one in William and Mary Quarterly and two in the Journal of Southern History. Of the latter, "The Anglican Parish Vestry in Colonial Virginia," published in 1956, was a seminal work that was yet required reading in colonial graduate seminars when this writer was doing doctoral coursework in the late 1980s, no small feat after the publication of Rhys Isaac's celebrated The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (University of North Carolina Press, 1974). Bill continued to find inspiration in local studies of the colonial South, especially Virginia's tidewater region, and in 1978 his essay "The Anglican Church: A Basic Institution of Local Government in Colonial Virginia," was published in Bruce C. Daniels's Town and County: Essays on the Structure of Local Government in the American Colonies. Teaching so many preparing teachers at Emporia State, his work made the natural turn toward pedagogy, and he published several reports on effective mentoring and teaching of both high school and university students, as well as an outline and study guide to accompany a comparative European-American history textbook, and a history of the Division of Social Sciences at Kansas State Teachers College (1963). His courses were as wide-ranging as his scholarly interests, and he was known as an exceptional teacher. Bill was a member of the executive committee of the Kansas Council for the Social Studies, and served as president of both the Kansas History Teachers Association and the Kansas State Historical Society. He edited more than twenty-five issues of Emporia State Research Studies. He was a fifty-year member of the Organization of American Historians and the Southern Historical Association. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church and the Outlook Club in Emporia. His wife preceded him in death in 1990. He is survived by two sons, William H. Seiler, Jr., of McPherson, Kansas, and James R. Seiler of Overland Park, Kansas; one brother, James Bristol of Waukon, Iowa; five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Memorial contributions can be made to the William H. and Eulalia Seiler Scholarship Fund at Emporia State University. Messages to the family may be left at <http://www.stockhamfamily.com>. If life indeed imitates art, Bill Seiler's gentlemanly ways exemplified the ideal of those he spent his life studying. --Christopher Phillips Arthur Zilversmit Contributions in Zilversmit's memory may be made to the Zilversmit-Gayle M/LS Program Fund at Lake Forest College, c/o Office of Development, Lake Forest College, 555 N. Sheridan Road, Lake Forest, Illinois 60045. --Michael H. Ebner |
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Arthur Zilversmit, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of History at Lake Forest College, died on August 22, 2005 following protracted illness. He was seventy-three. Departing Holland as a child, in the company of his parents and brother, they resettled in the United States to escape the Nazis. A graduate of Bronx High School of Science, he earned a B.A. degree at Cornell University, M.A. at Harvard University, and Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. He came to Lake Forest College in 1966 from Williams College. In addition to teaching history and chairing the department, he established and directed the Graduate Program in Liberal Studies. His course Theory & Methods, instituted in 1985, remains a lynchpin in the department's requirements. Arthur authored two books published by the University of Chicago Press: Changing Schools: Progressive Education Theory and Practice, 1930-1960 (1993), and The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North (1967). He edited Lincoln on Black and White: A Documentary History (Belmont, CA: Krieger, 1971). Zilversmit was awarded many honors including the College's Trustee Award for Outstanding Teaching and Campus Leadership, the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs' first Outstanding Faculty Award, a fellowship at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center of Princeton University, and a Fulbright Senior Lectureship at the University of Rome. Responding to the turmoil of the late 1960s, at Lake Forest College he devised a governance system in place to this day. Devoted to fostering links between higher education and history teachers in the public schools, he directed two seminars underwritten by the National Endowment for the Humanities, served as academic director of the Ohio Academy of History for the National Council of History Education, and participated in a Teaching American History project underwritten by the United States Department of Education. An active member in professional organizations, he served on committees of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. The North Central Association frequently called upon Zilversmit to evaluate colleges and universities. Arthur Zilversmit is survived by Charlotte Zilversmit, his wife of fifty years, their son Marc Zilversmit of San Francisco, their daughter Karen Golden of Voorhees, New Jersey, his brother Rolf Zilversmit of New York City, and five grandchildren.