1
10
7
-
https://thanksroy.org/files/original/937b469d9999d17c390c35fae4976396.jpg
c15de8415972a17c06ff30bcf184b994
Omeka Image File
The metadata element set that was included in the `files_images` table in previous versions of Omeka. These elements are common to all image files.
Bit Depth
8
Channels
3
Height
194
IPTC Array
a:1:{s:16:"copyright_notice";s:4:" ";}
IPTC String
copyright_notice:
Width
288
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples of still images are: paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type "text" to images of textual materials.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
55
Title
A name given to the resource
How Roy Changed My Life, Part 3
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
You must be 13 years of age or older to submit material to us. Your submission of material constitutes your permission for, and consent to, its dissemination and use in connection with Thanks, Roy in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on Thanks, Roy (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using Thanks, Roy. The material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based, in whole or in part, upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain. Further, submitted material must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security or other laws.
Description
An account of the resource
Beginning in 2001, when he was thirteen, my son Simon spent time each summer at Roy and Deborah's home and worked at the Center for History and New Media. Roy was a great mentor, and Simon is a better person for having Roy as a role model.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gary Kornblith
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Gary Kornblith
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Still Image
chnm
mentor
Simon
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Celebration
Description
An account of the resource
Speeches from the Celebration of Roy's Life, December 9, 2007, George Mason University, Arlington campus, Arlington, VA.
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
Good afternoon.
I’m Kathi Brown, a former student of Roy’s...as well as former neighbor...and also a friend. I met Roy more than 20 years ago when I first entered the evening Masters program in History at GMU. I also had the privilege of being one of Roy’s research assistants on the opus that he and Betsy Blackmar crafted on the history of Central Park.
When Roy’s wife Deborah e-mailed me a month ago to invite me to say a few words today, it took me approximately a nanosecond to reply with an enthusiastic “Yes!....Please!....Thank you!”
No sooner did I hit SEND to respond to Deborah’s invitation than I burst out laughing.
I pictured Roy, wide-eyed and astonished over the speed with which I had accepted an invitation to speak in public.
He knew first-hand how much I loathe standing up in front of an audience. In fact, it was an ongoing joke between us. After I graduated with my Masters degree and started my historical consulting business back in the late 1980s, Roy used to ask me once a year to come back to campus to talk to graduate students about my career. Each year, like clockwork, I would listen to his invitation...hoot with delighted laughter...look him straight in the eye and reply: “Love you...would do almost anything in the world for you...EXCEPT this...NO!”
After a few of these comically predictable annual exchanges, Roy conceded defeat and presumably found others who were less stubborn and more willing to say yes.
Today, of course, is the exception that proves the rule. I could not in my wildest dreams imagine turning down Deborah’s invitation.
Which brings to mind what I think is probably my all-time favorite quality in Roy.
Roy, as we all well know, was brilliant...funny....eloquent...
inspiring...and blessed with the kind of giant mind, gentle spirit and generous heart that are rarely found cobbled together in one human being.
But the trait I probably cherished most in Roy was something in which he was abysmally, magnificently lacking:
Roy possessed a complete and utter inability to say NO.
Need to borrow a book? Sure! No problem! Come on over to the Kaplan-Rosenzweig Lending Library anytime! Conveniently open from dawn to midnight. No lines, no limits, no late fines or fees............I loved it! And benefited from it, in part because I lived only four blocks away from Roy and Deborah for ten years...Believe me, I wore a trough in the sidewalk between their house and mine.
Looking for a level-headed analysis of an existential crisis? Roy was my go-to guy. I could always count on him for a no-nonsense, if somewhat bemused interpretation of life’s quandaries. Mostly because I gave the poor man absolutely no choice, Roy shepherded me gently from my mid-20s “What should I do with my life?” to my current late-40s, middle-aged “OKayyyyyyyy, that was great! NOW what?” If he had stayed with us for another couple of decades, I have no doubt that he would have had wise words and entertaining advice to offer me on everything from menopause to choosing a retirement community.
Yet another area in which Roy could never manage to say NO was in the realm of computers. I can’t think of anyone who had more technology per square inch stuffed into a home office than Roy. Whenever I walked in the door at his Jackson Street house, I felt like I was boarding the Starship Enterprise.
Roy’s affinity for the latest in high-tech toys proved his undoing. At least where I was concerned. Knowing that I had an expert living mere blocks away prompted me more than once to throw myself on Roy’s mercy when contemplating a computer purchase.
Even now, a full 20 years later, I’m still half-ashamed of myself for the time I successfully pestered Roy into driving around Arlington with me one afternoon to three or four computer stores to protect me from fast-talking, geek-speaking salesmen. He did all the talking, while I more or less hid behind him, checkbook in hand, ready to close the deal whenever he gave me the signal!
The next time around I was just as bad. When the time arrived to upgrade again, I actually made Roy call J&R Music and Computer World, a big electronics discounter in New York, pick out a computer and negotiate a mail order sale for me.
Later that day I got a call from him.
“Kathi? Roy. OK, here’s what you do. Get out your wallet. Call 1-800-806-1115. Ask for extension 352. A very nice, non-threatening guy named Ed is standing by to take your credit card number....”
I kid you not!
Perhaps even worse than begging for help with my computer purchases were the COUNTLESS times I dragged Roy away from the comfort of his home office to rescue me from some computer-related snafu of my own clumsy-fingered making.
Just one example. I will never forget the time I managed to wipe out an entire book manuscript with just a few keystrokes. How I accomplished this incredible feat, to this day, I have no idea. All I know is that I sat dumbstruck at my computer for a few seconds and then did the ONLY logical thing....
“Roy?” I cried tearfully into the phone. “My computer just ate my book!!!! Help!!!!”...There was a moment of silence...Then the voice on the other end replied calmly: “OK, put down the phone, raise your hands and slowly baccccckkkk awaaaaay from the desk. Don’t touch anything!! I’ll be right over!”
Sure enough, Roy popped up on my doorstep five minutes later and spent at least THREE hours picking through my hard drive, scooping up shards of prose and reassembling as much of my opus as he could find. All the while, trying to comfort me. All I could do was sit next to him, doing a fine impression of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” staring helplessly at the screen, and humbly thanking him every five minutes for rescuing my baby from oblivion.
And, naturally, Roy being Roy, as he was leaving, he extracted from me a solemn promise to learn to BACK UP MY COMPUTER, LOL!
How can you not love a friend like that????
I’m sure there were times when Roy might have preferred to Control-Alt-Delete me AND my computer problems right out of his life, but fortunately for me, he was too loyal and too kindhearted to say NO, no matter how ludicrous or ill-conceived my request......My comfort lies in the hope that along the way I provided him with sufficient entertainment—and friendship—to make it worth his while to keep me around!
I’m just about out of time, but before I turn things over to the next speaker, I have just a little more to add, on a more serious note.
Roy was my hero.
Plain and simple.
When I first walked into Roy’s classroom on a September evening more than twenty years ago, I had no inkling that the mustached man with the shy smile and twinkling eyes at the head of the room was about to forever change the way I see the world.
Not by hammering me over the head with the kind of ear-splitting, in-your-face, see-it-my-way-or-hit-the-highway blustering that dominates our public discourse today.
Instead, he did it quietly.
By putting the right books in my hands...
By taking me on as a research assistant so I could learn the incomparable pleasures of historical detective work...
He did it by listening...REALLY listening...never once in more than 20 years giving me the feeling that any question, any opinion, any idea I had was not worthy of serious consideration and a serious response.
Above all, Roy did it by teaching me to ask the right questions.
Not just in the classroom...
Not just in my consulting work...
And not merely questions about the past...
Instead, he taught me to ask questions on a bigger, broader scale...about the way the world really works...or, often, doesn’t work.
Questions I’ll be asking today...tomorrow...and for the rest of my life.
The ability to shape someone’s mind for the better is a gift...the value of which is not to be underestimated.
Fortunately, for those of us who were his students, Roy possessed that gift, in spades.
So, whenever it was, 30 or more years ago, that Roy was presented with the opportunity to choose teaching as a career, rather than find something else to do with that magnificent mind of his....
I, for one, will always be grateful..........that he didn’t say NO.
Thank you.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
129
Title
A name given to the resource
Tribute to Roy: Kathi Brown's Remarks from December 9, 2007 Celebration in Arlington, Virginia
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
You must be 13 years of age or older to submit material to us. Your submission of material constitutes your permission for, and consent to, its dissemination and use in connection with Thanks, Roy in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on Thanks, Roy (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using Thanks, Roy. The material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based, in whole or in part, upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain. Further, submitted material must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security or other laws.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Kathi Brown
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kathi Brown
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
computers
hero
mentor
neighbor
student
teacher
-
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
I was Roy’s student and worked with him at the Center for History and New Media for ten years. Working with Roy gave me a skewed, somewhat utopian perspective of what academia was really like. He was always happy to meet with me. He read all of my chapters within a week. He was in the audience when I presented my first conference paper and many times when I presented afterward. His letters of recommendation were written well before the deadline and required no reminder. One would expect that it would be stressful to have an adviser who was also your boss. And yet looking back at emails from that period it seems that it was me who constantly complained about needing to prepare a job talk or a paper, and it was Roy who always patiently sacrificed deadlines to give me time off. In fact, his Center have provided, and still does, this kind of flexible support to dozens of graduate students who have worked there through the years. Roy even gave me rides from campus to the metro occasionally so I didn’t have to take a bus. I was completely spoiled. I actually thought it was a matter of course to expect all these things from your adviser until I talked to my friends and found out that theirs did nothing of the sort.
Today, now that I know how rare that experience had been, I would like to mention some things that I learned from Roy.
For example, Roy taught me some of my English, my second language. From him, I first heard words like “deep-six,” as it “to deep-six this unconvincing argument,” and academic stock phrases such as “a study that fills a much-needed gap.” I learned my email-speak from Roy—how to say “thanks!” constantly no matter how trivial the task done for you; how to send encouraging one-liners, “That’s great! Roy,” in response to emails most people would ignore; how to preface work assignments with “whenever you have time” and “no rush on this,” when you really mean “do it as soon as you can.”
Roy taught me how to be a researcher. He researched everything. At the first memorial for Roy at George Mason University in Arlington, a friend of his described how Roy embarked on a research project to get a letter to the editor published in the <em>New York Times</em>. He determined the published letters often started with “We are shocked and dismayed,” and used the phrase. The letter was published. Roy demanded the same dedication from his students and research assistants. I still remember how I spent hours going through the <em>Washington Post</em> in search of a Doonesbury cartoon for him that gave the only two possible reasons for producing web sites as “fear and greed,” and then through the Hearst press from the 1940s in search of an anti-Sidney Hillman limerick, to include on the <em>Who Build America</em> CD. The limerick was not printed when Steven Fraser’s book <em>Labor Will Rule</em> claimed it would be, but several weeks later. None of his students could get away with close readings of a few texts—a method then popular in my field of historical cultural studies. I don’t need to refer to <em>The Chicago Manual of Style</em> to format my book; I can refer to Roy’s and Elizabeth Blackmar’s <em>The Park and the People</em>, a study that cites every possible kind of source, and has the most elaborate abbreviation system I have yet to encounter in a work of scholarship.
Roy taught me how to comment on other people’s work. When he showed me how to rewrite completely one of my less successful drafts, in a 5-page single-spaced line-by-line commentary, he was quite direct and at times sarcastic. To one of my wilder propositions he responded, “I am prepared to believe that this is the case, but the claims here seem to rest on two anecdotes.” Yet he was also kind—he also used, quite without foundation, words “perceptive,” “well-written,” and “wonderful,” the latter three times. I’m not sure Roy was capable of writing comments that were not detailed—he gave such thorough responses not just to dissertation and book chapters but also to papers he assigned in his Clio Wired class (an introduction to digital history) that he invented and taught for years.
Roy taught me how to be a radical historian. I read mounds of books that claimed to provide ever more radical readings of various practices and texts. In contrast, it was useful to encounter Roy’s less ostentatious, everyday brand of radicalism. At the first memorial for Roy at George Mason University in Arlington, Alison Landsberg, his friend, colleague, and neighbor, read an email from Roy and Deborah from 2003 where they invited friends to participate in an antiwar candlelight vigil in Arlington, Virginia. “If there is interest,” they wrote, “we would be happy to organize a group dinner of take out food at our house before hand (5:30?) or after.” At the time it seemed that mass demonstrations in DC, while inspiring to participants, changed neither gender policies nor war plans of the Bush Administration. Yet Roy never gave up. Every single one of his projects—from an antiwar vigil to his work at the <em>Radical History Review</em> to convincing the AHA to make articles in the <em>American Historical Review</em> available for free on the web—aimed at getting things done. The Center for History and New Media, which he founded to democratize history, is perhaps his most important work of radical scholarship.
Most importantly, in doing all of the above, Roy taught me how to be a human being. He ignored no one—at every meeting or party, he would make sure to find the least important person in the room and strike up a conversation. Even after he became ill and was often tired he continued to help colleagues, advise students, direct the Center, and of course, answer his email. Many people had no idea how ill he was and where shocked by his passing because he never stopped being Roy, in any circumstances.
I miss the sense of security Roy gave his students immensely and yet I will always have his sense of purpose in doing history. Most of all, I miss him. Thanks, Roy.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
261
Title
A name given to the resource
Morning Coffee with Roy, Roy as Mentor""
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
You must be 13 years of age or older to submit material to us. Your submission of material constitutes your permission for, and consent to, its dissemination and use in connection with Thanks, Roy in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on Thanks, Roy (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using Thanks, Roy. The material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based, in whole or in part, upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain. Further, submitted material must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security or other laws. By submitting material to Thanks, Roy you release, discharge, and agree to hold harmless Thanks, Roy and persons acting under its permission or authority, including a public library or archive to which the collection might be donated for purposes of long-term preservation, from any claims or liability arising out the Thanks, Roy's use of the material, including, without limitation, claims for violation of privacy, defamation, or misrepresentation. Thanks, Roy has no obligation to use your material. You will be sent via email a copy of your contribution to Thanks, Roy. We cannot return any material you submit to us so be sure to keep a copy. Thanks, Roy will not share your email address or any other information with commercial vendors.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Elena Razlogova
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Elena Razlogova
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
chnm
coffee
commitment
kindness
mentor
radical
-
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
What follows is a speech I wrote for the special AHA session in Roy’s memory on January 5, abridged to avoid duplicating my other post on this site.
I worked with Roy at the Center for History and New Media for ten years, from 1995 to 2005, and he also was my thesis adviser form 1998 until I graduated in 2004. I will talk about what it was like to work with him at the Center and to have him as a mentor. And because my relationship with Roy was mediated by technology I’ll talk about Roy’s relationship with technology as well.
Several times in conversations with Roy I heard him speculate why there are not more hit TV series and movies about historians. TV shows and films about doctors and cops are popular, he used to say, because they are always urgently needed to save lives somewhere. If only we could come up with an emergency that would urgently require an intervention by a historian, played perhaps by Nicholas Cage or Angelina Jolie, who could rush to the scene and save the day, the discipline would have much better representation in American popular culture.
I think Roy was skeptical about this possibility. However, in some ways, working with Roy was like this imaginary action movie. It was exciting and it was full of emergencies.
I began working at the Center as its only employee. The center was Roy, Mike O’Malley, and me, with a standard Mac desktop for a server, located in a closet in a former student dormitory, with only six web pages on it. Of course, now there are dozens of historical websites and tools produced at the Center, but for the first few years we only had two or three. Eventually, we could afford top-of-the-line equipment and put it in a secure facility with multiple backups, but for the first few years that wasn’t an option. Web servers crash. Roy however, refused to acknowledge that fact. Once on an anniversary of 9/11 Jim Sparrow and I accidentally unplugged the machine that was serving millions of connections to our September 11 Digital Archive, and could not restart it for several minutes because the database got corrupted. For Roy, who was pacing back and forth watching us trying to repair the damage, every second our historical data stayed offline was agony.
There were times when Roy would drive in to GMU’s Fairfax campus himself on a snow day—a real emergency in Virginia—to restart a crashed server as soon as possible. Roy never asked me outright to drop everything and spend 5 to 10 hours trying to work out the problem but he had a way of pausing on the phone, or nervously walking around in person that conveyed the message very well.
I can’t say I didn’t resent the havoc Roy’s work ethic did to my social life. If I had a dinner engagement, I cancelled it. If I was on vacation in San Francisco, I had to go into a closest café with wireless to solve problems remotely. Immediately after arriving to any city, I looked for Starbucks coffee shops (that were guaranteed to have wireless access), to be ready in case an emergency would occur.
Once I was on the metro right before Ballston station on my way to work when I got a call from Roy. It turned out that Pennee Bender from the American Social History project was presenting on our History Matters site at a conference. Her presentation was to start in 5 minutes and she just discovered that the search page didn’t work. I had to get off the train, out of the Ballston station, into the Starbucks, and fix the search in 5 minutes—as always for Roy, failure wasn’t an option.
At first I was surprised at how seriously Roy took every glitch, but then I realized that he did this because he had a strong sense of purpose and a clear idea of how to accomplish it. For him, history only made sense as a democratic project. He believed that digital media could democratize history, and to this end he produced historical websites, spoke at innumerable meetings, wrote grant proposals, and promoted collaborative and open source scholarship. Keeping the server always on was just a minor manifestation of his larger vision and his determination to accomplish it.
Working with Roy as a student resembled an action film in a different way—the emergencies where all mine and he was the one who saved the day. Quite simply, I would not be a historian today if it wasn’t for Roy. I’m Russian, and it would have been impossible for me to finish school if I didn’t have a job at CHNM at the same time. He had to fill out mounds of extra paperwork to hire me, and when my American visa got delayed for two months, Roy didn’t give up and kept the job open for me when he didn’t have to.
Many students claim being close to their advisers—Roy was generous in ways that this common phrase doesn’t really describe. He would be always happy to meet with me, and always enthusiastic about my work, but when a conversation would approach a conclusion, he would just say “Ok” with a certain inflection, and I would know that I had to get out of the office so he could move on to other work. We communicated as much over email and instant messaging as in person. Roy once told me how he and Deborah, working on two separate floors of their house, simultaneously got emails with links to the YouTube video of Stephen Colbert mocking President Bush at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Only later did they realize that they were watching the video on different computers at the same time. One could imagine that Roy and Deborah sometimes communicated by email in the house as well. But in my case, the way Roy used email was much more valuable than any heart-to-heart conversations we didn’t have.
It was remarkable enough that Roy could answer an email within seconds if it was about Center business, but what I appreciated even more was that when I asked him to help with my own work his responses were just as fast. During the celebration of Roy’s life in December, people were offering statistics on thousands of emails they got from Roy. Here are some statistics on how little time it took for Roy to get back to me over email about my research.
Reading and commenting on my book prospectus: 17 hours
Reading and commenting on reader reviews of my book manuscript: 9 hours
Answering a question about my dissertation: 10 minutes
Answering the last question I asked him, about a book we both had read, on September 26, 2007: 2 hours.
How Roy found the time to reply this fast, I have no idea. He knew and communicated with so many people in the US and beyond—when I was about to move to Montreal to teach Roy sat down with me and gave names of a half a dozen digital humanities scholars he knew in Canada. In September 2005, over iChat, I asked Roy to read something of mine, and as always, he immediately agreed. Then he tried to figure out when he would actually do it. Here is what he wrote on IM:
Roy Rosenzweig: maybe not this weekend
Roy Rosenzweig: but monday
Roy Rosenzweig: maybe
Roy Rosenzweig: i have plane flight and hopefully could do then
Roy Rosenzweig: i have picnic tomorrow and then antiwar march
Roy Rosenzweig: and then various people are staying over
Roy Rosenzweig: i have conferences all next week
I know that what he had done for me he did for hundreds of other people. Thanksroy.org is full of testimonies of people he helped. I think he was such a perfect mentor precisely because one didn’t have to be his favorite student or colleague to count on his help and unwavering support. His commitment to social equality was not just academic, it encompassed everything he did—researching working-class culture, helping students, going to antiwar rallies, and lobbying for open source scholarship. Many brilliant historians exist but I haven’t met anyone as ethical and committed as Roy. He provided more than conventional history instruction; he taught by example.
Roy was always there when one of his friends, colleagues, or students needed help yet anything more than a cursory expressions of gratitude made him uncomfortable. I got so desperate about this that when Roy asked me to write a letter in support of a grant the Center was applying for, I used the letter to thank him for many things he had done for me, and then asked him to proofread it to make sure that he actually looked at the words. Among other things, I wrote, “It would not be an exaggeration to say that my years at CHNM”—and as Roy’s student—“transformed my understanding of the purpose and practice history. I will always be grateful for this experience.” Thanks, Roy.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
145
Title
A name given to the resource
Working with Roy
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
You must be 13 years of age or older to submit material to us. Your submission of material constitutes your permission for, and consent to, its dissemination and use in connection with Thanks, Roy in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on Thanks, Roy (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using Thanks, Roy. The material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based, in whole or in part, upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain. Further, submitted material must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security or other laws.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Elena Razlogova
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Elena Razlogova
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
chnm
computer technology
generosity
kindness
mentor
teacher
-
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
As a postdoc fellow last year at GMU, and a young historian just entering the field, I am deeply moved by all the stories and comments here, but they do not surprise me. I had already been deeply moved by Roy last year at GMU.
I was a greenhorn in the department, just there for a year, and Roy took the time to meet with me about once a month, despite not only his busy schedule but the treatments for his illness. He was engaged, witty, thoughtful, and supportive. We bonded over being both Queens and Columbia boys, though we laughed at our different perspectives across the generations. And we had wonderful discussions about the state of American cultural history, the job market, book publishers, student culture at GMU, traffic in Northern Virginia, and digital history.
I left meetings with Roy (always always over coffee) feeling energized and hopeful about being a historian. And I learned by his example how to be a dedicated colleague.
I suspect that Roy's professional legacy will live on through these countless meetings he had with those around them: little bits of his tremendous energies are scattered about in all of us who were able to interact with him.
Even with my brief time getting to know Roy just a little, I am so very sad about this loss. He was a very special scholar and person. I send my condolences to those who knew Roy well and I just wanted to add one more voice to the chorus of this celebration of his career and life.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
97
Title
A name given to the resource
How To Be a Good Historian
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
You must be 13 years of age or older to submit material to us. Your submission of material constitutes your permission for, and consent to, its dissemination and use in connection with Thanks, Roy in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on Thanks, Roy (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using Thanks, Roy. The material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based, in whole or in part, upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain. Further, submitted material must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security or other laws.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Michael Kramer
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Michael Kramer
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
Colleague
Historian
mentor
Professional Legacy
-
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
When Roy took me on as a Ph.D. student in 1998, I've been through three American universities and several advisers. I was alone in the US--my entire family was back in Russia. I was also broke and ready to give up. If it wasn't for Roy I would probably be working in a bank in Moscow right now. Instead I teach history at a university in Montreal. I owe both my career as a historian and my urban bohemian lifestyle to Roy.
Roy approached my education, as he did many things, as a collaborative project, and all of a sudden instead of no advisers, I had two great ones, Roy and Mike O'Malley. And he gave me a job at CHNM so I could earn enough money to survive in the US. Roy was a perfect adviser--he was always there when I needed help yet did not demand any adoration or flattery in return. In fact, he found any expression of gratitude annoying. I still have Roy’s comments on all of my chapters--he wrote pages of detailed suggestions for revision, complete with spelling and grammar corrections (particularly relevant in my case). I could always count on him to write a letter for me or to help with a grant, no matter how exasperated he was with a last-minute request. When I applied to the university where I'm teaching now, the committee unexpectedly requested a second long letter from Roy, to be emailed the same day, dealing specifically with my work in digital history. I went to his office, and he wrote it right then, in ten minutes, even though he was extremely busy. I wouldn't have gotten that job if he didn't take time to write that letter. Roy didn't just teach historiography and method--from him I learned why history only makes sense as a democratic project, by talking to him, reading his books and comments, working with him at the Center, and listening to his stories about his many friends who did history elsewhere.
As others have pointed out here, Roy was generous to all of his students and junior colleagues. Many times, Roy would mention a manuscript he had read for a former student, or an outline for a book he had commented on for a former colleague, or a letter he had written for someone. When in 2007 Roy received a Distinguished Service Award from the OAH, the program included a short film by a high school student. The very first thing Roy did after the ceremony ended was to turn to the student and talk to her at length about her project. In one of his last published articles he made sure to emphasize the importance of a dissertation in progress by one of his students.
I know what he did for me he would have done for anyone, but I needed it more. I miss him every day.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
94
Title
A name given to the resource
Roy as teacher
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
You must be 13 years of age or older to submit material to us. Your submission of material constitutes your permission for, and consent to, its dissemination and use in connection with Thanks, Roy in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on Thanks, Roy (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using Thanks, Roy. The material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based, in whole or in part, upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain. Further, submitted material must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security or other laws.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Elena Razlogova
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Elena Razlogova
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
chnm
history
kindness
mentor
-
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Text
Any textual data included in the document.
Like so many, I have tales to tell about Roy's generosity and intellect and unflagging, mind-boggling work ethic. I first met Roy at the beginning of my second year in graduate school; during my first year, two other students (Elena Razlogova and John Spencer) and I had developed rudimentary history cd-roms. Elena had gone on to study with Roy at GMU (and become CHNM's first employee), and as a result, John and I had been invited down to present our cd-roms at a brown bag lunch event at GMU's history department. Elena met us at the train station, and as we exited into the Washington sunlight, she led us toward a car driven by a slightly rumpled, distracted looking guy in a red button down shirt and black jeans. As the car pulled away from the curb, John and I realized that this was Roy Rosenzweig. *The* Roy Rosenzweig, respected scholar, one of the only people doing the kind of digital history to which we aspired. And he was picking up two unknown graduate students at the train station. It was an entirely appropriate way to begin; he exhibited particular generosity to those low on the academic food chain. I came to know Roy in more venues after that first day; through the <i>Radical History Review<i>, where I served as Managing Editor for two years, and through the American Social History Project, where I had the enormous privilege of working with him on a myriad of projects. While in no way officially connected with my doctoral education, Roy became a true mentor, introducing me to people I should know, and the first person I turned to for career advice.
There is so much that I will remember about Roy: his keen editorial eye (the quickest way to improve every grant proposal I ever wrote for ASHP was to run a draft past Roy); his ability to move projects forward; his deep reservoir of odd historical facts, handy for historical timelines and puzzles; the certainty that an email message to him would be returned within a matter of hours; his endearingly awkward half hugs of greeting. I'm still only barely able to acknowledge that he isn't going to be around any more, that there won't be some new project or meeting or meal at a conference or email message passing along information about a project or person I should know about. I hope that Roy had some idea of how very many people admired and loved and valued him. I guess what we do now is carry on in his spirit, the only alternative we have to carrying on in his presence.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
56
Title
A name given to the resource
A Drive from Union Station
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
You must be 13 years of age or older to submit material to us. Your submission of material constitutes your permission for, and consent to, its dissemination and use in connection with Thanks, Roy in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on Thanks, Roy (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using Thanks, Roy. The material you submit must have been created by you, wholly original, and shall not be copied from or based, in whole or in part, upon any other photographic, literary, or other material, except to the extent that such material is in the public domain. Further, submitted material must not violate any confidentiality, privacy, security or other laws.
By submitting material to Thanks, Roy you release, discharge, and agree to hold harmless Thanks, Roy and persons acting under its permission or authority, including a public library or archive to which the collection might be donated for purposes of long-term preservation, from any claims or liability arising out the Thanks, Roy\'s use of the material, including, without limitation, claims for violation of privacy, defamation, or misrepresentation.
Thanks, Roy has no obligation to use your material.
You will be sent via email a copy of your contribution to Thanks, Roy. We cannot return any material you submit to us so be sure to keep a copy. Thanks, Roy will not share your email address or any other information with commercial vendors.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ellen Noonan
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ellen Noonan
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Document
American Social History Project
graduate students
mentor
Radical History Review