Ferenc Morton Szasz: A Celebration and Selected Writings

Banker

Copyright © 2018 Mark T. Banker, Editor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

Cover Photo courtesy of Mike Wilkinson was made in Aberdeen Scotland in the Summer 2009.

Chapter 3 originally appeared as Fred Harmon, Red Ryder, and Albuquerque’s Little Beavertown in the New Mexico Historical Review 85, no. 3 (summer 2010): 207–34. Copyright © 2010 by the University of New Mexico Board of Regents. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8929-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-8928-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018909152

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 09/12/2018

PROLOGUE

Reflections on an Exceptional Life

Ferenc Morton Szasz bridged life’s many divides with exceptional agility and grace. A proverbial man who never forgot he was a boy, he was a lifelong student who became a university professor. A solid son of the Midwest, he found a home in the desert Southwest and made friends around the globe. As a historian, he emphasized the ordinary - yet glimpsed the profound.

A host of attributes equipped Frank to enjoy life and battle its darker forces. Youthful humor and irreverence tempered and even deepened his innate kindness. Wide reading informed his curious mind and converged with universal yearnings from deep within a unique soul. From this intertwining came an uncommon wisdom.

For Frank, life’s challenges – including the illness that took him from us - became opportunities. They spurred his innate curiosity, encouraged constructive responses to his incessant queries, and nurtured respect and civil discourse with scholar and non-scholar alike. Thus, this book’s primary premise: Ferenc M. Szasz was, in all respects, a truly exceptional human being. That Frank would protest this assertion is its own validation.

Because Frank’s modesty precluded illusions of autobiography, crafting even a cursory overview of his life is a challenge. Still, as a consummate biographer and storyteller, he acknowledged key influences that – by design and default - shaped his exceptional life.

Frank’s personal narrative began and ended with family. He dedicated every one of his books to his family as it grew over the four decades of his career. And his final creative effort is available to a wide readership thanks to heroic efforts from his wife, Margaret, and their children: Eric, Chris, and Maria.

Frank’s father, Ferenc Paul Szasz, was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1906 and lived much of his youth in cosmopolitan Vienna. He was intellectually gifted, spoke six languages, and studied at the Charles University in Prague. Employed initially by International Harvester as a mechanical engineer, he transferred to IH’s Illinois headquarters just as Europe was bursting into war in 1936. His immigration to the US was one of many fortuitous developments that made possible his namesake’s considerable accomplishments.

Soon after arriving in Illinois, the elder Ferenc met Mary Plummer. Heir to a New England family, she had relocated to Iowa, where her long career as a teacher began. Ferenc and Mary married in 1938, and Frank was born on Valentine’s Day, 1940 in Davenport, Iowa. He was an only child.

Due to his father’s employment, the family moved multiple times across the Midwest before settling in Bucyrus, Ohio for Frank’s adolescent years. By all accounts, his father was as demanding as his mother was gentle – a combination that benefitted young Frank in multiple ways. From his father, he gained ambition and probing intellect. From his mother, he inherited his genuine good nature and gifts as a classroom teacher. At an early age, Frank became an avid reader. A life-long penchant for comic books did not sit well with either parent, but when he became enthralled with The Count of Monte Cristo as an eighth grader, both his father and English teacher mother were delighted.

Family travel throughout the United States and to Mexico and Europe re-enforced Frank’s inoculation against provincialism. Like many an only child, he was comfortable with adults. But he also developed a life-long love of children. Our daughter was one of many youngsters who Frank entertained. Thanks to one of his magic tricks, he will always be her Mr. Penny Bender.

In high school, Frank excelled in academics and athletics, particularly basketball. He later recalled that Presbyterian youth activities…steeped me in basic ideas of ‘fairness,’ but he was neither orthodox nor overly devout. After graduating salutatorian from Bucyrus High in 1958, he enrolled in nearby Ohio Wesleyan University, where he came under the influence of history professor Richard W. Smith. Like most of the nation, Ohio Wesleyan experienced relative consensus and calm during Frank’s undergraduate years. Still, the small liberal arts college had a long progressive pedigree rooted in turn-of-twentieth century social gospel Methodism. Few churchmen and even fewer secular liberals at that time appreciated that important inheritance. Frank eventually became one of the rare Americans to realize that practical implications of the social gospel message fueled the ferment of the proverbial 1960s.

With the urging of Professor Smith, Frank enrolled in the doctoral program at the University of Rochester in 1962. Realization that Smith’s longtime friend, ante-bellum scholar Glendon van Dusen had retired before his arrival, spurred an agility for adaptation that served Frank well the rest of his life.

Encouraged by diverse classmates and an array of talented professors, particularly Hayden White, Frank ventured into the broad and amorphous field of American social and intellectual history or, as he preferred to call it, the history of ideas. Years later, he distinguished that pursuit from philosophy and more recent understandings of social and cultural history. His interests, he insisted, were the ideas of the people … and how they shift over time. [FMS Interview with Frank Gregorsky (22 September 2006)] Frank discerned these shifts in an endless array of cultural barometers, ranging from antiques and artifacts (including his beloved comic books) to spiritual and philosophical pursuits – both mainstream and fringe. Under the guidance of Milton Berman, Frank’s doctoral research probed the intellectual and popular roots of the Fundamentalist-Modernist schism that fractured American Protestantism in the decades on each side of 1900. After considerable revision, the University of Alabama Press published The Divided Mind of Protestant America, 1880-1930 in 1982.

Fifteen years earlier, Szasz was invited to teach at the University of New Mexico. Still a PhD student when he taught his first classes, he soon discovered a wide spectrum of decidedly new experiences in the Land of Enchantment. The cultures of New Mexico have long reshaped the lives of those who move there, and the deep history of the region and its land profoundly influenced every facet of Frank’s life. As nineteenth century author (and for a brief time New Mexico territorial governor) Lew Wallace famously observed, every calculation based on experience elsewhere fails in New Mexico. From 1967 onward, Frank lived that reality, and it forged his exceptional persona in ways not even he could have imagined.

Frank Szasz as 1962 graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University.Credit: Courtesy of Margaret Connell Szasz.

Thanks to his innate gifts and warm embrace of his new home, a one year fill-in job stretched into an over-four-decade career. Among his other unique characteristics, Frank’s distinctive physical appearance won immediate attention. Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer Winthrop Quigley, who became one of Frank’s undergraduate fans in the early 1970s, described Professor Szasz as …improbably tall, lanky and pale [with a] face already deeply creased from a lifetime of laughing. He wore big glasses with heavy frames. His thin hair was a halo of blond curls. He [was] …. a picture of pure joy.

Sometime during Frank’s tenure at UNM, an anonymous student penned this caricature that accentuated many of his distinctive physical traits. Credit: Courtesy of University of New Mexico History Department.

This undated photo may have been taken at a reception soon after Frank arrived at UNM. Like many a young bachelor, he was ever on the alert for a free meal! Credit: Courtesy of University of New Mexico History Department

More importantly, Szasz helped Quigley understand why the things [he] cared about were worth caring about. From Szasz’s course in the Intellectual and Social History of the United States, the aspiring journalist gathered tools [to] understand this bewildering nation of ours. [Quigley. Professor’s Lessons…, Albuquerque Journal 22 June 2010]

Among the students drawn to Frank’s lectures was Margaret Connell Garretson, who moved from Washington State to enroll as a UNM PhD candidate in 1968. A recent widow with two young children, she regularly sat in the front row of his class, even though connecting with a babysitter meant she often arrived late. Ferenc and Margaret were married in Seattle in 1969. Margaret completed her PhD in 1971, and, after teaching part–time for several years, she was offered a tenure track position with the UNM History Department in 1987. Twenty years later, Frank reported that he and Margaret ranked among the most senior of the nation’s same-department husband and wife history teams.

Embracing an already-made household broadened Frank’s sense of family. Daughter Chris, who was six years old when her mother married Frank, concedes that she was too small to understand the intricacies of the new arrangement but acknowledges there must have been challenges. Perhaps, she suggests, he was completely terrified of suddenly having two small children. But, if so, he never let on. Instead as with most things, he approached [his new responsibilities] with good humor and grace. [Chris Bradley. Musings about FMS (September 2016)] Chris immediately referred to Frank as my Dad. Older brother Eric, who was 10 when Frank and Margaret married, shared that take on his new father. That Chris and Eric still use the possessive my when referring to Frank nearly 50 years later speaks volumes about his transition to fatherhood. Indeed, Chris’s Musings… and Eric’s poetic tribute, Ode to Good convey profound love for the father they gained in 1969.

When daughter Maria was born in 1971, the family was complete. Maria was truly her daddy’s girl. She fondly recalls Frank’s gentle chiding about her propensity for worrying. In a note, he scrawled a Hassidic proverb: All worrying is forbidden, except to worry that one is worried. The note concludes: What is possible to fix – fix it, and why worry? What is impossible to fix – how will worrying help? Today Maria’s gentle voice echoes her soft-spoken father, and – as lecturer for UNM’s Honors College and author of a book on Irish playwright Brian Friel - she displays his teaching prowess, acknowledged by teaching awards, and even many of his most characteristic mannerisms at the podium.

Contemplating Frank’s relationship with Margaret and their mutual influences brings to mind one of my favorite Frank stories. By late summer 1985, just as Margaret and Frank were preparing to leave for his Fulbright in England, I had completed the bulk of the research for a doctoral dissertation that proposed to explore how experiences in the Southwest impacted Presbyterian missionaries and their understandings of cultural differences. As we were saying good bye, Frank noticed my worried look. In response, he shared (in true Lincolnesque fashion) a story. A young man contemplating marriage sought advice from his farmer father. The son’s uncertainty mirrored my own about when I should transition from research to writing. You will know, son, the old farmer replied, you will know. It was good advice. By the following spring, I composed a prospectus and several chapters of the dissertation and mailed them to Frank in Exeter. Still, I was relieved when he returned to New Mexico to oversee the rest of my effort more directly.

Like the farmer’s son, I know that Margaret was essential to every facet of Frank’s life. But knowing falls short of fully understanding. That I will never grasp the depth of their mutual influences reminds me that we historians see through a glass darkly. I learned that humbling but important message from my exceptional mentor, Frank Szasz!

Chris’s penetrating insider’s recollections reveal much about her parents.

[Their] relationship [was] based not just on their love for one another but also on the fact that they shared many common interests. They were passionate about their work and the constant desire to increase their knowledge and pass it on to their children and students. They loved their family, books and literature, music and food. They both grew to share a love of travel and exploring both natural and historical sites and anywhere that took them off the beaten path… As they moved through various stages in their writing and teaching careers, their travel extended to site seeing and academic stays abroad… [T]hey possessed a common interest in expanding their knowledge of other cultures….[that] was not only enjoyable for them, but … also a way to incorporate such worldly knowledge into their writing and teaching. [Bradley. "Musings …..]

Frank reflected on Margaret’s influence in 2006. They embraced New Mexico, he wrote in the Introduction to Larger Than Life: New Mexico in the 20th Century, with the zeal of two converts. Yet they arrived from very different perspectives - Frank from the Midwest and the field of intellectual history and Margaret from the Pacific Northwest and as a specialist in Native American and later Celtic history. His was a decidedly western and modern view of the world; hers was not. For Margaret, he wrote, place was important, and in the Southwestern context [place] brushes up against the sacred, a concept that most historians tend to shy away from.

When Margaret shared with Frank the concept of reciprocity, he initially associated it with the basic ideas of fairness that he attributed to his father’s influence and mid-western Presbyterian upbringing. But Margaret insisted reciprocity and fairness were not the same. Drawing from her deep knowledge and sympathy for Native American and indigenous world views, she insisted that reciprocity implies a broader set of connections – between humans, animals, plants, rivers, and all other beings on earth. Reciprocity suggests that people are responsible to a world beyond their own self-interests. Extensive travel on southwestern back roads, hikes through the region’s rugged terrain, and visits to many Native American and Hispanic sacred sites, and later, traveling across the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland affirmed Margaret’s insights for Frank. Still he humbly conceded in 2006 that his take on New Mexican history fell somewhere between [his] inherited Midwestern ideas of fairness and incomplete understanding of reciprocity. [FMS. Introduction to Larger than Life … xii-xvi] That humble eclectic view, as his scholarly works reveal, was truly exceptional.

Another essential facet of Frank’s scholarly outlook – his nuanced take on religion and spirituality - is similarly elusive. A list of Frank’s publications and public presentations reveals that he wrote and spoke more about religion than any other topic. His first monograph was The Divided Mind of Protestant America…, and Abraham Lincoln and Religion offered his final scholarly message posthumously. In between, diverse curiosities – from the creation of the atomic bomb during World War II, to Scots in the North American West, and parallels in the lives and legends of Robert Burns and Abraham Lincoln — pulled him in other directions. But – if one defines the term broadly – a spiritual theme pervades most of his interests. In 2006, he reflected on a quasi-religious dimension in the study of history. For me, he continued, it’s not just an intellectual exercise. It has a moral dimension. [FMS Interview with Frank Gregorsky (22 September 2006)]

This was not an endorsement of established Christianity nor any kind of orthodoxy. Along with his hero Lincoln, Frank was too wise to overlook organized religion’s dark shortcomings. But, unlike many modern secular liberals, Frank (again like Lincoln) would not retreat to shallow, cynical charges of hypocrisy. His empathy for humanity’s spiritual yearnings and recognition of the many good deeds those impulses nurtured are evident in his writings on religious matters.

Complicating any attempt to make sense of Frank’s spirituality was its very private nature. The Szasz family worshiped in a liberal, Protestant church in Albuquerque. But in his classes and one-on-one with his students, he rarely shared his personal faith experiences. My notes from his upper level lecture course History of American Religion offer no hints of his personal religious identity. Even more telling, in the several years that he served as a key member of my dissertation committee, I was unaware that we shared Presbyterian backgrounds. To be sure, I knew faith was real for him and suspected it was the foundation of his genuine goodness. But neither of us felt the need to explain our personal journeys.

Frank, however, occasionally shared deep views that tacitly revealed his take on life. Consider, for example, his 1987 message to students at UNM’s Campus Ministry Center. After offering insights into human quests for knowledge, beauty, intelligence and wisdom, he – like a modern-day Deist - proclaimed wisdom humankind’s highest calling. As an unlikely example, he shared the story of Mary Gibbs. Mary was a native New Mexican Hispana and devout Catholic. She married an Anglo, and together they raised a large family. Eventually they became Frank and Margaret’s neighbors. Among other attributes, Mary Gibbs knew who she was…and where she belonged. She readily laughed at herself and invited others to share in her self-effacing mirth. Most importantly, Frank related her compassion for others to agape love – a sentiment that kept her door open to the neighborhood and made her generous with both advice and chocolate chip cookies. Agape love, Frank concluded, is primarily an act of will. It is within our powers. Mary Gibbs knew this better than anyone he had ever known. ["Knowledge Comes, But Where is Wisdom? The UNM Prophet (1987)] Deep insights into religion and its nuanced nature appear throughout Frank’s many writings and public presentations, but for me his discourse at the Campus Ministry Center most clearly conveys his personal credo.

Two stories from Frank’s last days reveal what his daughter Maria prefers to call his evolving religiosity. In response to suffering terribly from leukemia, she reports that Frank sought relief from several alternative practitioners. One, a woman from India, inquired if he engaged in meditation. No, he responded, but I pray. Maria also shared with me that Frank’s last discernible utterance on June 20, 2010 was love. I am not surprised. I am simply grateful that a generous creator allowed me to experience Frank’s commitment to agape.

This book focuses primarily on the forty plus years that Frank taught at the University of New Mexico. A master of the United States History survey, Professor Szasz enthralled and inspired an estimated 20,000 UNM undergraduates with energy, enthusiasm, provocative insights, and good will. As testimony to his appeal, many ambitious undergrads vied with graduate students for coveted seats in Frank’s ever popular upper level courses, where his animated lectures offered insights into the era of World War II, American religious history, and popular culture.

Frank’s wisdom, loyalty and diligence also made him a beloved mentor for countless graduate students. He deftly managed our egos, encouraged our creative energies, and – by his own example – taught us to cast our nets widely. The message took, and the spectrum of our research interests and accomplishments mirrors his own eclectic pursuits.

Frank Szasz balanced the roles of teacher, mentor, and colleague. On his passing, longtime colleagues offered insight into his successes and contributions to UNM. Then History Department Chair and friend, Charlie Steen called Frank a soul of kindness. Another friend and colleague, Richard Etulain, observed that Frank stretched our minds and warmed our souls. Etulain declared Frank the most important person in the history of the [UNM] Department of History and recalled Frank’s hallway seminars. Frank always found time, he observed, to share a word of encouragement and an interesting tidbit of gossip about [one’s chosen] field with colleagues, graduate students, and anyone else he encountered in Mesa Vista Hall or across UNM’s sprawling campus. [Carolyn Gonzales. History Professor Frank Szasz Dies, (June 21, 2010)]

As a master teacher, Frank met his students - struggling undergrads and aspiring PhDs alike - where they were. But he gently nudged us to probe deeper and pursue loftier aspirations. He generously shared academic skills and encouragement that made our goals more attainable and our quests more rewarding. He even advocated novel tricks intended to enhance learning. Frank’s gimmicks rarely worked for me, but his levity made UNM’s History Department kinder and gentler.

Confronted with the internecine and inter-departmental rancor that is endemic in academia, Frank was the proverbial peacemaker. Colleagues of all persuasions sought and valued his take on provocative and controversial matters. Fellow members of the UNM History Department - who during my tenure there disagreed about almost everything! - found in Frank a voice of reason and source of civility and calm. He was, many agreed, the only department member without enemies.

Ferenc Szasz was hired at UNM in 1967 as an intellectual historian. Although that title slipped out of fashion soon thereafter, its amorphous nature gave free rein to Frank’s innately curious mind and expansive interests. Consequently, he managed to defy the overspecialization and scholarly narrowing that is a hallmark of academia today. The breadth of his world view might have curtailed the output of a more conventional scholar. But Frank was never conventional.

Frank Szasz at University of New Mexico graduations c. 2000. Credit: Courtesy of University of New Mexico History Department.

Colleagues and Frank’s academic progeny, who represent the broad spectrum of his scholarly interests, aided me in selecting the ten pieces from his prodigious scholarship presented in the five thematic chapters that follow. Criteria for the selection of these pieces included their impact on the individuals who recommended them and their significance for the various sub-fields that they represent. Some are free standing essays presented as he composed them. Others are edited excerpts from notable manuscripts that he authored. That Frank co-authored three of these pieces with students and colleagues reveals his exceptional generosity and collegiality. Even more impressive is the fact that four of the pieces were published after Frank turned 60 and that his final two books were published posthumously.

Frank would be the first to observe that my categorization of his works into five thematic areas is superficial and more than a little contrived. Indeed, careful readers will find threads from Frank’s many areas of interest intertwined in all ten of the essays. Still as befits a truly exceptional scholar, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is particularly evident in his provocative insights into the now timely subject of cultural memory. Turbulent events since Frank’s passing reveal that he was truly ahead of his time.

The Epilogue of this book will share insights from Frank’s last book. He bravely composed Lincoln and Religion as he battled leukemia in the spring of 2010. Frank identified with Lincoln’s profound ambivalence about religion. But he also discerned that Lincoln’s characteristic humor, wisdom and genuine compassion emerged from an unorthodox faith. Efforts from Margaret, Eric, Chris, and Maria assured the book’s posthumous publication. They wove a publishable manuscript from nearly illegible notes that a dear and dying husband and father scrawled on yellow legal pads. Even in the era of word-processing, those legal pads were another Frank Szasz hallmark.

The Epilogue will conclude with brief, (mostly) anonymous observations from Frank’s many admirers and friends. Sadly, we harried moderns rarely find time for such reflections until the loss of a beloved friend temporarily slows our frenetic pace. These anecdotes and insights illustrate Frank Szasz’ exceptional gifts as teacher, colleague, and mentor and his exceptional ability to share his passion for the human experience with conscientious and curious non-scholars.

Frank’s example and guidance inspired me three decades ago, provided ballast for the choppy course of my unlikely academic career, and continues to inspire me eight years after his passing. His example may similarly guide and inspire other scholars. Both restless souls who chafe against academia’s confines and contradictions and those who take themselves and our profession too seriously can learn from Frank. Finally, I hope this book will help non-scholars realize that well-written revisionism from formally trained historians can and must inform and enrich our collective, ever-evolving national memory.

Frank Szasz lives on in memory and in his writing. His passing in no way lessens his most important message. An informed public memory encourages civil discourse and creative, constructive responses to the messy challenges that have always accompanied the American experiment. The gentle voice of this singular scholar offers solace, wisdom, and guidance to us all as we fulfill our roles in that ongoing drama. Our calling is to keep his spirit alive and pass it on to yet another generation.

COMMENT ON SOURCES

As you have discovered, I use parenthetical citations to reference sources for direct quotations that appear in my narrative. These were drawn from a treasure trove of materials I gathered as this project developed. But the quotes are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg that is my personal FMS Collection. Here I offer a few comments and more details on the most important sources that inform this Prologue and on several persons who made essential contributions to this project.

Frank left no formal autobiography, but in 2006 he twice offered modest reflections on his own life and career. His Introduction to Larger Than Life: New Mexico in the 20th Century (UNM Press, 2006) comments briefly on his parents, his early formal education, and the circumstances that brought him to New Mexico. He also reflected there on Margaret’s influences on his response to his new home and general scholarly outlook. Later that year, in a wide-ranging interview with Frank Gregorsky [www.ExactingEditor.com/Szasz/NewMexico.html Editor.com/Szasz/NewMexico.html], Frank offered additional insights into these and other shaping influences on his scholarly outlook.

In July and August 2016, I interviewed Margaret Connell Szasz and Maria Szasz in Albuquerque. Eric Garretson joined my interview with his mother and added important insights. Maria also shared with me several personal items, including the note from her father about worrying, the pen and ink caricature of him, and a copy of "Knowledge Comes, But Where is Wisdom? The UNM Prophet [a publication of Univ. of New Mexico Campus Ministry Center], Volume 7, #2 Fall 1987].

In response to a set of general queries from me, Chris Garretson Bradley in September 2016 penned her wonderful Musings About FMS and shared that brother Eric had composed a poetic tribute to Frank. Poet-gardener-landscapist Eric subsequently shared Ode to Good with me.

Maria and several Albuquerque friends shared obituaries and tributes that appeared shortly after Frank’s passing. Of these, Maria’s Eulogy to My Father (30 June 2010), Winthrop Quigley’s reflections in the Albuquerque Journal (22 June 2010) and Carolyn Gonzales’s announcement of Frank’s passing on the UNM Web-site (21 June 2010) were particularly informative as I gathered my thoughts for this Prologue.

The Epilogue will provide additional details about the circuitous route that led to this book. But here I must mention the important roles of Chuck Rankin and Durwood Ball, who were my doctoral classmates at UNM in the mid-1980s. After we participated in a tribute to Frank at the fall 2012 annual meeting of the Western History Association, they helped me glimpse that a book of Frank’s own eclectic writings would best celebrate his life and career.

Eventually, Margaret and I invited former colleagues and students from five fields to recommend examples of Frank’s works for inclusion in our volume. As the project advanced, some individuals who we originally selected were unable to contribute to the project; others filled those voids. Meanwhile, mundane considerations, including word counts, repetition, and copyright concerns, complicated the final selection of essays. Collectively, these concerns – along with my admittedly subjective desire as editor to capture Frank’s most distinctive traits as a scholar - led to adjustments in the thematic focus of several chapters.

In the Introductions to each of the chapters, I will recognize individuals who helped select the pieces of Frank’s scholarship contained in that chapter. In the notes at the end of the Epilogue, I will acknowledge other individuals who contributed more generally to this project.

To everyone who played a role in this project, please know that I deeply appreciate your contributions, your patience and your friendship for Ferenc Szasz.

CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION

An Exceptional Young Scholar Emerges and Finds a Home in the West

Frank Szasz came of age as a historian in one of the most turbulent eras in United States History. When he enrolled in the doctoral program at the University of Rochester in 1962, the Cold War consensus and prolonged prosperity that had united Americans since 1945 was peaking. But, by the time he left New York for New Mexico five years later, a convergence of setbacks fragmented that unusual unity. As Frank settled in at the University of New Mexico in the 1970s, aftershocks of these traumatic developments led a new generation of historians to challenge many of our nation’s most sacred assumptions. The history of religion, Frank’s initial specialty, and the history of the American West, which he embraced by default after he made New Mexico his home, were particularly ripe for this iconoclastic revisionism.

As a young scholar, Frank confronted these turbulent excesses with agility. The two essays presented in this chapter convey his characteristic caution but also offer glimpses of a genuine empathy for the forces that were transforming American society. These attributes presaged Frank’s nuanced, even-handed responses to deep changes in his chosen profession over the subsequent forty years of his career.

Doctoral classmate and longtime friend Gary Ostrower recalls that Young Frank stood out at the University of Rochester by avoiding much of the era’s distractions. Unlike many of his peers, Frank preferred the classroom to protests and typically devoted his limited spare time to intramural sports – particularly volleyball. Noel Pugach and Charlie Steen, who joined Frank as rookies in the UNM History Department in the late-1960s, similarly recollect that new teaching duties, gaining tenure, and personal matters kept all of them from becoming overly engaged in controversial matters that wracked the era.

When Ostrower, Pugach, Steen and I initially contemplated which of Frank’s early published works should be considered for this chapter, The New York Slave Revolt of 1741: A Reexamination (1967) seemed