History Professor Ferenc Szasz Dies

Fer­enc Szasz, 1940–2010

Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Regents’ Pro­fes­sor of His­tory Fer­enc “Frank” Szasz died Sun­day, June 20, at the age of 70. A small ser­vice for fam­ily and uni­ver­sity friends is set for Wednes­day, June 30 at 1 p.m. at First Con­gre­ga­tional United Church of Christ, 2801 Lomas Blvd. NE (cor­ner of Lomas and Girard).

A cel­e­bra­tion of life ser­vice will take place at Rodey Hall in the UNM Cen­ter for the Arts, on Fri­day, Aug. 27 at 2 p.m.

Szasz joined the UNM Depart­ment of His­tory in 1968 and earned a Ph.D. in his­tory from the Uni­ver­sity of Rochester the fol­low­ing year.

Char­lie Steen, chair of the his­tory depart­ment, said, “Frank’s death leaves a vac­uum that won’t be filled. He was both a point of ref­er­ence and a soul of kindness.”

Szasz’s schol­ar­ship included Amer­i­can intel­lec­tual his­tory, Amer­i­can reli­gious his­tory, reli­gion in the Amer­i­can West, early atomic age, the “old” social and intel­lec­tual his­tory, espe­cially deal­ing with the impact of Scot­land on the West.

He taught U.S. his­tory sur­vey courses, the his­tory of World War II, and a num­ber of under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate sem­i­nars. Dur­ing the 1985–86 aca­d­e­mic year Szasz was the Ful­bright Pro­fes­sor of Amer­i­can Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Exeter in the United King­dom, where, in addi­tion to his uni­ver­sity duties, he lec­tured exten­sively through­out Scot­land, Eng­land and Wales.

In 1985 Szasz received an “Out­stand­ing Teacher of the Year” award. In a press release Joel Jones, UNM admin­is­tra­tive vice pres­i­dent, said, “Pro­fes­sor Szasz has been rec­og­nized for nearly two decades as that rare com­bi­na­tion of both a superb lec­turer work­ing with large classes and as an exceed­ingly suc­cess­ful dis­cus­sion leader work­ing with sem­i­nars and smaller classes. He has a keen abil­ity to make stu­dents at all lev­els feel as if they have indeed become social-intellectual his­to­ri­ans themselves.”

“Over his 43 years of teach­ing he had more than 20,000 stu­dents,” said Mar­garet Connell-Szasz, his wife and col­league in the his­tory department.

A pro­lific and accom­plished writer, Szasz’s most pop­u­lar title was “The Day the Sun Rose Twice: the story of the Trin­ity Site nuclear explo­sion.” He authored eight books total, edited or co-edited four oth­ers, and pub­lished nearly 90 schol­arly and pop­u­lar arti­cles. He served as a man­u­script reviewer for a num­ber of aca­d­e­mic jour­nals and presses, as well as being a mem­ber of the edi­to­r­ial board for Jour­nal of the West.

Szasz’s recent book, “Abra­ham Lin­coln and Robert Burns: Con­nected Lives and Leg­ends,” was pub­lished by South­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­sity Press, 2008. Szasz won the honor of deliv­er­ing last year’s UNM Annual Research Lec­ture based on the book. It was a fit­ting year to honor Burns and Lin­coln, with Jan. 25, 2009 being the 250th anniver­sary of Burns’ birth and Feb. 12 being the 200th anniver­sary of Lincoln’s birth. Szasz deliv­ered a thought­ful lec­ture that hon­ored the his­tory and con­tri­bu­tions of both men. Szasz dis­cussed “Abra­ham Lin­coln and Robert Burns” in a podcast.

Friend and col­league Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Dick Etu­lain said, “I think he was the most impor­tant per­son in the his­tory of the Depart­ment of His­tory. Frank was a mas­ter at hall­way sem­i­nars. When you would meet him – as col­league or grad stu­dent – had a word of encour­age­ment and an inter­est­ing tid­bit of gos­sip about the field.”

Etu­lain said that he and Szasz were both “life­time fans” of Abra­ham Lin­coln. Szasz encour­aged Etu­lain to write “Lin­coln and the Amer­i­can West.” Sub­se­quently, Etu­lain encour­aged Szasz to com­bine his inter­ests. “To keep him­self sane in the hos­pi­tal he drafted a book on Lin­coln and reli­gion,” Etu­lain said. Connell-Szasz added, “Six weeks in the hos­pi­tal was dif­fi­cult, but he got dra­mat­i­cally excited about writ­ing this manuscript.”

Szasz also has a man­u­script, “Atomic Comics,” being pub­lished by the Uni­ver­sity of Nevada Press at Reno, ten­ta­tively sched­uled for release in 2011; and the fea­ture arti­cle on the comic strip Red Ryder in the upcom­ing July issue of the New Mex­ico His­tor­i­cal Review.

Szasz is sur­vived by Connell-Szasz, daugh­ter Chris Bradley, of Belle­vue, Wash., son Eric Gar­ret­son, of Ojo Caliente, and daugh­ter Maria Szasz, who teaches the­atre his­tory in the UNM Hon­ors Program.

Media con­tact: Car­olyn Gon­za­les, 277‑5920; e-mail: cgonzal@unm.edu