Walter Fredrick LaFeber: born here, schooled here — the historian

30 August 1933 – 9 March 2021 · ties: BORN here and RAISED and SCHOOLED here

The man, at first-hand institutional strength: Walter Fredrick LaFeber was born in Walkerton, Indiana, on 30 August 1933, son of Ralph and Helen LaFeber — his father a grocer of the town — and the Cornell Chronicle's obituary states the schooling line in the same breath: "He graduated from Walkerton High School in 1951." Where Urey's tie is birth alone, LaFeber's is the whole of a boyhood: born here, raised here, and graduated from the town's school, class of 1951, before he went out to become, in the words of Cornell's Glenn Altschuler, "the most distinguished historian of American foreign policy in the last 60 years." He was, at Walkerton High School, a star of its other religion too: six feet two, a leading scorer for the Walkerton Indians, who in one game of his senior year scored 35 points, approaching the South Bend sectional's single-game record — the schoolboy fact his biographies carry because the man never let go of the game: he played varsity basketball at Hanover College, kept a signed portrait of Ernie Banks in his Cornell office ("Keep Going Walt"), and ended his writing career with a book about Michael Jordan.

The career: Hanover College, B.A. 1955; Stanford, M.A. 1956; the University of Wisconsin, Ph.D. 1959, on the Latin American policy of the second Cleveland administration. He joined Cornell's faculty the year of his doctorate and never left: professor in 1967, Marie Underhill Noll Professor of American History from 1968, retirement in 1999, recalled by the university from 2002 to 2006 as the first holder of the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professorship. Cornell's memorial resolution — written by Sherman Cochran, Maria Cristina Garcia, Lawrence B. Glickman and Isabel V. Hull, and read whole — carries the books: eleven authored or co-authored, four edited, and the landmarks: The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (1963), his first book, winner of the American Historical Association's Albert J. Beveridge Award, which argued that American expansion was planned, and planned for economic reasons; America, Russia and the Cold War (1966), the standard account for generations of students; The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective (1978), credited with helping convince the United States to approve the Panama Canal treaties; Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (1983); The American Age (1989), his textbook for the general reader; The Clash: U.S.–Japanese Relations Throughout History (1997), which won the Bancroft Prize and the Organization of American Historians' Ellis Hawley Prize; and Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism (1999), his last book.

The teacher: the memorial resolution's longest memory is of the classroom. His History of American Foreign Relations course drew hundreds, met on Saturdays by his choice, and ended, every time he offered it, in a standing ovation. He was the first recipient of Cornell's Clark Teaching Award (1966) and of its Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellowship (1994); he gave the university's commencement address in 1976, and on 14 September 2001 he was the one faculty member the president chose to address the 12,000 gathered on the Arts Quad. He served on the State Department's Historical Advisory Committee (1971–75, chair 1974) and as president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (1999). When he retired in 2006 his farewell lecture outgrew the American Museum of Natural History and moved to New York's Beacon Theatre, where more than 3,000 former students packed the house. He died in Ithaca, New York, on 9 March 2021, aged 87, survived by Sandra Gould LaFeber, his wife of 65 years, their children Scott and Suzanne, and three grandchildren. Cornell has since established the Walter F. LaFeber Professorship in his honor. A town of two thousand produced, forty years apart, a Nobel chemist and the dean of American diplomatic historians; that sentence is printed here because the records carry it entire, and for no other reason.

Sources:

1. Cornell University, memorial resolution for Walter F. LaFeber (eCommons, Cornell) — read whole: birth, degrees, chairs, the books, the teaching record, the farewell lecture.
2. Cornell Chronicle, "Walter LaFeber, revered history professor, dies" (10 March 2021) — the parents' names and the line "He graduated from Walkerton High School in 1951."
3. American Historical Association, "Walter F. LaFeber (1933–2021)" — the book list, the Beveridge and Bancroft record, the LaFeber Professorship.
4. The John Glenn High School record — LaFeber carried as Walkerton High School's notable alumnus, class of 1951; the 35-point sectional game at biographical strength.