John R. Wunder, 1945–2023

John R. Wunder, 1945–2023 Todd M. Kerstetter John R. Wunder, a native Midwesterner, influential scholar of the American West and the Great Plains, and an ardent proponent of regionalism died at age 78 on June 25, 2023, in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was born on January 7, 1945, in Vinton, Iowa. John touched the field and the lives of his family, friends, and students mightily and in ways difficult to quantify. John would most want to be remembered as a teacher and mentor, according to a memorial prepared by colleagues and former students with assistance from his family. His intellectual family tree, measured by the approximately thirty PhD dissertations and seventy MA theses he supervised, is massive and its branches spread far. Consider that just one of those branches (me, a Wunder double-dipper MA and PhD student) has supervised eleven dissertations, five theses, and thousands of undergraduate students. Or consider that another of his students is the executive director of the Western History Association. John's mentorship was grounded in an ethos of justice and equity likely rooted in his upbringing in Dysart, a town of about thirteen hundred in east-central Iowa. His mother, Mary, was a high school social studies teacher whose career was interrupted by motherhood and then multiple sclerosis, which left her paralyzed. His father, Arnold, worked as a mechanic then as a small business owner supplying fuel oil and other petroleum products to farmers, businesses, and homes. In his teaching and scholarship, John called attention to underrepresented people and voices. He advocated for and mentored students of color, he wrote "Retained by The People": A History of American Indians and the Bill of Rights (Oxford, 1994), and he fought for the acceptance of American Indian languages to fulfill graduate degree requirements at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). At one [End Page 293] point he had three offices at Nebraska (Department of History, Center for Great Plains Studies, College of Arts and Sciences), but he never neglected students—he led graduate student tutorials in his dean's office. John traveled widely, both intellectually and geographically. After brief stints as a mathematics major and an accounting major at the University of Iowa, John switched and found his home in history thanks to a Western Civilization course. A two-semester course on the American West captured his imagination and led him to graduate study with Malcolm Rohrbaugh at Iowa, where he also earned a law degree. Studying with Vernon Carstenson at the University of Washington, John combined his interests in regional history and law in his doctoral dissertation, "Law and Order on the Frontier: Justices of the Peace in Washington Territory, 1853–1889." John's teaching career spanned the continent: Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon; Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; Texas Tech University in Lubbock; Clemson University in South Carolina where he was department head; and UNL, where he directed the Center for Great Plains Studies for nine years, taught history, and served as an associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences. He also held visiting positions at Columbia University, the Australian National University, the University of New Mexico, and, in 1994–1995, served as the Fulbright Bicentennial Chair in American Studies at the Renvall Institute at the University of Helsinki. His leadership positions included president of the UNL Faculty Senate, president of the Mari Sandoz Historical Society, and president of the Western History Association (2010–2011). The evidence of John's interest in and influence on regional history that can be gleaned from above barely scratches the surface. At Case Western Reserve University, John's colleague Carl Ubbelohde shared his passionate belief that institutions should teach their students the history of their home region. In Cleveland, for example, Ubbelohde believed students should learn about the Midwest and, importantly, Canada; so, he and John developed and team-taught a course on Canadian history. At Texas Tech, John partnered with Charles Wood, a native Nebraskan trained in agricultural history at the University of Kansas, to develop and team-teach a new course on Great Plains history. In embracing that challenge John became truly committed to regional history. I imagine John's...

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