8 10 162 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. To Roy's family and friends: I delivered the following remarks at a memorial for Roy at the American Historical Association in Washington, D.C., on January 5, 2008. Remembering Roy Rosenzweig Remarks by Gary Gerstle Delivered at the American Historical Association January 5, 2008 Roy was a friend for thirty one years. He was a fourth year graduate student at Harvard when I arrived as a rookie in the fall of 1976. We were drawn together initially by our common interest in American labor history. We were both working with Stephan Thernstrom; we both wrote labor and social histories of small New England cities whose names began with the letter W—Worcester, MA, and Woonsocket, RI. Each of us has been asked many times: why those cities? Well the truth can now be told: Oscar Handlin, the czar of Harvard social history for half a century, had decreed that his students and the students of his students could only study New England cities and towns and that they had to study these cities in alphabetical order. And so they (we) did: Dedham, Fall River, Lawrence, Lynn, Haverhill, New Bedford, Newburyport, Pawtucket, and Providence. By the time Roy and I came along, Handlin was an old man and the W’s were the only unstudied towns left in New England. We dutifully did our research on Worcester and Woonsocket, published our books, and, in the process closed out the community studies era of social history. So friends, here you have a novel answer as to why social history came to an end. Forget Geoff Eley and A Crooked Line. Forget the cultural turn. Forget the fall of communism. There were simply no more towns left in New England for Harvard grad students to explore. What kind of friend was Roy? If I had told him the story I just told you, he and I would have had a great laugh about it and spent an hour tweaking the story to make it as plausible and yet as hilarious as possible. What kind of friend was Roy? He read and critiqued everything I ever wrote, beginning with my first little article in the Rhode Island issue of the Radical History Review in 1978 and finishing with a manuscript of mine on the American state that he read while receiving experimental treatment in Boston this past summer. What kind of friend was Roy? No major event in my life or my family’s life passed without a visit or a long conversation with Roy. Only my mother has sent me more birthday cards than Roy did, and hers were not nearly as funny. Inevitably the subject matter of Roy’s cards was politics, inevitably the cards skewered some pompous Republican politician, inevitably the card made me laugh and gave me a moment of respite from the sobering knowledge that I have lived virtually all of my adult life under Republican or near-Republican rule. Roy loved long, rambling, and imaginative conversations with his friends. Few things could be as good as those conversations about the vagaries, complexities, and nuttiness of life, work, and politics. These conversations occurred on the phone late into the night; at Tony Chen’s Seafood Restaurant in Washington’s Chinatown; during overnight visits by me to the Rosenzweig-Kaplan manse on Lincoln Avenue in Arlington, Virginia; at the annual meetings of the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and the American Studies Association, where Roy and I often roomed together; at the annual summer picnic for past, present, and future radical historians in upstate New York, a tradition that is still thriving 35 years after Roy and Jean Agnew invented it as graduate students in the 1970s. I mention these details of our friendship not to claim a unique relationship with Roy. To the contrary, there are scores of people, and maybe hundreds, who have received annual birthday cards from Roy, drawn from the now famous electronic Rosenzweig rolodex with its 1500 plus names and birth dates; there are scores of people who have spent the night at the Rosenzweig-Kaplan manse and encountered the “Dirty Bathrooms Breed Bolsheviks” poster hanging over the toilet in the guest bath when they got up in the morning; there are hundreds of people who have talked with Roy from lunch until dinner or from dinner into the wee hours of the morning. There are now hundreds of people mourning the passing of this man who gave so many so much. The energy that Roy had for these conversations was exceeded only by the energy he had for his work. Most people, myself included, have never been able to figure out how he did so much. He wrote and co-wrote, edited and coedited, a large number of important and prizewinning books on social history and on the popular uses of history. He directed countless public history projects. He produced films. He consulted on other films and on numerous museum projects. He established and directed the premier center in the world for history and the new media, overseeing its growth from a hobby in the corner of his office to a forty-five person organization with an annual budget in the millions. I liked to call it Roy’s empire, the only true empire of liberty in the world. Roy served in positions of major responsibility at his university and in many professional organizations including the American Historical Association (AHA), the OAH, and last, but not least (because he would insist on this), the Mid-Atlantic Radical Historians Organization. He sat on numerous editorial boards, chaired more searches for faculty and for editors of the Journal of American History and the American Historical Review (AHR) than even he could recall, and he wrote hundreds of letters of recommendation and evaluations for tenure and promotion. If you needed something done and done well, with integrity, creativity, and good judgment, who you gonna call? Roy, of course. That was his blessing and, on occasion, his curse. While there is no precise way to measure this, I would venture to say that Roy was probably the best collaborator of my generation of historians. Early on in his career he began to ask: if he could write a book or produce a public history project by working with someone else, why do it solo? If he could share a hotel room at an AHA convention with a friend, why get his own room even if his university was footing the bill? And most un-American of all, if he could find someone to share his car with him on his daily 20 minute commute from Arlington to the George Mason campus, why drive that distance alone? Now, collaboration with Roy, especially in his car, did carry risks. I still remember the hair-raising tales that David Jaffee, another graduate student buddy of ours, used to tell me about driving with Roy in Roy’s car from Cambridge to Worcester in the 1970s. You see, Roy back then had a reputation for not sleeping at night. This created a certain problem if Roy and David were driving out to Worcester after one of these nights, as they often did. Once in the car, David would ask himself: Was Roy actually asleep behind the wheel? Or did he only look as though he had closed his eyes and was driving off the road? David was never quite sure. And then last month, at the first memorial for Roy at George Mason University in Arlington, another of Roy’s car collaborators, Michael O’Malley, told an equally hair-raising tale about Roy’s car habits, this one from the last few years. Here the issue was not sleep, for Roy was wide awake. But apparently he sometimes used his time in the car with Mike not only to drive and to talk but to shave. Yes, to shave. One hand on the shaver, the other hand on the wheel. Oh my goodness. Roy’s hunger for collaboration reflected in part Roy’s love of people. He loved to be with them, loved working with them, learning from them and about them. His curiosity about people was bottomless. He delighted in putting people in touch with each other. He was a master networker, a maestro of the annual meeting of the AHA, not because he saw it as an avenue of self promotion but because he so enjoyed being in the mix and wanted to maximize his opportunities to learn from others about all manner of things, large and small. But there was more than love of people, love of networking, and love of knowledge at work here. There were a set of political ideals to which Roy had dedicated his life, and from which he never waivered. In their broadest form, these were the ideals of the Left. From the Old Left, he took a passion for equality and an opposition to elitism in any form—social, corporate, academic. From the New Left, he acquired a passion for democracy, for diversity, for openness and transparency, and for ordinary people taking charge of their own lives and their own history. The term socialist may not sit comfortably on Roy’s shoulders, but the term radical democrat suits him quite well. We can find Roy’s commitment to radical democracy everywhere in his intellectual and pedagogical work: in his early essays on unemployment politics in England and America; in his books on the efforts of common people to control their own parks, recreation, and lives; in his determination to bring the finest fruits of historical scholarship to the attention of broader publics through museums, schools, CDs, and the web; in his commitment to involving those same publics in the making of their own history. Radical democracy is what fired Roy’s passion for and deep commitment to digital history. Roy discerned in the internet an extraordinary moment in the history of democracy. He dreamed about creating a series of globally interconnected digital databases about history, politics, and society that would put more information in the hands of more people than had ever been the case in human history. He wanted so much to seize this democratic moment, and to use it to strike a blow for democratic empowerment. He was not blind to the challenges of this moment. He understood well the dark, demagogic side of populism and how it could and did flourish on the web. He worried about the efforts of corporations and guilds to end open-sourcing and impose “gated communities” on the landscape of internet knowledge. So he became the implacable foe of these corporations and guilds, of Bill Gates, Google, and Bell and Howell, and of our very own AHA. Yes, Roy led the fight to make all the articles in the AHR universally accessible on the web, available to all users whether or not they had paid a subscription fee. In this small struggle he emerged victorious. The larger struggle, or course, has yet to be won. In that regard, we must acknowledge that we have not only lost a friend. Democracy has lost a believer and a fighter. Roy would not want us to mourn his passing too much. He was not a sentimental man. Far more important to him would be the willingness of other people to step forward to take his place and to stay the course. In preparing these remarks, I have found comfort and inspiration in the words of another believer in and fighter for radical democracy, Irving Howe. In 1966, Howe published a volume of essays entitled, Steady Work: Essays in the Politics of Democratic Radicalism. Here is the epigraph with which Howe began the book. I think Roy would have enjoyed having himself associated with it. Indeed the reading of these words has helped me to see again the glint in Roy’s eyes and to hear again his soft chuckle. The epigraph: “Once in Chelm, the mythical village of the East European Jews, a man was appointed to sit at the village gate and wait for the coming of the Messiah. He complained to the village elders that his pay was too low. “You are right,” they said to him, “the pay is low. But consider: the work is steady.” Actually, Roy once delivered the same message but in his own ironic way. I am referring to the slogan that he and Jean Agnew put on matchbooks and t-shirts against a caricature of Karl Marx in the background. Roy and Jean’s slogan read: “Earn Big Money. Become a Historian.” Roy, we miss 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 153 Title A name given to the resource Remembering Roy 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 Gary Gerstle Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Gary Gerstle Type The nature or genre of the resource Document 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. Where to begin? It’s the only possible response when asked to remember Roy Rosenzweig. Academics are fortunate if they are able to become pioneers or innovators in a single field; Roy managed to found or advance at least three fields: social history, public history, and digital history. And we often suspect that pioneers and innovators have character flaws associated with the dogged pursuit of the cutting edge: narcissism, aggression, humorlessness. Yet everyone who knew Roy was amazed at his unparalleled combination of brilliance, insight, and incredible hard work with humility, generosity, and laugh-out-loud wit. Eight years ago I received a call from Roy, who had heard through a mutual acquaintance that I had moved to Washington. I only vaguely knew of Roy, and had no idea why he should want to talk to me, but nevertheless agreed to meet him for lunch. I’m so profoundly thankful I answered his call. Roy and I ate at a restaurant near his house and had some nice conversation. I thought little of our casual meeting until a year later, when Roy called me to say that he had just gotten a grant and had remembered a few points I had made over lunch and how relevant they were to the grant proposal. The only thing I could only remember from a year earlier was that Roy was bursting with energy and ideas and had consumed more coffee over lunch than I drink in a week. We met again for lunch and by the end of the meal he had convinced me to come work with him. That’s how it began for me, and for countless others. Sitting on a panel with Roy at a conference, meeting randomly over coffee, receiving a congratulatory email from him about an article you had written. No matter how trivial the reason behind the first contact, Roy would remember you, and he would often move these minor encounters—the kind most of us have every day and think nothing of—onto a path toward collaboration and friendship. I know of no one with as large an address book and as many friends as Roy. But he didn’t just collect these acquaintances superficially, for show or for his own career ends like so many people do on Facebook or LinkedIn. As his social histories of the United States also emphasize, he viewed every human being as a special resource who brings unique talents and ideas into the world, and he liked nothing more than to connect people with each other. Almost every topic of conversation prompted a welcome referral from Roy: “You should talk to my friend so-and-so, who has done some really interesting work on that subject.” The history of family photos? “She wrote a great article on that.” Standards for library catalogs? “Met this guy at the Library of Congress.” Byzantine art? Documentary filmmaking? Preservation of eight-track tapes? Him, her, and you’re not going to believe this but here’s an email address for you. Now go contact them. But Roy didn’t just bring his many acquaintances together. He reveled himself in collaborating with others. Roy found it deeply unfortunate that unlike in the sciences, the humanities suffered from a serious lack of collaboration. He scoffed at the mythical ideal of the intellectual toiling alone on the great book. Roy co-authored over a dozen major works, not to mention the scores of highly collaborative digital projects at the Center for History and New Media, which he founded at George Mason University in 1994. A typical but still remarkable moment occurred when Roy received the Richard W. Lyman Award (presented by the National Humanities Center and the Rockefeller Foundation) in 2003 for “outstanding achievement in the use of information technology to advance scholarship and teaching in the humanities.” He got up on stage, used his computer to project a giant list of names onto a screen, and said, “These are all of the people I collaborated with on the projects that this award honors. These are the people that did the work, and I want to thank them.” Of course, that was just Roy being his usual humble self. Roy’s collaborators will readily admit not only how wonderful but also how daunting it was to work with him. To paraphrase Paul Erdös, Roy was a machine for turning coffee into publications and websites. With his incredible mind and a large coffee nearly always by his side, he was able to produce such a wide and deep array of creative works. When we were writing a book together I would slowly plod along while insightful, beautiful prose seemed to pop off of his laptop at a disturbingly rapid pace. Working with him on a project forced you to elevate yourself, to do the best you could do. Long before Roy became ill, the staff at the Center for History and New Media would ponder (when Roy was out of the room) what we would do decades hence, when we expected Roy would finally leave this world. In the spirit of Roy’s humor, some of us decided that we would simply have to preserve his brain in a giant vat of fresh-brewed coffee. Others took their cue from science fiction and thought we could transfer his mind onto silicon for the continued benefit of future generations. If only we could have done so. But perhaps in a partial sense that is what has happened over the last decade. Roy’s thoughts and vision sit on the Center for History and New Media’s server, silently connecting with thousands of people every day, and his books and articles connect with thousands more. If only those people could have met Roy Rosenzweig in person. He would have liked to have had coffee with them. 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 15 Title A name given to the resource Remembering Roy Rosenzweig 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 <em>Thanks, Roy</em> in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on <em>Thanks, Roy</em> (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using <em>Thanks, Roy</em>. 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 <em>Thanks, Roy</em> you release, discharge, and agree to hold harmless <em>Thanks, Roy</em> 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 <em>Thanks, Roy</em>\'s use of the material, including, without limitation, claims for violation of privacy, defamation, or misrepresentation. <em>Thanks, Roy</em> has no obligation to use your material. You will be sent via email a copy of your contribution to <em>Thanks, Roy</em>. We cannot return any material you submit to us so be sure to keep a copy. <em>Thanks, Roy</em> will not share your email address or any other information with commercial vendors. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dan Cohen Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Dan Cohen Type The nature or genre of the resource Document chnm coffee collaboration Digital History personal recollection 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 he was to so many people, Roy was a wonderful mentor, friend, and scholar. I first met Roy in January 2000, when I was considering returning to do my Ph.D. I made my way from DC to the wilds of far-off Fairfax to take his postwar America seminar at GMU. Six and a half years later, though several classes, independent readings, many meetings at Murky Coffee and elsewhere, I defended my dissertation with Roy--proud to have him as the chair of my committee--after having passed my orals with him. Gentleness and scholarly prowess, kindness and academic rigor, student-centered teaching and professional accomplishment do not often go together -- but Roy was a model of how to bring this rare combination of scholarship, humanity, and pegagogy into one true gem of a person. It is hard to imagine not seeing and talking with Roy again, as all of our talks were so enjoyable and enriching, but he, and what he contributed to my life, always will be with me. -- Andrew Yarrow 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 33 Title A name given to the resource Remembering Roy, 2000-2007 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 <em>Thanks, Roy</em> in all media in perpetuity. If you have so indicated on the form, your material will be published on <em>Thanks, Roy</em> (with or without your name, depending on what you have indicated). Otherwise, your response will only be available to approved researchers using <em>Thanks, Roy</em>. 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 <em>Thanks, Roy</em> you release, discharge, and agree to hold harmless <em>Thanks, Roy</em> 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 <em>Thanks, Roy</em>\'s use of the material, including, without limitation, claims for violation of privacy, defamation, or misrepresentation. <em>Thanks, Roy</em> has no obligation to use your material. You will be sent via email a copy of your contribution to <em>Thanks, Roy</em>. We cannot return any material you submit to us so be sure to keep a copy. <em>Thanks, Roy</em> will not share your email address or any other information with commercial vendors. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Andrew Yarrow Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Andrew Yarrow Type The nature or genre of the resource Document 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. Roy and I were accidental roommates at Columbia when we were freshmen, never having met though we grew up a few streets apart in Bayside. We became fast friends, and eventually as juniors moved into an apartment on 112th St., just a few yards away from Tom's (later made famous by Seinfeld). At some point, not long after we moved into our sublet (two bedrooms for about $100 a month, if that can be believed), we helped my girlfriend's family by taking one of a litter of kittens off their hands. Roy suggested the name -- Rufus T. Firefly, after one of Groucho's characters -- and she (as we later discovered) was both the joy and bane of our bachelor life. One night (very late, of course) Roy was writing a paper and crumpled up a sheet into a ball and threw it in the general direction of his wastepaper basket ... and a moment later Rufus was there with it in her mouth. She had taught herself to fetch, and fetch she did, for as long as either of us had the patience to play the game. We'd toss the paper ball, and she would tear off at the speed of light, grapple with the object, and then come loping back, ready for the next round. She never tired of it -- though we certainly did. Roy could not write a paper (and his were of legendary length) without starting and crumpling dozens of pages, and the mere sound of paper being balled up was enough to bring Rufus to plaintive, rapt vigilance at his feet. I can't think of Roy to this day without thinking of Rufus fetching balls of paper in the wee hours of the morning. I can't imagine Roy didn't think of this from time to time, just as I do ... though I wish we'd had the opportunity to reminisce and have a good laugh about it together. 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 100 Title A name given to the resource Remembering Roy, c.1970 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 Fred Schwarzbach Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fred Schwarzbach Type The nature or genre of the resource Document https://www.thanksroy.org/files/original/bac71dd72b94b1db28934dfa415dfcaa.jpg 88ca2855ceb32b2794c2abce97c00544 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 1 Height 502 Width 508 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 99 Title A name given to the resource Robin, Roy and our dog Mutsey 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 Take notice of the dark shirt. It was most probably RED. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robin Rosenzweig Schkrutz Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Robin Rosenzweig Schkrutz Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image Dog red shirt Robin roy 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 I sit in my cubicle, I glance directly across the room at Roy’s empty office in CHNM and the nameplate for Room 483. Peaking inside his office you can tell that he intended to be back: half-full water bottles and plastic cups stand on the desk; a book with the cover broken in from the grip of a strong hand sits on the table attached to his resting chair waiting to be finished; papers on his desk are ready to be filed, answered, or thrown away. After a quick glance, his black sweater is not visible but it might be hiding on the floor underneath his desk. He planned to be back at work, just like after other stays in the hospital. Roy maintained such a strong and steadfast commitment to CHNM, his colleagues, and his students throughout the past year and a half that would have been remarkable for a healthy person, never mind for someone carrying around an ever-present opponent in his body. As we try to figure out what comes next, those of us working in the “west wing” fix our attention on the construction site outside our window. That activity provides an excellent distraction from the emptiness of Room 483. 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 39 Title A name given to the resource Room 483 Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sheila Brennan Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Sheila Brennan Type The nature or genre of the resource Document chnm commitment emptiness research1 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. My name is Jean-Christophe Agnew, and I knew Roy for some thirty five years. If that sounds a bit like the introduction for someone in recovery from something, that’s pretty much how I feel at the moment. And you too, I’m sure. All of us poised at one step or another of recovery from our loss. And because of the way Roy lived his life and took care of his friends, it is very much our loss. Sad as I am to be here – sad beyond words really -- I am relieved and comforted to be here with all of you. Roy was many, many things, but he was, above all, his friends. There are others here today whose friendship with Roy goes back to high school, even junior high. But feeling trumps fact here, because one of the marvelous things about Roy was his gift for making you feel as if you had hung out with him in junior high. Thanks to Roy’s abiding allegiance and affection for us all – his remembrance of our birthdays, for example, his care to update us on our friends – we all belonged to the imagined community of Roy Rosenzweig: Let’s call it Royville. So it is a comfort to me to see Royville assembled here this afternoon. No longer imagined, no longer virtual, but here, present. Once again, our friend and comrade, our confidant and collaborator has managed to bring us together. Though if were he here himself, you know that he would have a list of better things we might be doing with our time. Frankly, what we’re saying and doing today would have been unendurable for Roy, like a collective hug that went on and on, beyond reason. But what we’re feeling today -- certainly what I’m feeling -- is beyond reason. The love we felt for him, the love we took from him. The last time I remember such a gathering was more than 25 years ago, at Roy’s and Deborah’s August wedding in Middletown, Connecticut, where I distinctly remember thinking to myself: A wedding. What a wonderful pretext, what a great excuse for all of us to call to order the first official meeting -- the charter meeting -- of the Roy-and-Deborah fan club. For that is what that gathering was at that moment of happiness there on that sunlit lawn on that summer afternoon, and that is what it still is, here in this room, at this moment of our grief and loss. But was it not always been thus? From the legendary stickball games in Bayside to pick-up hoops in Cambridge, from dinners at 82 Kirkland Street to picnics in Craryville, from those godawful chocolate donuts and cans of Tab at the Urban Center at Harvard to the gallons of coffee at the History and New Media Center at George Mason, Roy drew us together in one way or another, turning the various pretexts for gathering into real texts: textbooks, monographs, anthologies, slide tapes, cd roms and finally the on-line loop of digital knowledge which so perfectly replicates (at least for me) the circles of friendship and knowledge that Roy himself generated over the years. Six degrees of Roy. Early on, there was MARHO, the Mid-Atlantic Radical Historians Organization, the small nucleus of editorial collectives that started the Radical History Review more than three decades ago. Roy and I would often joke about the now long forgotten MARHO regional associates, a loose network of corresponding members –many of them isolated (by their own account) at various Midwestern and Southern colleges and universities. Wanting desperately to talk to someone, anyone, about, say, the impact of Daniel De Leon or the significance of the British General Strike of 1926. Had it not been for Roy’s empathy and his efforts over many years – all those letters and phone calls -- this committee of correspondence among left historians would have disappeared. No one else in MARHO was willing to take that job. And so it fell to Roy, or rather Roy rose to it. Which is why the Thanks, Roy website seems so right, so apt an appreciation. All the Regional Associates of Roy’s life returning the favor, reminding us of the impact, the significance of this man in our lives. The impressions. The anecdotes. The remembered dialogue. Reading over these recollections, I see my best friend re-emerge, coalesce before my eyes like some pointilliste portrait. No, wait. Pointilliste portrait? No, no, no….what I really see is that signature green or red ink underline scrawled beneath the word “pointilliste” with a polite question mark to the right. What is Roy telling me? Have I got the wrong technology? Should I substitute “dot matrix,” or maybe “pixelated”? Or is he suggesting that my figure of speech is itself a distraction, a way of aestheticizing and avoiding my own sorrow at writing about Roy -- without Roy? I’d ask him but I suspect that by this point in these remarks, Roy would have left this room looking for the coffee machine. Or better yet, fallen asleep. Roy and I spent more than 25 years of our lives writing one thing or another together, from introductions to obituaries. But the longest assignment of all was the column we cobbled together three-times-a-year on history and historians: the Abusable Past. It wasn’t exactly Morrison and Commager, more like Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers of history. Looking under the hood of the profession was not so difficult given how many historians Roy knew and how much time he logged at conventions. So many conventions. Once, just for fun, we did a back-of-the envelope calculation of the time Roy had spent at conventions. It added up to a year. A full year out of his life. Now how he felt about that I don’t really know. And perhaps he didn’t either. But how many of us here in Royville would give a year out of our lives just to see him at the next AHA – in his red shirt and jeans – waiting at the registration desk to go out for coffee? Thank you, Roy, for everything. 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 142 Title A name given to the resource Roy Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jean-Christophe Agnew Type The nature or genre of the resource Document Historians history roy years 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. I’m Tony Rosenzweig, Roy’s first cousin and I’m here representing family and on behalf of family I’d like to thank all the colleagues and friends who came to share their thoughts and memories. It’s wonderful – though not surprising – to see how many were touched by Roy. Although I grew up near Roy, I got to know him well first when I moved to Cambridge as an undergraduate and Roy was a graduate student at Harvard. He hosted me when I visited the campus, showed me around Cambridge and would somehow find time to get together regularly for lunch or just a chat on a nice day in Harvard yard. During these conversations, Roy -- with gentle but incisive questioning -- would help me understand and clarify my own thoughts. It has been particularly heart-warming to see that – 30 years later – when our daughter came to DC for college, Roy – now together with Deborah – reprised this role, making her feel welcome, making it clear she had a home away from home. Roy was generous with more than just his time. He gave my wife and me our first car, which was stolen several times from Cambridge. Whether because it was somehow blessed – or because it was a 1967 Dodge – it always came back. My sister, who recently lost her own husband to a brain tumor and couldn’t be here today, sent this message: “What a year this has been. A cruel year, unlike any other experienced or imagined in my worst nightmare. So true for all of us. Losses across a spectrum: my uncle, my husband, a cousin’s husband and my dear cousin Roy, honored here today. At times it seems unbelievable that all this has happened in a few short months. I wish I had known Roy better, that our paths had crossed more often [but] I admired Roy from afar—proud of all he had done….[and] proud to count him as a relative. When in the DC area I reached out to Roy & Deborah and they always welcomed us for a visit. Last year, on our last trip to the NIH, where my husband was in a clinical trial…, we shared a quiet dinner together at a Chinese restaurant in Bethesda. It was a blustery cold February night and the winds were especially cruel. Together we commiserated, sharing the trials and tribulations of living with serious illness and frustrations with modern medicine -- two cancer patients and two caregivers. Roy was as sharp as ever and aside from hair loss seemed to be doing well. Richard on the other hand was not. I am sorry that I cannot be there physically today to share a warm hug and shed a tear. Please know that I am with you nonetheless because of what I carry in my heart--the feeling of kinship, of heritage, of friendship, of family. Loss is loss, never welcome, never wanted but an inevitable part of life. For me I try to cherish what I have learned from the experience, the good that has come from the bottom of the abyss—the strength, the lessons learned, the people.” [She ends by quoting her 16 year old son Ross’s eulogy for his father]: “… it is different for everyone. Who could honestly say how exactly they feel, and then feel the same as the person next to them. It is different for everyone. And they can’t. It is different; nothing is the same and nothing is as simple. The loss of a Lover is not the same as the loss of a brother. The loss of a brother is not the same as the loss of an Uncle. The loss of an Uncle is not the same as the loss of a colleague. The loss of a colleague is not the same as a teacher. A teacher is not the same as a close friend. Nothing is Worse. Nothing is Easy. Nothing is as simple. Everything is different.” Represented here today are people who had each of these relationships with Roy and though each is different, we all each of share a common sense of loss but also will carry with us a common legacy, the gift that – like that 1967 Dodge – will keep coming back since it comes from having known and been touched by Roy. [Message from Roy's sister, Robin Schkrutz:] Since it is Chanukah, this story that my father liked to tell comes to mind. It was one of my son David's early experiences at Sunday School. Our rabbi was trying to explain the miracle of Chanukah. He wanted to make sure that the class of 5 year olds all knew what a miracle was. He asked the class what do you think a miracle is? Five year old David raised his hand and answered a miracle is when people are nice to each other. My brother Roy was someone who practiced miracles every day of his life. He was always nice to other people. The Roy that I knew was the Roy that everyone in this room knew. He wasn't different to different people. He was good and kind to everyone. Although his academic achievements and awards are amazing, he never made a big deal of them. It was always you who was the important focus of any conversation. I cherish the time we spent as children spending endless hours playing games together. As we got older, the distance grew, but I am grateful that we kept a tradition of thanksgiving and Christmas vacation get-togethers. Roy's kindness was one of his most wonderful attributes. When I read all the wonderful ways you treated others, it makes me even more proud than ever to have been your sister. And that is what I will remember you for. I hope all of us will think of honoring Roy by showing kindness to others. Because that would be the way to spread what he gave to all of us. 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 149 Title A name given to the resource Roy Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Speech written by Tony Rosenzweig, for the Celebration of Roy's Life, December 9, 2007. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tony Rosenzweig Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tony Rosenzweig Type The nature or genre of the resource Document cambridge family husband loss roy 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 https://www.thanksroy.org/files/original/1d69d7500c8cd41f44b8ffda81994a56.jpg 779c865b2a7da291ea655ffa3fba9131 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 436 Width 576 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 122 Title A name given to the resource Roy at Pohick 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 This is a second picture from that evening at the Pohick Module on October 3, 2001. Roy is talking to Dee Holisky. In the background are Bob Hawkes and Paula Petrik. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mills Kelly Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mills Kelly Type The nature or genre of the resource Still Image chnm Pohick red shirt roy shirt