Cynthia Koch caught this photo of Jann at the end of the 2014 NCPH Annual Meeting in Monterey, California. Cynthia notes, “There she is at her best–counseling a young person. The conference will not be the same without her–and neither will public history.”
Rebecca Conard, Middle Tennessee State University: A toast. First and always, there was Jann’s jolly laugh, which could erupt at the slightest trigger. When her ashes are scattered, may the Tucson desert breeze catch the echo of her laughter as she floats to her final destination.
Susan E. Gray, Arizona State University: Jann Warren-Findley became acting director of the Public History Program at Arizona State University in late 2007, following the death of the founding director, Noel Stowe. In this new position, she worked hard to recruit history faculty, whose research and teaching interests fit the then parameters of the program. As one of Jann’s recruits, I was able to mount a new seminar on North American cultural landscapes, and to explore with her the intersections between her interest in the politics of historic preservation in settler societies and my own in Indigenous and settler cultural landscapes in the U.S. and Canada. The past fifteen years have seen the development of a vigorous, global field in comparative colonialisms. Jann’s work in New Zealand and Australia explored some of the public dimensions of this field. Her transnational focus attested to her immense capacity for intellectual and personal growth, and to her ability to think creatively about the future of a profession to which she devoted much of her adult life.
Watching Jann work with her students, I also developed a new appreciation of the meaning of “public” in the practice of public history, at which core, for her, was the politics of memory. It is not too much of an exaggeration to say that many “garden-variety” historians regard public history as anything that historians do outside the academy, and therefore do not take seriously public history as professional praxis. In my opinion, Jann’s work beautifully demonstrated that this thinking is exactly backwards. We live in an era of dramatically shrinking resources for the training and hiring of academic historians, yet arguably, popular interest in history has never been greater. The work of public historians like Jann and the flourishing of graduate programs in public history offer a badly needed “third way” to serve public memory without either catering or condescending to the public.
Beth Luey, Director of Scholarly Publishing Program, Arizona State University (Emerita): I was fortunate to work with Jann and Noel Stowe as co-directors of the Public History Program at ASU. All three of us had great ambitions for the program, but our ambitions for our students were quite simple: we wanted them to go out into the world and do good work that they enjoyed. I wanted my students to go into various publishing settings; Noel was most interested in students’ going into the history of Arizona and the West. Jann, however, wanted her students to conquer the world. She added national, international, and interdisciplinary dimensions to the program and opened up amazing opportunities for her students.
And she was really fun. She knew everybody–and good stories about most of them. It’s hard to imagine that she is no longer with us
Barb Howe, NCPH Chair 1988-89: I don’t remember when I first met Jann, but it was some time in the mid-1980s through NCPH. I think she was working on her study of statues in Washington, D.C., at the time, and this was published in August 1985 as “A Guide to Selected Statues, Monuments and Memorials,” National Capital Parks – Central, National Park Service, Washington, D.C.”
Jann always had a project for me to be working on or a place I needed to go or someone I needed to meet. But her most useful input came as the result of a very chance phone conversation very early in our friendship. We all know how memories can be frozen, and this one with Jann is one I hope I never forget. I can still see myself sitting at my desk in my office in the history department at West Virginia University talking to Jann about some matter of NCPH business late in the afternoon in the summer of 1986. I don’t remember what NCPH business we were talking about, but I finally said, “Jann, I have to go. I have to go out to Arthurdale tonight.” For those readers who don’t know, Arthurdale was the first federal New Deal new town. It is located about seventeen miles from Morgantown, and by that summer, I was an advisor to the nascent Arthurdale Heritage, Inc., group. She practically screamed over the phone, “Arthurdale! I thought it was gone. Pete Seeger’s son drove through there a few years ago and reported back to the New Deal crowd here [D.C.] that nothing was left.” “No, it is still there, and they are working to restore it, and I have to get off the phone to get there,” I replied.
Jann was one of the folks planning the 1987 NCPH-Society for History in the Federal Government annual meeting to be held in D.C. the following spring, so she let me hang up with the “command” to put together a session on Arthurdale for that meeting. I did put together the session that included myself, Randy Gooden (then a graduate student at WVU), and Glenna Williams, the daughter of a homesteader who was the president of Arthurdale Heritage, Inc., and who liked to describe herself as the “artifact” when we did sessions together on Arthurdale. It was during that session that someone sitting toward the back of the room – maybe Bruce Craig? – asked about whether Arthurdale was on the National Register. We replied that the SHPO’s office had said it was not eligible because of integrity problems, but people at that session helped us figure out how to address those issues, and we eventually got it listed as a historic district.
Jann and Jon later came over to Morgantown from D.C., and we went out to Arthurdale together so I could, in fact, show her that it was still there. For someone who was a student of the New Deal, going to Arthurdale was almost like a pilgrimage. I’m sure I would have eventually told her about my work at Arthurdale, but she was among the very first people outside the immediate geographic area who encouraged our efforts. And I’m very glad I knew about her illness in time to send her a card last week to thank her, very belatedly, for that enthusiasm and “command.” It paid to pay attention to Jann, and NCPH conferences will not be the same without her hugs.
Thomas Cauvin, University of Louisiana: Jann has always been very helpful. She was curious and so much willing to know about different cultures, about new people. Her investment in the International Federation for Public History was priceless. She and I were collaborating on a book, and I deeply remember how she was making things meaningful. We all have a debt towards Jann.
Patricia West McKay, Martin Van Buren National Historic Site: I will always treasure the memory of Jann’s trademark generosity and kindness, the way she could always be counted on to cheer me on whenever I felt uncertain or discouraged. I recall our first meeting decades ago, which I was quite nervous about beforehand because Jann was one of the great pioneers of the then radical effort to incorporate women’s history into historic sites. She immediately put me at ease and our friendship blossomed from that day on. This is a great loss but we can take heart from what we have learned from Jann about the importance of mentoring new scholars, and by carrying on her legacy of encouraging warm, affectionate collegiality to enhance life and work as one.
Vivien Rose, Independent Scholar: I loved talking with Jann and seeing her at conferences. She had a way of ending conversations with a humorous observation, twinkling eyes, and a laugh as she moved away. She always left me laughing too.
Leah Glaser, Central Connecticut State University: There really is no person I can credit more for my adult life and career than my mentor, Jann Warren-Findley. From my first day of graduate school at Arizona State University in 1994, as a teacher and as Co-Director of the Public History Graduate Program, she provided me with encouragement, enthusiasm, confidence, and tenacity. Her enthusiasm for finding opportunities everywhere and seizing upon them was infectious. She took very few obstacles seriously when pursuing ideas and projects. Her career and experiences have been an inspiration.
Jann convinced me to stay at ASU for my PhD as her first doctoral student, a move that not only determined the direction of my career, but meant that I would still be at ASU to meet my husband. She attended our wedding and referred to our kids as her “academic grandchildren.”
Dr. Warren-Findley taught her students the value of networking in our field and acting like professionals early on. She never hesitated to introduce us to people at the NCPH conferences that she insisted we attend and she continued to do this up through last year in Monterey (and they will not be the same without her). However, she was not a
micro-manager or hand-holder. Whether it was for a class project, thesis, dissertation, or looking for internships and jobs, she simply, but firmly, directed and redirected where to look and with whom one should speak. That style allowed us students to discover our own independence and competence as professionals, and I try to emulate her as I direct my own students in a Public History undergraduate and MA program. One of our MA graduates went to study with Jann at ASU, and he became her last doctoral student. Pretty cool (as she would say).
Cathy Stanton, Tufts University: My friendship with Jann was episodic: it took place, like many of my professional relationships, entirely at public history conferences over the past 15 or so years. She was someone I always thought it would be fun to spend much more time with, and yet I also really treasured those brief meetings, which were a highlight of any conference trip for me. Her deep attentiveness, her capacious interest in others’ work, and her lively humor and intellect made a once-a-year conversation with her into an important check-in, like catching up with a favorite cousin you only ever see at weddings. The first of those conversations I recall was in an airport departure lounge in who knows where, an unexpected encounter at the end of one of my first NCPH conferences. The last one was on a warm sunny afternoon on a park bench in Monterey, California last spring. Reading others’ contributions to this page, I have a sense of Jann’s life as one long series of those kinds of encounters, bringing her gift of attention to so many people. I will miss her in far more than episodic ways.
Marla Miller, University of Massachusetts Amherst: Jann Warren-Findley was one of the very first people to welcome me to the world of public history. When I was new to the field, not even finished with my PhD, we met through our shared interest in women’s history and historic preservation, and we hit it off from the start. Though she had so many of her own students to cheer on and mentor, she took me under her wing and was so wonderfully supportive, helping me find my footing as a young scholar. And she remained, for these nearly twenty years since, a counselor, cheerleader, colleague and friend: we would catch up at NCPH and other occasions as we could, and from time to time, out of the blue would come these little notes via email, messages of congratulations or appreciation for one thing or another. I’m just one of many who will remember Jann with gratitude and affection as an extraordinarily generous mentor and friend. I will miss her ready laugh, the twinkle ever-present in her eye, and most of all her warm collegiality.
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To add comments or recollections, please return to the introductory post.
Jann was a dear colleague to many of us here in New Zealand. She taught our students with her quiet enthusiasm, challenged us as historians and nurtured us as friends.