Robert
Hamlett Bremner (1917-2002)
Robert
Hamlett Bremner, Emeritus Professor of History, The Ohio State
University, Columbus, died 2 September 2002; he was 85 years old.
Born in Brunswick, Ohio, the son of George L. and Sue Hamlett
Bremner, Bob is survived by his wife of 52 years, Catherine Marting
Bremner, and his two daughters, Sue and Ann. He graduated from
Baldwin-Wallace College in 1935 and won his M.A. (1939) and Ph.D.
(1943) from Ohio State University. Following employment with the
Department of War in World War II in Europe and the nation’s
capital, and the Red Cross in Washington as well, in 1946 he was
appointed to the faculty of the Department of History at Ohio
State in 1946 and rose through the ranks, retiring as Emeritus
Professor of History in 1980. He won awards for teaching, as well
as visiting professorships at the Universities of Cincinnati,
Wisconsin, and Michigan. He won fellowships from numerous institutions,
including Harvard University and the Social Science Research Council.
It was as a scholar that Bob was best known beyond the confines
of Columbus, Ohio. He pioneered the history of social welfare
and of poverty in the United States, but one step away from the
practitioner histories, such as those by Grace Abbott and others.
And, indeed, Bob shared the sympathetic perspective of those champions
of the downtrodden in the American past; he was very involved
in the emotional battles of the past about which he wrote. Yet
that did not prevent him from making three important contributions
to American history. The first, and in a sense the most creative,
came with his first book, FROM THE DEPTHS; THE DISCOVERY OF POVERTY
IN THE UNITED STATES (New York: New York University Press, 1956).
It may astound the contemporary reader to learn that poverty was
something American historians did not write about, or even recognize
as a phenomenon worth writing about, but here Bob’s prescience
yielded important results. In that work he chronicled the history
of the idea of poverty from nineteenth century notions of dependency,
meaning that the poor caused social problems, to the early twentieth
century revisionist view that pauperism was the consequence of
social problems, notably insufficiency and insecurity, which,
having come from late nineteenth century “scientific philanthropy”(pp.
124-125) helped create the social welfare reform movement and
the progressive reform movement of the early 20th century. Bob’s
second major contribution was to encourage work in the history
of philanthropy, more nearly of private groups than of the massive
foundations of the century just past. He wrote two helpful books
in this vein, AMERICAN PHILANTHROPY (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1960, 1967) a synoptic view useful in the classroom, and
THE PUBLIC GOOD. PHILANTHROPY AND WELFARE IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), a competent chronicle of its
subject, although by the 1980s scholars were far more interested
in the history of the modern foundation and its relationships
with public policy as generated by private interests and public
institutions and organizations.
His
third major contribution, and it literally opened up a field of
history, was the multivolume documentary collection he edited
and published with three associates, John Barnard, Tamara K. Hareven,
and Robert M. Mennel, CHILDREN AND YOUTH IN AMERICA. A DOCUMENTARY
HISTORY (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970-1974), which
illustrated the history of children and youth from the Civil War
to the New Deal. Support for the venture came from the American
Public Health Association, as well as the Children’s Bureau
and the Maternal and Child Health Service of the United States
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Among those issues
stressed in these massive volumes were health, education, family
law, delinquency, dependency, and child labor. Again, Bob’s
perspective was to be engaged with the unfortunate youngsters
of the past. The work’s point of view has been superceded
by others more involved in contemporary theoretical issues that
historians have borrowed from literary and social science theory
– not necessarily an advance in scholarly understanding.
Bob’s approach was more traditional, seemingly atheoretical
and empirical. Those of us who knew him during our terms as instructors
at Ohio State several decades ago found him a gregarious and generous
man, impassioned by the moral battles of the past and present,
and supportive of our own efforts as tyros in the profession.
He will be sorely missed as a scholar and a human being.
Hamilton
Cravens
Iowa State University
