Howard F. Cline

Howard F. Cline, historian of Latin America, U.S. government official (June 12, 1915, Detroit, Michigan – June 1, 1971, Washington DC) was the Director of the Hispanic Foundation at the Library of Congress from 1952 until his death in June 1971.[1][2] He was one of the founders of the Latin American Studies Association. He was also active in the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH), the professional organization of Latin American historians, serving as its chair in 1964.[3] He continues to be well recognized as a scholar "devoted to and effective in the promotion of Latin American studies in the United States."[4]

Early life and career

Born in Detroit, Michigan, he grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1935, at age 20, he was admitted to Harvard College on a scholarship; in his sophomore year became a resident in Dunster House, whose Master was Clarence H. Haring and later became Cline’s dissertation adviser. Cline wrote his mentor’s obituary in 1961.[5] In 1939 Cline graduated magna cum laude in history, writing his senior thesis on American journalist Benjamin Orange Flower, which he later published.[6][7] He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[8]

In his senior year at Harvard, he won the Sheldon Fellowship, which funded travel for a year outside of the U.S. following graduation.[9] Cline later described this time in Mexico (1939–40) as his wanderjahr.[10] During his travels in Mexico, he became fluent in Spanish, and formed a lifelong interest in central and southern Mexico’s Indians.

In 1940, Cline entered the graduate program in History at Harvard, with Clarence Haring as his adviser. He returned to Mexico to do fieldwork in a then- remote indigenous village of San Pedro Yólox in Oaxaca in 1942-43 as a Social Science Research Fellow.[11] That field work resulted in publications on Chinantec history, language, and modern culture.[12][13][14]

Following fieldwork in Mexico, Cline returned to Harvard in 1943 where he was appointed Assistant Dean of Harvard College, and instructor in the History Department.[15] Between 1943 and 1947, Cline wrote his dissertation "Regionalism and Society in Yucatan, 1825-47: A Study of ‘Progressivism’ and the Origins of the Caste War." The so-called Caste War (guerra de las castas) was a major mid-nineteenth-century conflict between Mayas and Yucatecan whites that broke out in 1847, with the Maya nearly succeeded in ousting whites from the peninsula. He never published his dissertation as a whole, but did publish portions of it.[16][17]

In 1947 while completing his dissertation, he was an instructor in history at Yale University, but he found little support for Latin American history there.[18] However, he met Charles Gibson, then a Yale doctoral student of George Kubler, who was also interested in Mexican Indian history.[19] Cline taught briefly at Northwestern University, where he wrote his first monograph, The United States and Mexico for the Harvard University series on U.S. relations with foreign countries. There were Latin Americanists in various departments at Northwestern, but he left in 1952 to become Director of the Hispanic Foundation at the Library of Congress, where he spent the rest of his career.[20][21] In his discussion of the history of the formation of the Latin American Studies Association, he described the situation in academia in the late 1940s and into the 1950s that was not receptive to scholarship on Latin America. Cline and a number of other scholars "persisted in their seemingly futile efforts to prevent their chosen specialization from degenerating into a shabby, genteel academic slum. Singly, in pairs, or in small groups, they worked at the thankless task of rebuilding."[22]

Career in government and scholarly activity

In 1952 at age 36, Cline accepted the position as Director of the Hispanic Foundation (now Hispanic Division) at the Library of Congress, following the 1951 resignation of its first director, historian Lewis Hanke. During Cline’s tenure at the Library of Congress he was an able administrator, traveling frequently to Latin America and Europe to increase the library’s Latin American and Iberian holdings, and represented the U.S. at various of international congresses and as special ambassador of the U.S. to inaugural of Mexican president Luis Echeverría in 1970.[23] Cline expanded the coverage of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, founded under Hanke’s tenure at the Hispanic Foundation, with social science and humanities volumes alternating by year.

He was very active in scholarly organizations in the U.S. He was instrumental in incorporating the Conference on Latin American History as a nonprofit corporation, scholarly organization in 1964, the year he served as chair of the organization.[24][3] He was one of the founders of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA); initially LASA’s institutional home was the Hispanic Foundation, later moving to University of Florida following his death.[25] Cline wrote a short history of the organization, published in LASA’s journal, the Latin American Research Review.[26]

To further the understanding of the development of Latin American history as a field, he edited a two-volume collection of essays, published by the Conference of Latin American History.[27] The volumes were designed to aid graduate students understand the development of the field and its historiography. Cline also helped create the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM).[28]

In 1963 Cline published a second monograph on modern Mexico, assessing its twentieth-century history to 1960. Mexico: Revolution to Evolution, with Oxford University Press. It is an evaluation of what was then considered a mature, consolidated state.[29] A revised version of The United States and Mexico appeared in 1966.[30]

Cline prepared research materials for the U.S. Indian Claims Commission, providing information for the history Florida Indians and the Jicarilla Apache.[31][32]

After 1960 Cline devoted time to volumes on ethnohistory for the Handbook of Middle American Indians. This publication series focuses on what is now called Mesoamerica, under the editorship of Tulane University archeologist, Robert Wauchope. Longtime friend Charles Gibson was closely involved in the volumes' planning and publication in 1973 following Cline’s 1971 death.[33] Cline, Gibson, H.B. Nicholson of UCLA, and John Glass, an independent scholar, worked many years as editors to bring the project to fruition, with the aid of many other scholars in the field.[34]

Cline was keenly interested in maps and map making, publishing a number of articles on maps, and drafted many maps for the volume in the Handbook of Middle American Indians on the Relaciones geográficas, geopolitical reports to the Spanish crown.[35][36] He also examined the map by Abraham Ortelius, who published the first major map of Mexico in 1579.[37] He also published an analysis of an early sixteenth-century Texcoco pictorial, known as the Oztoticpac Lands Map, showing the holdings of one member of the ruling family Don Carlos of Texcoco.[38] His article on this native pictorial won the best article on Latin American history in 1966 for the Conference on Latin American History.[39]

The history of the conquest of Mexico was another of his particular interests. He published a commemorative volume onWilliam Hickling Prescott, the nineteenth-century U.S. historian who wrote The Conquest of Mexico, a best-seller in his time and continuously in print.[40] He also wrote about the intersection of conqueror Hernando Cortés and Aztec Indians brought the Spanish court.[41] He became interested in Mesoamerican calendrics and the chronology of the conquest toward the end of his life.[42]

In his discussion of the history of the Latin American Studies Association, he wryly suggested in 1966 that at some future date Latin Americanists should erect a statue to Fidel Castro, the "remote godfather" of the field, who instigated a renewed U.S. interest in the region.[43] He also assessed the quality and types of works indicating progress in the field.

Monograph after monograph has shown that many of the easy generalizations concerning uniformities common to earlier generations rested on insubstantial bases, often legal codes that were normative rather than illustrative of actual practices. With mounting data have come changed interpretations. The major one is that rather than one specialty, Latin American history is now breaking into a multiplicity of specialties. Equally striking is the steady drift toward mundane establishment of fact and a reduction in the moral fervor….[44]

Honors

Cline was awarded the Spanish government’s highest honor for foreigners, Commander in the Order of Isabel the Catholic, for his work to bring Spanish scholarly institutions and those of the US into greater cooperation.[45] Following his early death in 1971, he was eulogized in major scholarly journals of Latin American history and in the Congressional Record. In 1972, Cline was posthumously awarded the Conference of Latin American History’s Distinguished Service Award, their highest honor.[46] In 1976 the Howard F. Cline Prize was established and awarded biennially for the best book on Latin American ethnohistory.[46]

Works

Monographs

Research reports

Edited volumes

Articles and chapters

References

  1. ↑ John Brademas, "A Tribute to Howard Francis Cline, Director of the Hispanic Foundation of the Library of Congress" Congressional Record 92nd Congress, 1st session (vol. 117 pt. 14), June 7, 1971, 18493-18494.
  2. ↑ John Finan, "Howard F. Cline, 1915-1971" Hispanic American Historical Review vol. 51, no. 4. Nov. 1971, pp. 646-653.
  3. 1 2 "CLAH » Elected Officers".
  4. ↑ Helen Delpar, Looking South: The Evolution of Latin Americanist Scholarship in the United States, 1850-1975. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press 2008. Delpar’s book is dedicated to the memories of Howard F. Cline and Lewis Hanke.
  5. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "In Memoriam: Clarence Henry Haring, 1885-1960" The Americas vol. 17, no. 3. Jan. 1961, pp. 292-297.
  6. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "Benjamin Orange Flower and The Arena, 1889-1909," Journalism Quarterly, vol. 17 (June 1940), pp. 139–150, 171.
  7. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "Flower and The Arena: Purpose and Content," Journalism Quarterly, vol. 17 (Sept. 1940), pp. 247–257
  8. ↑ Brademus, ”A Tribute to Howard F. Cline”, p. 18493
  9. ↑ Brademas, “A Tribute to Howard Francis Cline, 18493-18494.
  10. ↑ Howard F. Cline, ”Commentary” in Stanley R. Ross, Latin America in Transition: Problems in Training and Research. Albany: State University of New York 1970, p. 68.
  11. ↑ Brademus, “Cline” 18493
  12. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "Civil Congregation of the Indians of New Spain, 1598-1606." Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 349-369.
  13. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "Civil Congregation of the Western Chinantla, New Spain, 1599-1603." The Americas, vol. 12, no. 2, Oct 1955, pp. 115-137.
  14. ↑ Roberto Weitlaner and Howard F. Cline, "The Chinantec." Handbook of Middle American Indians vol. 7. Austin: University of Texas Press 1969, pp. 523-52.
  15. ↑ Brademus, "Cline,” p. 18493.
  16. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "’Aurora Yucateca’ and the Spirit of Enterprise in Yucatan, 1821-1847" Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 27, no. 1, Feb. 1947, pp. 30-60.
  17. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "The Henequen Episode in Yucatan," Inter-American Economic Affairs, 1948
  18. ↑ Delpar, Looking South, p. 149
  19. ↑ Robert A. Potash, “Charles Gibson (August 12, 1920-August 22, 1985), Handbook of Latin American Studies, vol. 48, v.
  20. ↑ Delpar, Looking South, p. 150.
  21. ↑ Brademus, ”Tribute to Howard Francis Cline,” p. 18493.
  22. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "The Latin American Studies Association: A Summary Survey with Appendix," Latin American Research Review 2 (Autumn 1966), p. 61.
  23. ↑ Brademus, ”Cline,” p. 18493.
  24. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "The Conference [of Latin American History]: A Fecund Decade 1954-64" Hispanic American Historical Review vol. 45, no. 3, Aug. 1965, pp. 434-38
  25. ↑ Delpar, Looking South, p. 163.
  26. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "The Latin American Studies Association: A Summary Survey with Appendix," ‘’Latin American Research Review’’, Vol. 2. No. 1 (Autumn 1966), pp. 57-79.
  27. ↑ Howard F. Cline, editor. Latin American History: Essays on its Study and Teaching, 1898-1965. 2 volumes. Conference on Latin American History and University of Texas Press, 1966
  28. ↑ http://salalm.org/Conf/2016/04/panel-11-the-hispanic-division-and-the-handbook-of-latin-american-studies-highlighting-luso-hispanic-collections-in-the-library-of-congress/ accessed 13 August 2016.
  29. ↑ Howard F. Cline, Mexico: Revolution to Evolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1963.
  30. ↑ Athenaeum 1966.
  31. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "The Florida Indians, vol. 1, Notes on Colonial Indians and Communities in Florida, 1700-1821." New York: Garland Publishing 1974.
  32. ↑ Howard F. Cline, Spanish and Mexican Land Grants and the Jicarilla Apache in New Mexico, 1689-1848: A Technical Report including a list of grants, confirmed and unconfirmed and summary of data. 2 volumes, 340 pp. Maps, Bibliography. Docket 22-A, Indian Claims Commission.
  33. ↑ Potash, “Charles Gibson,” p. v.
  34. ↑ Howard F. Cline, “Ethnohistory: A Progress Report on the Handbook of Middle American Indians." Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 40, no. 2. 1960, pp. 224-229.
  35. ↑ Handbook of Middle American Indians. Vol. 12, pt. 1.
  36. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "The Relaciones Geográficas of the Spanish Indies, 1577-1586." Hispanic American Historical Review vol. 44, no. 3, Aug. 1964, pp. 341-374.
  37. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "The Ortelius Maps of New Spain, 1579 and Related Contemporary Materials." Imago Mundi: International Journal for the History of Cartography. Vol. 16, issue 1, 1962.
  38. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "The Oztoticpac Lands Map of Texcoco, 1540." Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress, 1966.
  39. ↑ "CLAH » The Vanderwood Prize".
  40. ↑ Howard F. Cline, William Hickling Prescott: a Memorial. Durham: Duke University Press 1959.
  41. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "Hernando Cortés and the Aztec Indians in Spain." Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 1969.
  42. ↑ Howard F. Cline, “The Chronology of the Conquest: Syncronologies in Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Sahagún.” ‘’Journal de la Societé des Americanistes’’ 1973.
  43. ↑ Cline, "The Latin American Studies Association” p. 64.
  44. ↑ Howard F. Cline, "Latin America", Latin American History: Essays on its Study and Teaching, 1898-1965. Austin: University of Texas Press and the Conference on Latin American History, 1967, Vol. 2, p. 634, reprinted from Introduction to Section Z, American Historical Association, Guide to Historical Literature. New York, 1961, pp. 656-657.
  45. ↑ Brademus, "Cline," p. 18494.
  46. 1 2 "CLAH » The Distinguished Service Award".
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