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In Memoriam: Bernard Sternsher (1925-2011)
August 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Bernard Sternsher was noted for his teaching as well as his scholarship.
Dr. Bernard Sternsher, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of History, died July 16, 2011. A graduate of the University of Alabama (1948), Sternsher held a master’s degree (1950) and a Ph.D. (1957) in history from Boston University. He taught at the Rochester Institute of Technology and at Seaton Hall University before coming to Bowling Green State University in 1969 to help establish a doctoral program in the Department of History. A central figure in that program, he was respected both for his teaching and his scholarship. Sternsher was named Distinguished University Professor of History by the BGSU Board of Trustees in 1989. The University Professorship is the highest honor given to BGSU faculty, awarded only to those who hold the rank of professor and whose creative and professional achievements have won national distinction beyond the limitations of a narrow field of interest. He was also a recipient of the Phi Alpha Theta Book Prize (1966) and the Distinguished Service Award from the Ohio Academy of History (1996).
Sternsher studied and wrote extensively on the Great Depression and the New Deal — the policies and politics of the era, but also the effects of the economic collapse and President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s response on urban dwellers, small-town residents and farmers, and African Americans.
Publications held by the BGSU Library:
Sternsher, Bernard. Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal. New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press [1964].
Sternsher, Bernard. The New Deal. Boston, Allyn and Bacon, 1966.
Sternsher, Bernard, editor. The Negro in depression and war; prelude to revolution, 1930-1945, edited with commentary by Bernard Sternsher. Chicago, Quadrangle Books [c1969].
Sternsher, Bernard, comp. Hitting home; the Great Depression in town and country. Chicago, Quadrangle Books, 1970.
Sternsher, Bernard. Consensus, conflict, and American historians. Bloomington, Indiana University Press [1975].
Sternsher, Bernard, editor. The New Deal : laissez faire to socialism / edited with an introd. by Bernard H. Sternsher. St. Louis : Forum Press, c1979.
Sternsher, Bernard. “Themes of the fifties : Truman, Eisenhower, and the Fonz”. University Professor Lecture Series. [Bowling Green, Ohio] : Bowling Green State University, 1980.
Sternsher, Bernard. The Harding and Bricker revolutions revisited : voter behavior in Northwest Ohio, 1970-1988. [Bowling Green, Ohio : s.n., 1988?].
Women of valor : the struggle against the great depression as told in their own life stories / edited with commentary by Bernard Sternsber and Judith Sealander. Chicago : I.R. Dee, 1990.
Sternsher, Bernard. The Scioto Marsh Onion Workers’ Strike, Hardin County, Ohio, 1934 [198-].
Sternsher, Bernard. The Harding and Bricker revolutions : party systems and voter behavior in Northwest Ohio, 1860-1982 1987. Article that was later published in Northwest Ohio Quarterly (vol. 19, no. 3).