ROEDER, George H., Jr. 1944-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born January 22, 1944, in Baltimore, MD; died of a brain aneurysm September 17 (one source says September 16), 2004, in Chicago, IL. Historian, educator, and author. Roeder was a professor of liberal arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He was a graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park, where he earned a B.A. in literature in 1965 and an M.A. in American studies in 1967. He then received a doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin—Madison in 1977. Roeder's academic career began at the University of Missouri—Columbia, where he was a visiting assistant professor of history for two years. He joined the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1980, becoming a full professor in 1991 and chair of the undergraduate division in 1993. During the 1980s, he also taught part time at Northwestern University. Roeder's research led him to the National Archives in the 1990s, where he discovered a wealth of declassified U.S. military photographs depicting some remarkably graphic scenes of the horrors of World War II. This resulted in his writing of The Censored War: American Visual Experience during World War II (1993); his subsequent interest in the aspects of visual history led him to found the visual and critical studies undergraduate degree program at the Art Institute in 2000. Roeder was also the author of An Ecological View of American History: Readings (1978) and Forum of Uncertainty: Confrontations with Modern Painting in Twentieth-Century American Thought (1981).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2004, section 3, p. 9.

ONLINE

Chicago Sun-Times,http://sun-times.com/ (September 21, 2004).