WEINTRAUB, Karl Joachim 1924-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born December 31, 1924, in Darmstadt, Germany; died of a brain tumor March 25, 2004, in Chicago, IL. Educator and author. A celebrated professor at the University of Chicago, Weintraub was famous for his highly popular course on Western civilization. The son of a Jewish father and Christian mother, he was forced to hide in Holland when the Nazis came to power in Germany. With the aid of a Quaker organization, he made his way to the United States, where he became a student at the University of Chicago. There, he attended undergraduate and graduate school, completing his Ph.D. in 1957. Weintraub was destined to make the university his home, joining the faculty in 1955 and becoming Thomas E. Donnelly Professor of History in 1970. Also serving as dean of humanities from 1973 to 1983, he retired as professor emeritus in 2001. By all counts a remarkable teacher, Weintraub was so popular at the university that students would sleep on the campus's quadrangle the night before registration in order to sign up for his course. Also recognized by the university for his teaching skills, he was honored on numerous occasions, receiving the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the University of Chicago in 1960 and again in 1986, the E. Harris Harbison Award for Distinguished Teaching from the Danforth Foundation in 1967, the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Teaching from the Amoco Foundation in 1995, and the Norman Maclean Alumni Award in 2001. Even in retirement, Weintraub continued to teach until 2002, when ill health prevented him from going to class. He did this without pay as a way of protesting changing teaching practices at the university with which he did not agree. Weintraub was the author of two books, Visions of Culture (1966) and The Value of the Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography (1978).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2004, Section 2, p. 11.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 28, 2004, p. C11.

ONLINE

University of Chicago News Office,http://www-news.uchicago.edu/ (March 26, 2004).