Howard Zinn
Historian who wrote A People's History of the United States.
He is best known for his book A People's History of the United States, published in 1980, which became a finalist for the National Book Award in 1981.[1][2] Howard Zinn, who was a historian, author, professor, playwright, and activist, was born on August 24, 1922, and grew up in New York City.[3] Zinn's death at age 87 in 2010 resulted from a heart attack.[4][5]
Quick Facts
- Born
- 24 August 1922
- Birthplace
- New York City, U.S.
- Died
- 27 January 2010
- Place of death
- Santa Monica, California, U.S.
- Occupation
- Historian
- educator
- author
- playwright
- Education
- New York University (BA); Columbia University (MA, PhD)
- Children
- Jeff Zinn and Myla Kabat-Zinn
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Zinn grew up in a working-class, immigrant household in Brooklyn, where his father worked as a ditch digger and window cleaner during the Depression.[3] He was a professor of history at Spelman College from 1956 to 1963, where he participated in the Civil Rights Movement and served as an advisor to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).[6][7] He then became a professor of political science at Boston University, where he taught until his retirement in 1988.[3] The Apprentice Association was created by Zinn and other apprentices due to their worries over poor pay and unsafe work environments; its leaders convened weekly outside work to plan actions and study radical texts.[8]
Using the GI Bill after the war, Zinn earned a BA from New York University in 1951, and subsequently obtained an MA in 1952 and a PhD in history from Columbia University in 1958.[9] Zinn characterized his own political stance as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist," and his writings covered the civil rights movement, anti-war activism, and labor history extensively.[10]
What the cited sources add
According to the same source, Zinn had his first date with his future wife, Roslyn Shechter, on a midnight boat trip he organized to raise money for the Apprentice Association.[3] The Democracy Now! tribute states that after being forced out of Spelman, Zinn became a professor at Boston University.[5] The same tribute reports that when Daniel Ellsberg needed a place to hide the Pentagon Papers, he went to Howard and his late wife Roz.[5] The Zinn Education Project website states that it has more than 177,000 people registered and growing by more than 10,000 new registrants every year.[11]
The Zinn Education Project website states that the project was initiated in 2008, aiming to help middle and high school teachers use A People's History of the United States in their classrooms.[12][11] William Holtzman, a former student of Zinn, provided the financial support that enabled Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change to jointly run the project.[12]
References
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Powell, "Howard Zinn, Historian, Is Dead at 87", The New York Times, January 28, 2010 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "National Book Awards 1981 - National Book Foundation", Nationalbook.org (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- "Biography", HowardZinn.org. facts only, no text reused. howardzinn.org
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Italie, "Howard Zinn Dead, Author Of 'People's History Of The United States' Died At 87", The Huffington Post, January 27, 2010 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Howard Zinn (1922–2010): A Tribute to the Legendary Historian with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein and Anthony Arnove", Democracy Now!, January 28, 2010. facts only, no text reused. democracynow.org
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Duberman, "Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left", New Press, 2012; Cogswell, "Zinn for Beginners", For Beginners LLC, 2009, p. 43 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Polsgrove, "Divided Minds: Intellectuals and the Civil Rights Movement", 2001, p. 115, 196; "In Memory: Howard Zinn and the Civil Rights Movement", Carol Polsgrove on Writers' Lives; Polsgrove, "Divided Minds", p. 238 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Biography", HowardZinn.org (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Howard Zinn:-Chronicling Lives from Spelman College to Boston U.", EducationUpdate.com, April 2004 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Glavin, "War is the Health of the State: An Interview with Howard Zinn", Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, Spring 2003; (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "About the Zinn Education Project", Zinn Education Project. facts only, no text reused. zinnedproject.org
- Wikipedia, "Howard Zinn" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "About the Zinn Education Project", Zinn Education Project (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Howard Zinn (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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