Howard F. Cline Explained

Howard F. Cline
Birth Date:June 12, 1915
Birth Place:Detroit, Michigan
Death Date:June 1, 1971
Death Place:Washington, D.C.
Occupation:Historian

Howard F. Cline (June 12, 1915 – June 1, 1971) was an American government official and historian, specializing in Latin America. Cline served as 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, which he chaired in 1964.[3] He is still highly regarded 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, Cline grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. 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, later Cline’s dissertation adviser.[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] He won a Frederick Sheldon Fellowship, which funded travel for a year outside of the U.S. following graduation, and which he used to go to Mexico.[9]

In 1940, Cline entered the graduate program in History at Harvard, with Clarence Haring as his adviser. He did fieldwork in a then-remote Chinantec village of San Pedro Yólox in Oaxaca in 1942-43 as a Social Science Research Fellow, which resulted in several publications.[10] [11] [12] [13] Cline's dissertation was on the Caste War (guerra de las castas). In 1947 he briefly taught at Yale[14] and then Northwestern University from 1949 to 1952.[15] He left academia in 1952 to become Director of the Hispanic Foundation at the Library of Congress.[16] [17]

Career in government and scholarly activity

In 1952 Cline succeeded Lewis Hanke as director of the Hispanic foundation. 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. 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.[18] [3] He was one of the founders of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).[19] In 1966, in his history of the Latin American Studies Association, he suggested 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.[20]

Cline edited a two-volume collection of essays on the development of Latin American history as a field.[21] He also helped create the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM).[22]

Cline prepared research materials for the U.S. Indian Claims Commission, providing information on the history of Florida Indians and the Jicarilla Apache.[23] [24]

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.[25]

Honors

Cline was awarded the Spanish government’s highest honor for foreigners, Commander in the Order of Isabella the Catholic, for his work to bring Spanish and American scholarly institutions into greater cooperation.[26] 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 on Latin American History’s Distinguished Service Award, their highest honor.[27] In 1976 the Howard F. Cline Prize was established and awarded biennially for the best book on Latin American ethnohistory.[27] In 2017, the Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History was established by the Latin American Studies Association.[28]

Works

Monographs

Research reports

Edited volumes

Articles and chapters

Notes and 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. Web site: CLAH » Elected Officers. Clah.h-net.org.
  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. Brademus, “Cline” 18493
  11. Howard F. Cline, "Civil Congregation of the Indians of New Spain, 1598-1606." Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 349-369.
  12. Howard F. Cline, "Civil Congregation of the Western Chinantla, New Spain, 1599-1603." The Americas, vol. 12, no. 2, Oct 1955, pp. 115-137.
  13. Roberto Weitlaner and Howard F. Cline, "The Chinantec." Handbook of Middle American Indians vol. 7. Austin: University of Texas Press 1969, pp. 523-52.
  14. Delpar, Looking South, p. 149
  15. "Cline, Howard Francis," in Historians of Latin America in the United States, 1965: Biobibliographies of 680 Specialists. Ed. Howard F. Cline. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1966, 20.
  16. Delpar, Looking South, p. 150.
  17. Brademus, ”Tribute to Howard Francis Cline,” p. 18493.
  18. 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
  19. 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.
  20. Cline, "The Latin American Studies Association” p. 64.
  21. 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
  22. Web site: SALALM Conferences | Blog | Panel 11-The Hispanic Division and the Handbook of Latin American Studies: Highlighting Luso-Hispanic Collections in the Library of Congress . December 2, 2016 . September 20, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160920121321/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/ . dead .
  23. Howard F. Cline, "The Florida Indians, vol. 1, Notes on Colonial Indians and Communities in Florida, 1700-1821." New York: Garland Publishing 1974.
  24. 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.
  25. 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.
  26. Brademus, "Cline," p. 18494.
  27. Web site: CLAH » The Distinguished Service Award. Clah.h-net.org.
  28. Web site: LASA2020 / Améfrica Ladina: Vinculando Mundos y Saberes, Tejiendo Esperanzas. Latin American Studies Association.

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