By Paul A. Tenkotte
Special to NKyTribune
Saying goodbye is never easy, but bidding farewell to a man who was at once many things—an historian, professor, mentor, colleague, and friend—is even more difficult.
Of the many teachers in our lives, generally only a few shine as our bright stars. They’re the instructors who cared enough to go the extra mile. They demanded our best, modeled how to be our best as scholars and as human beings, and expected us to teach others how to be their best. And they’re the professors and teachers who made us feel special.
The magic of feeling special as a student lies in the abilities of the teacher. A good professor could have his or her favorites. An excellent professor, like Dr. Zane L. Miller, embraced all of his students for their different talents and personalities.
Perhaps Dr. Andrea Tuttle Kornbluh, a Miller student and Professor Emerita of the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College, expresses this sentiment best: “Zane L. Miller thought all kinds of events had the potential to advance our historical understanding of the past and that understanding the past widened the opportunities of human action in the future. A wonderful mentor to his many students, he was both splendidly generous and wildly democratic, seeing potential historians everywhere and acting to make that a reality.”
Zane L. Miller was born on May 19, 1934 in Lima, Ohio. His father was a railroad man, so they moved around. At one point, they lived in Peru, Indiana, the hometown of Cole Porter. Zane loved music, especially jazz and American pop standards. In one of Zane’s homey emails, he encouraged me to someday “make a trek to Peru,” suggesting that I “might stop at the house in which I [Zane] lived for a few years with my parents and two sisters. It’s on North Water Street, number 11 North Water Street (or maybe 13). The building to the immediate south of it used to be a grocery store, presumably the one at which my mother encountered Kate Porter (allegedly). I have no idea what’s there now, though Janet and I went to Peru shortly after my cancer diagnosis, and I couldn’t believe that my family of five people shared that little house, which struck me as a sort of diminutive place as a grown up.”
Zane loved his two sisters, Sharon and Nicki. Of course, the love of his life was his talented and personable wife, Janet, who became a Professor of Education at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). They married in 1955. The year after, he earned his BS from Miami University (MU) of Ohio, and in 1959, his MA from MU. Then, he went on to the University of Chicago, where he studied under urban historian, Richard C. Wade, and earned his PhD in 1966.
Zane’s doctoral dissertation was about Cincinnati during the time period when its politics were controlled by George B. Cox, the “Boss” of its “urban machine.” Running well over a thousand pages in two volumes, the dissertation was condensed into a 300-page book published in 1968. Boss Cox’s Cincinnati: Urban Politics in the Progressive Era launched Miller’s national reputation.
Many books followed, including: Physician to the West: Selected Writings of Daniel Drake on Science and Society (with Henry D. Shapiro, 1970); The Urbanization of Modern America: A Brief History (1973; 2nd ed. with Patricia M. Melvin, 1987); Clifton: Neighborhood and Community in an Urban Setting (with Henry D. Shapiro, 1976); Cincinnati’s Music Hall (with George F. Roth, 1978); Suburb: Neighborhood and Community in Forest Park, Ohio, 1935-1976 (1981); American Urbanism, A Historiographical Review (with Howard Gillette, Jr., 1987); Changing Plans for America’s Inner Cities: Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine and Twentieth Century Urbanism (with Bruce Tucker, 1998); and Visions of Place: The City, Neighborhoods, Suburbs, and Cincinnati’s Clifton, 1850-2000 (2001).
Zane Miller came to the “Queen City” to teach at the University of Cincinnati (UC) in 1965. In 1974, he was promoted to the rank of Full Professor. UC honored him with the Oscar Schmidt Award for Public Service in 1996. Three years later, in 1999, he retired from UC, and was granted the status of Professor Emeritus.
He continued his scholarly activities, however, serving as the Editor of the Urban Life and Urban Landscape series at The Ohio State University Press, and, at the time of his death, as Editor of the Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy series at Temple University Press.
At UC, Zane taught many graduate courses, but it was his undergraduate “History of Cincinnati” class that captured the hearts and minds of literally thousands of students. Miller student and UC colleague, Dr. Judith Spraul-Schmidt, writes, “Zane was the consummate citizen scholar, an exhilarating and demanding Professor at UC, and the preeminent historian of the city of Cincinnati.
Miller has been a guiding force in the life of this city—which he clearly identified as the metropolitan area, on both sides of our river. He contributed his thoughtful, professional expertise in Cincinnati in building Cincinnati’s Historic Conservation laws, served on the city’s, and the state of Ohio’s, historic conservation boards, and invited and reminded residents of their responsibility to participate in the public, civic life, in dozens of articles, and essays in books, journals and magazines. He engaged in local politics, leading the McGovern campaign in Ohio in 1972, and stayed involved. Over the last few decades, I have met residents all over this metropolitan area who talk about how well they remember, and how much they learned in his classes on the History of Cincinnati, and the History of American Cities.”
‘Uncle Zane’
Zane’s graduate students nicknamed him “Uncle Zane,” and his colleague and friend Henry D. Shapiro, “Uncle Henry.” I recall when both of them first discovered our pet names for them. We worried that they would be offended, for in those days, we were expected to address our professors by their titles. Instead, Zane and Henry embraced the nicknames for the terms of endearment that we had intended them to be. They never missed an opportunity, however, to note that their corrections and revisions to our papers were always meant to improve us, in an “avuncular” manner.
UC colleague, Kevin Grace (Head and University Archivist, Archives & Rare Books Library), likewise has fond memories.
“What I remember about him (other than the pipe in his mouth when one was still allowed to smoke on campus!) was his calm demeanor,” Grace notes. “He listened carefully and answered analytically, always drawing you into considering alternatives to your position. He was responsible in large measure for creating the archives library at UC and was always a strong advocate for us in the community. Without Zane, we would have very few of our collections in our Urban Studies archive. As strong an advocate as he was for urban studies, it was his relationship with his students that was the driving passion in his life. I never met one of his former students who was not forever appreciative of his guidance in their careers.”
Zane Miller’s thousands of students, and his untold thousands of readers, will miss his scholarship, his charm, and his devotion to them and to metropolitan Cincinnati.
A Miller student and UC colleague, Dr. Fritz (Charles F) Casey-Leininger, summarized all of our feelings best: “ Zane Miller taught me the craft of being a historian. He continually challenged me to think more deeply about the subject of my work and to write clearly and concisely. He insisted that I understand the past on its own terms and to listen to what my sources were telling me. He taught me by example what it meant to be a teacher and a mentor. My teaching, especially in research based courses, often echoes his example. But perhaps the most important lesson I learned from him was that as public intellectuals, history helps us understand that people made choices in the past that had consequences and that means that we too can make consequential choices in the present. This understanding lies at the core of what I do both in the classroom and in the wider community.”
Friends wishing to pay tribute to Dr. Zane L. Miller may consider a donation to the Zane L. Miller Professorship fund. Please indicate on the check that it is for the “Zane Miller Professorship fund” and mail to:
McMicken College of Art & Sciences
PO Box 210367
Cincinnati, OH 45221
Paul A. Tenkotte (tenkottep@nku.edu), proud to have been a student of Dr. Zane L. Miller, is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Public History at Northern Kentucky University (NKU).