One of the world’s most influential Mexicanists, Stanley R. Ross, died in Austin, Texas, on February 10, 1985, at the age of 64. Born August 8, 1921, in New York City, he earned his B.A. in history at Queens College in 1942 before entering Columbia University where he was awarded the M.A. in 1943 and the Ph.D. in 1951. At Columbia, he studied under Frank Tannenbaum, John A. Krout, and Andrés Iduarte.
Ross began his teaching career as an instructor of history at Queens College in 1946 and in 1948 moved to the University of Nebraska, at Lincoln. He remained there for 14 years, becoming assistant professor in 1951, associate professor in 1957, and professor in 1960. Near the end of his stay at Lincoln, he chaired the Latin American Studies Program there from 1961 to 1962. Although he had offers to serve as visiting professor at many prestigious institutions, he declined all invitations except to return to Columbia in 1960. As a transition from Lincoln, he taught at the University of Colorado during the summer of 1962.
Moving to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Ross served as head of the history department (1962-1963) and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1963-1968). During his six years at Stony Brook, Ross’s dynamic administrative abilities attracted the attention of the University of Texas.
Ross moved to Austin in 1968 as director of the Institute of Latin American Studies and so well survived the politics of administration that in 1971 he was named dean of Arts and Sciences (January) and then provost (May). While continuing to teach, Ross became vice president and provost in 1973, positions which were not conducive to good health. By 1976 Ross returned to full-time teaching and research, the latter carried on especially through his pioneering Border Research Program and (after 1980) the Office of Mexican Studies that he established at the University of Texas.
The year 1983 was a special one for Ross. At Austin he was named the Ashbel Smith Professor of History, which he soon gave up to become the first holder of the C. B. Smith Sr. Centennial Chair. In Mexico City he was awarded the Aztec Eagle Medallion from the Mexican government, following in the footsteps of Frank Tannenbaum, under whom he had studied.
Ross’s professional activities had begun in 1954 with a paper he presented to the Nebraska State History Teachers Association, and his first major publication came in 1955 with his Francisco I. Madero, Apostle of Mexican Democracy. This book became the standard view of Madero’s role in the Mexican Revolution, and it was translated into Spanish in 1959 and revised in 1977.
As a tribute to his growing stature, he was asked to join the Colegio de México research projects on Mexico being directed by Daniel Cosío Villegas, who was beginning to turn his attention from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Ross was awarded Rockefeller Foundation grants in 1958-1959 and 1968-1970 to carry out research in Mexico. From that research came several edited books: Historia documental de México (2 vols., 1964 and 1974), Fuentes de la historia contemporánea de México: Periódicos y revistas (2 vols., 1965-1967), and Is the Mexican Revolution Dead? (1965).
About the latter work, he always remembered my remarks at the Conference on Latin American History annual meeting in Boston (1970) that as long as the book stayed in print the question would be answered in the negative. I think he took my remarks quite seriously because in the second edition (1975) he moved from the positive to the negative in answering his question about the state of the revolution. In the meantime, he published Spanish translations of the work in 1972 and 1978 as well as a Japanese edition in 1977.
Beyond his examination of Mexico’s national history, Ross was a leader in recognizing that an important area of studies had been neglected. In 1975, Ross organized the first major international conference on Views Across the Border: The United States and Mexico, the proceedings of which were published in 1978. In the 1980s, he moved into the policy sphere with two books on immigration: The Illegal Alien from Mexico: Policy Choices for an Intractable Issue (1980) and “Temporary” Alien Workers in the United States: Designing Policy from Fact and Opinion (1982), both coauthored with Sidney Weintraub.
Ross’s influence on the study of history itself was felt strongly in the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH), in which he held the following posts (among many others):
1965 Chair, Bolton Memorial Prize Committee
1968Chair, CLAH
1969Chair, III International Congress of Mexican History
1971 Managing Editor, Hispanic American Historical Review (through 1975)
1975 Chair, Committee on International Scholarly Relations (through 1981)
At the 1981 Santa Monica Conference to plan UCLA’s multi-volume Atlas of the U. S.-Mexican Borderlands (forthcoming), Ross joined with Michael C. Meyer and myself to form PROFMEX. Subsequently, PROFMEX (the Consortium of U.S. Research Programs for Mexico) has come to have eleven institutional members in the United States. PROFMEX’s counterpart in Mexico is ANUIES (Asociación Nacional de Universidades e Institutos de Enseñanza Superior), the working relationship with which U.S. and Mexican scholars have scheduled the IV Symposium (Santa Fe, 1986) in honor of Ross and his contributions to U.S.-Mexican studies.
In carrying out the impressive list of activities given above, Ross was aided, beginning in 1966, by Geraldine D. Gagliano, his executive secretary at Stony Brook and Austin. The two married in 1977, and continued their work together following his open-heart surgery in 1981 and until his death last year. I am pleased to report that they had at least two “second honeymoons,” where they were toasted by close friends, in Cabo San Lucas in 1982 and Cozumel in 1984.
In spite of declining health, Ross never lost his indomitable scholarly spirit, leaving an unforgettable impression on the profession.
