Steven Rowan, professor of history at UMSL, was recently honored by the German American Heritage Society of St. Louis, which named him this year’s Carl Schurz Heritage Award recipient.
Steven Rowan, professor of history at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, has written, edited and translated extensively on the history of Germans in America. The German American Heritage Society of St. Louis recently recognized Rowan’s efforts by naming him this year’s Carl Schurz Heritage Award recipient.
The GAHS award was named for the famous 19th century German immigrant who served as a Civil War general, newspaper publisher, U.S. envoy to Spain for President Abraham Lincoln, U.S. senator from Missouri, and secretary of the interior under President Rutherford B. Hayes. Each year it recognizes an individual or organization for their “dedication to the preservation of the history and heritage of our German forebears.”
Rowan was born in Bremerton, Wash., and raised in Spokane, Wash. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle and a doctorate in history from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.
He has taught at UMSL since 1970. His research and teaching leaves have included the following:
• Teacher of reformation paleography in summer sessions at Concordia Seminary in Clayton, Mo., since 1974
• Visiting lecturer at King’s College in London, 1975-76
• Research fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in West Germany, 1979-80
• Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., 1989-90
• Distinguished Chair in American Studies at the Karl-Franzen-Universitat in Graz, Austria
Rowan’s latest publication is “The Baron in the Grand Canyon: Friedrich Wilhelm von Egloffstein in the West.” It is the most recent of 16 published books, mostly editions or translations from German, except for his 1987 book,“Ulrich Zasius: A Jurist in the German Renaissance, 1461-1535.”
He has authored 45 articles, most notably “Gottfried Duden’s Critique of Alexis de Tocqueville, Michel Chevalier and Himself in 1837” in The Yearbook of German-American Studies, vol. 44.
