On Thursday, May 10, the Historical Society added Howard Gillette to the roster of Visionary Historians, joining Kathryn Schneider Smith, Dr. James M. Goode, Lonnie Bunch III, and Dr. Frank Smith.
Historian Howard F. Gillette, Jr., has combined distinguished scholarship with active public service throughout his career. In 2011 when he became an emeritus professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden, the former professor of history at George Washington University had completed 41 years in academia. The author or editor of numerous publications on D.C. history, Gillette is best known for his landmark 1995 book Between Justice and Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C.
Howard Gillette’s impact on the field of D.C. history has been profound and enduring. No serious scholarship on D.C. takes place without it.
On May 10 more than 100 colleagues and former students gathered at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to honor the new Visionary Historian. D.C. historian and past Historical Society Trustee Kathryn S. Smith was among the speakers. Speaking as one of Gillette’s former students, she reminded the audience that when Gillette arrived in 1970, D.C. history was “ripe for discovery.”
Washington, Smith explained, was “neglected by scholars in the relatively new fields of urban and social history. It was hard to answer the key questions being asked about municipal government in a city that had no locally elected government, questions about ethnic mobility in a city that was more black and white then defined by ethnic enclaves, and questions about industry in a city with little of it. And it was hard to test models in a city that was unique—neither North or South but both.”
Smith said that Gillette “created a framework” for D.C. history to happen, opening doors to students’ ideas, and steering them into the “ways of rigorous scholarship.”
Born and bred in Chicago, Howard Gillette earned a B.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale. There he found his intellectual passion: cities. Taking a teaching position at George Washington University in 1970, he joined the early discussion of what is now known as gentrification, critiquing governments and developers for damaging communities to improve their built environments. Between Justice and Beauty spells out how local D.C., as a laboratory for federal experiments, endured the negative consequences of federal government planning.
At GW he fostered the field of D.C. history, helping start the Annual D.C. History Conference (now in its 45th year) and the Center for Washington Area Studies, publisher of essential monographs and supporter of graduate student research. Hundreds of students came away from his courses appreciating why it was important to consult communities when choosing measures to improve cities.
While scholars continue to build on Gillette’s work, the Historical Society has long benefitted from his belief that scholars should serve the real world. He has been a Historical Society trustee and Advisory Board member, as well as past editor and contributor to Washington History magazine. In 1999 Dr. Gillette left D.C. to become a history professor at Rutgers University-Camden, where he published thoughtful studies of Camden as a post-industrial city attempting renewal. In 2001 he founded the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities, which he led until 2010. He also serves as co-editor of the online Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. But Washingtonians have not let him go, and he continues to support D.C. historians as they tackle new topics and interpretations.
Remarks by 2018 Visionary Historian Howard Gillette, Historical Society of Washington, DC
Remarks by Kathryn Smith for Gillette Visionary Historian Award 2018