The State Historical Society of Missouri

October 31, 2008

Society Announces First James Goodrich Research Assistantship

Created when Jim retired from the Society, the Goodrich Assistantship has been built with tribute and memorial gifts. It is a fitting honor, as Jim began his four-decade relationship with the Society and the University as a graduate research assistant in Western Historical Manuscript Collection, the Society's partner institution.

During his career with the State Historical Society, Goodrich expanded the collection, preservation, and publication of historical records. He edited four books and 37 volumes of the Missouri Historical Review. He strengthened the Society's nationally significant art collection. He initiated an oral history program. He wrote dozens of articles and gave hundreds of talks, mostly based on primary sources from the Society's holdings.

Roger E. Robinson, recipient of the first James W. Goodrich Graduate Research Assistantship in Missouri History, is a first year doctoral student in history at the University of Missouri. Robinson, a Little Rock, Arkansas native, earned the bachelor's in forestry from Colorado State University and the master's in international relations from Troy University. He recently retired with the rank of major after a 20-year career as an Air Force pilot and has enthusiastically begun the pursuit of a new career as historian and teacher.

Robinson's work will focus on research for a book of George Caleb Bingham's letters and writings, which the Society will publish in 2011, the bicentennial of the artist's birth. Jim Goodrich was instrumental in obtaining a number of Bingham's portraits for the Society during his tenure. We believe Jim would be pleased that the first Goodrich Research Assistant is involved with this book project.

posted @ 1:08 PM

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