John Shelton Curtiss (July 15, 1899 – December 27, 1983), was an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

and historical scholar of old

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stock. Curtiss was a longtime professor of history at

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

Early life and education

John Shelton Curtiss was born in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

, the son of prominent attorney, Harlow Clarke Curtiss and his socialite wife, Ethel (Mann) Curtiss. His maternal grandfather was Dr. Matthew D. Mann. In 1921 Curtiss received his bachelor's degree from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where he had been an

oarsman Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically atta ...

on its undefeated crew team. In 1925 he decided to do graduate work in history at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. His first published work appears to have been his 1933 article ''Sloops of the Hudson, 1800–1850''. He taught at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

from 1933 to 1936 as well as at Columbia from 1934 to 1936. After teaching himself

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

as a graduate student, he made his first of many trips to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in 1934. He completed his Ph.D. in Russian history at Columbia in 1939.

Career

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1939, Curtiss was hired by President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

to be an archivist at his

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

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. Among Curtiss' responsibilities there was to oversee FDRs ship model collection. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

began, Curtiss was called to

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

along with other Slavic experts to do classified work in the Research and Analysis Branch of the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(OSS). After finishing his wartime work in 1945, he joined the history department at Duke University where he remained for the rest of his career. From 1946 to 1948, he was also a fellow of the Russian Institute at Columbia. In 1954 he received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in Russian history. In 1966 he was designated

James B. Duke Professor At Duke University, the title of James B. Duke Professor is given to a small number of the faculty with extraordinary records of achievement. At some universities, titles like "distinguished professor", "institute professor", or " regents professo ...

of history.Curtiss, John Shelton, ''The Russian Revolutions of 1917'', New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1957, frontispiece note about the author

His work on debunking the ''Protocols''

During

, in 1941 and 1942, while Jews were being, or about to be, exterminated by the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s in Europe, Curtiss published his 118-page

monograph A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works) or exhibition on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, often by a single author or artist, and usually on a scholarly subject. In library cataloging, ''monograph ...

denying the truth and authenticity of the so-called ''

Protocols of the Elders of Zion ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several ...

''. It is to be noted that this was accomplished years before

Norman Cohn Norman Rufus Colin Cohn British Academy, FBA (12 January 1915 – 31 July 2007) was a British Academia, academic, historian and writer who spent 14 years as a professorial fellow and as Astor-Wolfson Professor at the University of Sussex. Life C ...

had published his work on the subject, ''

Warrant for Genocide ''Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion'', by Norman Cohn, is a critical work about ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion''. This scholarly book explores the history, origin, and wo ...

'' (1967). This work was endorsed by thirteen

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historians, as attested to in the work's ''Foreword''. The book concluded that the ''

Protocols of Zion ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'' () or ''The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion'' is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several ...

'' are, "beyond doubt," a "rank and pernicious forgery."

Marriage and later life

John Shelton Curtiss married Edna Sutter on September 21, 1925, in Buffalo, New York. She died May 22, 1981, in Durham, North Carolina. They had two children, Anne Curtiss Fong and John Sutter Curtiss (1928–2015). After his wife's death, he moved to

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

to live with his daughter and her family. He died December 27, 1983, in Honolulu.

Works

In 1940 Curtiss received the

Herbert Baxter Adams Prize The Herbert Baxter Adams Prize is an annual book prize of the American Historical Association. It is awarded for "a distinguished first book by a young scholar in the field of European history", and is named in honor of Herbert Baxter Adams, who wa ...

from the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

for ''Church and State in Russia, 1900–1917''

Curtiss also wrote ''The Peasant in nineteenth-century Russia'' with

Wayne S. Vucinich Wayne S. Vucinich (June 23, 1913 – April 21, 2005) was an American historian. Following World War II, he was one of the founders of Russian, Slavic, East European and Byzantine studies at Stanford University, where he spent his entire ac ...

.
''Sloops of the Hudson, 1800-1850'', in New York History, vol. 14, no. 1, January 1933 p. 61-73, quarterly journal of the New York State Historical Association
*''An Appraisal of the "Protocols of Zion"'', :(New York:

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...

, 1942) *''Russian church and the Soviet state'' 1917–1950'' (1953) *''Russian revolutions of 1917'' (1957) *''Essays in Russian and Soviet History, in Honor of Geroid Tanquary Robinson'':(New York: Columbia Univ Press, 1963): (0-231-02521-1) *''Church and state in Russia'' (1965) *''Essays in Russian and Soviet history'' (1965) *''Russian Army under Nicholas I, 1825–1855'' (1965) *''Russian church and the Soviet state'' 1917–1950'' (1965) *''Peasant in nineteenth-century Russia'', edited by

, Contributors: John S. Curtiss nd others(1968) *''Russia's

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

'' (1979) *''Russian revolutions of 1917'' (1982)

References

Sources

*''

'',

(London:

967 Year 967 ( CMLXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Spring – Emperor Otto I (the Great) calls for a council at Rome, to present the ne ...

1996).

External links

* Review by Edward Maslin Hulme of ''An Appraisal of the "Protocols of Zion"'' (1942

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Curtiss, John Shelton 1899 births 1983 deaths 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Duke University faculty Historians of Russia People of the Office of Strategic Services Princeton University alumni Protocols of the Elders of Zion Scholars of antisemitism Brooklyn College faculty American male non-fiction writers