Ralph Roeder
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Ralph Edmund LeClercq Roeder (April 7, 1890 – October 22, 1969) was an American writer. He wrote the first major work in English on Mexican President,
Benito Juárez Benito Pablo Juárez García (; 21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Liberalism in Mexico, Mexican liberal politician and lawyer who served as the 26th president of Mexico from 1858 until his death in office in 1872. As a Zapotec peoples, Zapo ...
.


Biography

Ralph Edmund LeClercq Roeder was born in New York City, a son of German immigrant George Roeder and Ida Carolina LeClercq of Charleston, South Carolina. His maternal grandmother was the American composer Marie Regina Siegling LeClercq. He was educated at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and 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 ...
. In the 1920s he was Rome correspondent for the
Chicago Daily News The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. History The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty ...
. He contributed articles to ''The Arts'' and to ''Theater Arts Monthly'' and had a brief career as an actor on Broadway, playing among other roles, Orestes in Sophocles's "Electra"."Ralph Roeder" New York Times Obituary: February 21, 1970. On December 3, 1929, he married Russian Empire born Fania Esiah Mindell of New York, a theater set and costume designer, artist, and feminist who, together with
Margaret Sanger Margaret Higgins Sanger (born Margaret Louise Higgins; September 14, 1879September 6, 1966), also known as Margaret Sanger Slee, was an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control ...
and her sister
Ethel Byrne Ethel Byrne ( Higgins; 18831955) was an American Progressive Era radical feminist. She was the younger sister of birth control activist Margaret Sanger, and assisted her in this work. Background Ethel and Margaret were two out of eleven children ...
, had been a co-defendant in the Brownsville Clinic Trials of 1917. Well before meeting Fania, Roeder had shown interest in leftist causes. As a freshly minted college graduate Roeder had traveled to Mexico during the
Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
which began in 1910. He had sided with
Pancho Villa Francisco "Pancho" Villa (,"Villa"
''Collins English Dictionary''.
; ;
as a volunteer, and at one point was captured "by Mexican counter-revolutionaries and was stood against a wall to be shot. For some reason the order to fire was not given and he survived."Folsom, Franklin. Days of Anger, Days of Hope A Memoir of the League of American Writers, 1937–1942. Niwot, Colo: University Press of Colorado, 1994. pp 255–259 During the 1930s Roeder researched and wrote three books on Italian history, but by the late 1940s he again turned his interest to Mexico. During the 1950s with
McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...
on the rise at home, the Roeders moved to Mexico City. Here "Ralph continued work he had begun in New York for the Exiled Writers Committee" Roeder spent much of his later life in Mexico City as an expatriate where he wrote and translated works of a mostly historical nature. In addition to Italian, he spoke German and French fluently, and authored books in Spanish. His biography of
Benito Juárez Benito Pablo Juárez García (; 21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Liberalism in Mexico, Mexican liberal politician and lawyer who served as the 26th president of Mexico from 1858 until his death in office in 1872. As a Zapotec peoples, Zapo ...
was reviewed in scholarly journals in the U.S. In ''
Hispanic American Historical Review ''The Hispanic American Historical Review'' is a quarterly, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal of Latin American history, the official publication of the Conference on Latin American History, the professional organization of Latin American historia ...
'' historian Walter V. Scholes praises Roeder's book for bringing a major biography of Juárez to an English-language readership, but faults it for its complete lack of scholarly citations, the hallmark of verifiability of information. Scholes also finds Roeder's lack of in-depth coverage of key problems in Mexico during the nineteenth-century and uneven coverage of Juárez's life. A review in ''
The Catholic Historical Review ''The Catholic Historical Review'' (CHR) is the official organ of the American Catholic Historical Association. It was established at The Catholic University of America in 1915 by Thomas Joseph Shahan and Peter Guilday and is published quarterly b ...
'' by Robert J. Welch likewise faults Roeder for his lack of citations. "It is almost inconceivable that a full-length treatment, posing as a dependable history of a controversial figure and period, would have completely ignored so fundamental a requirement." In 1965, Roeder was given Mexico's highest literary award, the
Orden del Águila Azteca The Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle ( es, Orden Mexicana del Águila Azteca) forms part of the Mexican Honours System and is the highest Mexican order awarded to foreigners in the country. History It was created by decree on December 29, 19 ...
. He died in
Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
in 1969 of a gunshot wound to the head in an apparent suicide, and is buried at the city's
Panteón de Dolores The Panteón Civil de Dolores is the largest cemetery in Mexico and contains the "Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres" ( en, Rotunda of Illustrious Persons). It is located on Constituyentes Avenue in the Miguel Hidalgo borough of Mexico City, between ...
.Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835–1974. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C.; General Records of the Department of State; Record Group: RG59-Entry 5166; Box Number: 75; Box Description: 1969 RA – SCHR.


Works

*''Savanarola: A Study in Conscience,'' Brentano's, New York 1930. *''The Man of the Renaissance: Four Lawgivers, Savonarola, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Aretino,'' The Viking Press, 1933. *''Catherine de Medici and the Lost Revolution,'' The Viking Press, 1937. *''Juárez and His México, a Biographical History – Complete in Two Volumes,'' The Viking Press, 1947. *''Hacia el México moderno: Porfirio Diaz,'' 1973.


References


Sources

*Introduction of the book, Ralph Roeder ''Juárez y Su México'', second edition.


External links

*Martín Quirarte, RALPH ROEDER Y SU OBRA PÓSTUMA

(A Spanish language biography of Roeder). * Street in Mexico City named for him: ''Calle'': RALPH ROEDER ''Colonia'': IZTACCIHUATL. ''Delegación/Municipio'': BENITO JUAREZ: ''Código Postal'': 3520: ''Ciudad'': MEXICO, D.F. {{DEFAULTSORT:Roeder, Ralph Harvard University alumni Columbia University alumni American expatriates in Italy 1890 births 1969 suicides Historians of Mexico American emigrants to Mexico Suicides by firearm in Mexico 1969 deaths 20th-century American male writers