Francis Loewenheim papers

Collection

Identifier: MS 0461

Staff Only

Finding aid note: Stored off-site at the Library Service Center. Please request this material via woodson@rice.edu or call 713-348-2586.

Scope and Contents

This is a collection of the papers of Francis Loewenheim, who taught history at Rice University from 1959 to 1996. The papers contain family correspondence, class notes, drafts and manuscripts for his writings. There are numerous family photographs and also photographs of musicians and composers.

The collection consists of 9 series: Correspondence, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library Case, Loewenheim Family WWII Related Materials, Personal, Provost Office files on Francis Loewenheim, Manuscripts and Speeches, Published Materials, Additional Loewenheim Family Materials, and Images and Oversize Items.

Loewenheim was an historian at heart, and he kept all of his correspondence, whether personal or professional. Loewenheim was an enthusiastic letter writer to colleagues and family. He often wrote to his family, in particular his mother, from two to five times a day, including postcards and lengthy letters. In addition to family correspondence he wrote to colleagues as well. His letters are full of comments, asides, and insights about the various places where he studied or worked, including Princeton University and Rice University. Loewenheim loved music and often wrote about performances he heard and personalities he encountered.

In his prolific correspondence, he wrote about the issues of the day from the Red Scare of the 1950s to local issues such as the Masterson controversy at Rice Univerisity.

Loewenheims life was not without controversy. He became embroiled in a legal battle about access to materials within the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York. He saved the documentation and his correspondence surrounding the case.

This collection consists of 10 linear feet (10 boxes) covering the years 1948 to 1996. The materials are in excellent shape.

Dates

Creation: 1934-1997

Creator

Loewenheim, Francis L., Dr. (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Stored off-site at the Library Service Center. Please request this material via woodson@rice.edu or call 713-348-2586.

Conditions Governing Access

This material is open for research.

Conditions Governing Reproduction and Use

Permission to publish material from the Francis Loewenheim papers must be obtained from the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Biographical / Historical

Francis L. Loewenheim retired from Rice University as professor emeritus of history in 1996 shortly before he died in Houston, Texas, at the age of 69. He joined the Rice faculty in 1959. He was an authority on modern diplomatic and German history.

His accomplishments include exposing a reputed diary of Adolph Hitler as a fraud, proving that Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to record conversations in the White House, and discovering 22 suppressed pages from Eisenhower's diary in which he revealed his dislike for General Douglas MacArthur, whom he called a "baby" and a man who "likes his bootlickers."

Loewenheim was co-editor of the books "Roosevelt and Churchill: Their Secret Wartime Correspondence" (1975, Da Capo) and "The Diplomats: 1939-1979" (Princeton, 1994). He was the editor of "Peace or Appeasement? Hitler, Chamberlain and the Munich Crisis" (1965).

Loewenheim was born in Nuremburg, Germany on June 27, 1927. He emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1934, the year after Hitler took power. He grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and received bachelor's and master's degrees in history from the University of Cincinnati and his doctorate in 1952 from Columbia University.

After earning his doctorate, he taught at Princeton from 1951 to 1956, the College of William and Mary from 1956-1957, and the University of Illinois from 1958-1959. He also served in the Historical Division of the United States Department of State from 1958-1959.

While at Rice he was a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines, altogether about 600 articles for some 50 papers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. He also contributed to ten books in addition to the ones mentioned above.

As a teacher at Rice, he was said to be inspiring and inspired. He received teaching awards in 1962 and 1991 with a nomination for the American Historical Association's mentor award in 1991.

Extent

10 Linear Feet (10 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

This is a collection of the papers of Francis Loewenheim, who taught history at Rice University from 1940s to 1996. The papers contain family correspondence, class notes, drafts and manuscripts for his writings. There are numerous family photographs and also photographs of musicians and composers. This collection consists of 10 linear feet (10 boxes) covering the years 1948 to 1996.