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Betty Miller Unterberger (view source)
Revision as of 03:52, October 16, 2019
, 03:52, October 16, 2019Created page with "{{Infobox person | name=Betty Miller Unterberger<br> (American diplomatic historian<br> and first female professor at Texas A&M University) | birth_date=December 27, 192..."
{{Infobox person
| name=Betty Miller Unterberger<br>
(American diplomatic historian<br> and first female professor at Texas A&M University)
| birth_date=December 27, 1922
| birth_place=[[Glasgow]], [[Scotland]]
| death_date=May 15, 2012 (aged 89)
| death_place = [[College Station, Texas|College Station]], [[Texas]]
| resting_place=[[Cremation]]
| spouse = Robert Ruppe Unterberger<br>
'''Children''':<br>
Glen Alan Unterberger (deceased)<br>Gail L. Unterberger Adams<br>Gregg R. Unterberger<br>
'''Parents''': <br>
Joseph "Scotty" and Leah Milner Miller<br>
'''Alma mater''':<br>
[[Duke University]]<br>Radcliffe College<br>Syracuse Universit
|party= [[Democratic Party|Democrat]]<ref>Confirmed by the Brazos County Voter Registrar</ref>}}
'''Betty Miller Unterberger''' (December 27, 1922 – May 15, 2012)<ref name=obit>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theeagle/obituary.aspx?n=betty-unteberger-miller&pid=157661411|title=Betty (Miller) Unterberger obituary|publisher=''Bryan-College Station Eagle''|accessdate=May 17, 2012}}</ref> was a diplomatic historian, who as [[professor]] of American international relations spent the bulk of her extensive academic career at [[Texas A&M University]] in [[College Station, Texas|College Station]], [[Texas]]. In 1968, she became the first woman employed as a full [[professor]] on the faculty of the formerly all-male institution, where she remained until her retirement in 2004, at the age of 81.<ref name=oah>{{cite web|url=http://www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2005aug/formwalt.html|author=Lee W. Formwalt|title=From Scotland to India: A Conversation with American Historian Betty Unterberger|date=August 2005|publisher=Organization of American Historians|accessdate=October 23, 2010}}</ref>
==Background==
Unterberger was born in [[Glasgow]], [[Scotland]], to Joseph "Scotty" Miller and the former Leah Milner,<ref name=bmuo>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theeagle/obituary.aspx?n=dr-betty-miller-unterberger&pid=157673293|title=Dr/ Betty Miller Unterberger|publisher=''The Bryan-College Station Eagle''|accessdate=May 18, 2012}}</ref> but was reared in the United States. In 1943, aided with a scholarship in speech, she obtained her Bachelor of Arts from Syracuse University in [[Syracuse]], [[New York]]. Her central interests were in history and [[political science]]. In 1946, she received the [[Master of Arts]] in history<ref name=bmuo/> from the women's Radcliffe College in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]], [[Massachusetts]], now part of [[Harvard University]].<ref name=oah/>
Unterberger was particularly influenced at Radcliffe/Harvard by the diplomatic historian Thomas A. Bailey, a visiting scholar from [[Stanford University]]. It was from Bailey that she learned about [[American Expeditionary Force]] troops sent to [[Siberia]] after [[World War I]] during the [[Russian Civil War]] between the [[Bolshevik]]s and the [[Menshevik]]s. Her [[Ph.D.]] dissertation at [[Duke University]] in Durham, [[North Carolina]], became the basis for her first book on the subject, the award-winning ''America's Siberian Expedition, 1918-1920: A Study of National Policy.''<ref name=oah/>
At Duke, Unterberger enrolled in a seminar with Professor Charles Sydnor. She wrote a paper on Thomas Braidwood of Scotland and the origin of schools for the hearing impaired.<ref name=oah/> This article, "The First Attempt to Establish an Oral School for the Deaf and Dumb in the United States," was published in 1947 in ''The Journal of Southern History'' and became the first of her many publications.<ref>Betty Miller Unterberger, "The First Attempt to Establish an Oral School for the Deaf and Dumb in the United States," ''The Journal of Southern History,'' Vol. XIII (November, 1947), pp. 556-566.</ref> This was a much different topic than her later writings, the majority of which focus on foreign policy.
==Academic career==
From 1948-1950, while she was still working on her Ph.D., Unterberger taught at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. From 1954 to 1961, she was an associate professor of history and the director of the Liberal Arts Center for Adults at Whittier College in Whittier, [[Californai]], and from 1961 to 1965, an associate professor at [[California State University, Fullerton]], at which from 1965 to 1968 she was professor and chair of the graduate studies division.<ref name=bmuvita>{{cite web|url=http://www.tamu.edu/history/faculty/unterberger/cv.pdf|title=Betty Miller Unterberger: Curriculum Vitae|publisher=tamu.edu|accessdate=October 23, 2010}}</ref>
In 1968, Unterberger came to Texas A&M University as a full professor. Her appointment coincidentally developed when her husband, Robert Ruppe Unterberger (April 27, 1921 – February 14, 2016), accepted a full professorship in geophysics at TAMU. In his career, Robert Unterberger researched unique forms of [[radar]] and [[sonar]] and obtained several international [[patent]]s.<ref name=robertr>{{cite web|url=http://www.theeagle.com/obituaries/unterberger-robert-ruppe/article_988183e4-3d4e-5c88-8a5a-b8974378f8c8.html|title=Robert Unterberger obituary|publisher=''The Bryan-College Station Eagle''|accessdate=February 17, 2016}}</ref><ref name=oah/> "I felt very much alone [as a woman] at Texas A&M, but it wasn't strange to me," Unterberger said much later (There had been only three women professors in southern California at the time that the Unterbergers came to Texas). "I had been told that I [was] taking the bread out of the mouths of deserving male grad students," Unterberger often recalled.<ref name=battalion>{{cite web|url=http://www.thebatt.com/2.8485/a-m-s-first-woman-prof-speaks-out-1.120703|author=Carrie Pierce|title=A&M's first woman prof speaks out|date=January 27, 2004|publisher=''Texas A&M Battalion'' student newspaper|accessdate=October 22, 2010}}</ref> Offered a full professorship by Horace R. Byers, then the Texas A&M vice president for academic affairs, Unterberger recalled that he asked her to "internationalize the history department and build the graduate program. I love to build programs, and this was a wonderful challenge."<ref>"Twelve Fearless Firsts," ''Spirit: The Texas A&M Foundation Magazine,'' Fall 2013, p. 42.</ref>
Unterberger related how she became close to the first [[African-American]] student who attended her class in 1969: "He came to see me in tears one day saying that on his dormitory room was a big sign that said 'N--- Go Home!' I took him under my wing. I tried to have students understand one another. The only thing that makes us different is our backgrounds, experience, and differences in cultures."<ref name=battalion/> By 1976, TAMU had elected its first black student body president, Fred McClure.<ref name=battalion/> She also invited her students on occasion for social gatherings at her home.
From January to August 1979, Unterberger was a [[Woodrow Wilson]] Fellow at [[Princeton University]] in Princeton, [[New Jersey]]. From the late 1980s on, she was a frequent visiting professor, teaching at the [[University of California, Irvine]] in 1987, at [[Peking University]]'s Institute of International Relations in [[Beijing]] in 1988, and at [[Prague]]'s Charles University in 1992. In 1991, she was appointed Patricia and Bookman Peters Professor of History at Texas A&M, and in 2000 was elevated to Regents professor of the TAMU System.<ref name=bmuvita/>
A high point of Unterberger's career was her election in 1986 as president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, an organization 99 percent male founded in 1967. She won the post over Professor Robert Dallek.<ref name=oah/> Toward the end of her career, she developed an interest in [[India]] and [[Pakistan]], particularly the work of Pandurang Shastri Athavale, the founder of the Swadhyay Movement. According to Unterberger, Swadhyay "liberated millions from poverty and moral dissipation." In 1997, she successfully nominated Athavale for the $1.3 million Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.<ref name=oah/>
Unterberger served on the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] Advisory Committee for Access to Documents and Open Information. She received a personal letter of appreciation for her service from [[Leon Panetta]], the then CIA director.<ref name=bmuo/>
===Selected publications===
*Unterberger, Betty Miller (1947) "The First Attempt to Establish an Oral School for the Deaf and Dumb in the United States." ''The Journal of Southern History.'' '''13'''(4):556–566. {{doi|10.2307/2198327}}.
*______ (1956) ''America's Siberian Expedition, 1918-1920: A Study of National Policy.'' Durham: Duke University Press. 271 p. {{OCLC|397147}}.
**[https://books.google.com/books?id=r7EqAAAAYAAJ Republished] in 1969 by Greenwood University Press.
*______ (1976) "The American Image of Mohammad Ali Jinnah." ''Pakistan Affairs'', Vol. 29, pp.2–7.
*______ (1981) "American Views of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Pakistan Liberation Movement." ''Diplomatic History,' Vol. 5|p.313–336. {{doi|10.1111/j.1467-7709.1981.tb00786.x}}.
*______ (1987) "Woodrow Wilson and the Bolsheviks: The Acid Test of Soviet-American Relations." ''Diplomatic History,'' Vol. 11, pp.71–90. {{doi|10.1111/j.1467-7709.1987.tb00006.x}}.
*______ (1989) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=itRmAAAAMAAJ The United States, Revolutionary Russia and the Rise of Czechoslovakia].'' Supplementary volumes to The papers of Woodrow Wilson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 463 p. ISBN 0-8078-1853-4.
== Legacy ==
In 2004, the Betty M. Unterberger Dissertation Prize was established by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in her honor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.shafr.org/members/prizes/|title=Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations prizes|publisher=Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations|accessdate=October 23, 2010}}</ref> The prize, awarded biannually in the amount of $1,000, recognizes distinguished research and writing by graduate students in the field of diplomatic history. It has been awarded since 2005 in odd years.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://shafr.org/content/betty-m-unterberger-dissertation-prize|title=The Betty M. Unterberger Dissertation Prize|publisher=The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations|accessdate=May 22, 2015}}</ref>
==Family==
Robert Unterberger also held a Ph.D. from Duke University. Howard Mumford Jones, Unterberger's Harvard graduate school advisor, had urged her to marry Robert. At first reluctant, she consented after being stricken by [[influenza]]. Robert Unterberger served in both [[World War II]] and the [[Korean War]]. He was severely injured when his jeep blew up in the [[Philippines]] two days after the official end of World War II.<ref name=oah/> The Unterbergers were the parents of Glen Alan Unterberger (1951–1978), the Reverend Dr. Gail L. Unterberger (born 1952), the wife of Randall Adams, and Gregg R. Unterberger (born 1958).<ref name=bmuo/> Howard Jones had much impact on Unterberger, having introduced her to the technical advantages of having a dictaphone in her historical writing.<ref name=oah/>
Both Robert and Betty Unterberger were [[cancer]] survivors. He overcame [[prostate cancer]].<ref name=robertr/> She endured four surgeries between 1950 and 1964.<ref name=oah/> The couple resided in College Station, where she died at the age of 89; he at 94, in 2016. There were memorial services for both in 2012 and 2016, respectively, at the All Faith Chapel on the Texas A&M campus. Both were [[Cremation|cremated]].<ref name=obit/><ref name=robertr/>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unterberger, Betty Miller}}
[[Category:Women]]
[[Category:Texas]]
[[Category:Scotland]]
[[Category:North Carolina]]
[[Category:California]]
[[Category:Historians]]
[[Category:Professors]]
[[Category:American Authors]]
[[Category:Democrats]]
| name=Betty Miller Unterberger<br>
(American diplomatic historian<br> and first female professor at Texas A&M University)
| birth_date=December 27, 1922
| birth_place=[[Glasgow]], [[Scotland]]
| death_date=May 15, 2012 (aged 89)
| death_place = [[College Station, Texas|College Station]], [[Texas]]
| resting_place=[[Cremation]]
| spouse = Robert Ruppe Unterberger<br>
'''Children''':<br>
Glen Alan Unterberger (deceased)<br>Gail L. Unterberger Adams<br>Gregg R. Unterberger<br>
'''Parents''': <br>
Joseph "Scotty" and Leah Milner Miller<br>
'''Alma mater''':<br>
[[Duke University]]<br>Radcliffe College<br>Syracuse Universit
|party= [[Democratic Party|Democrat]]<ref>Confirmed by the Brazos County Voter Registrar</ref>}}
'''Betty Miller Unterberger''' (December 27, 1922 – May 15, 2012)<ref name=obit>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theeagle/obituary.aspx?n=betty-unteberger-miller&pid=157661411|title=Betty (Miller) Unterberger obituary|publisher=''Bryan-College Station Eagle''|accessdate=May 17, 2012}}</ref> was a diplomatic historian, who as [[professor]] of American international relations spent the bulk of her extensive academic career at [[Texas A&M University]] in [[College Station, Texas|College Station]], [[Texas]]. In 1968, she became the first woman employed as a full [[professor]] on the faculty of the formerly all-male institution, where she remained until her retirement in 2004, at the age of 81.<ref name=oah>{{cite web|url=http://www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2005aug/formwalt.html|author=Lee W. Formwalt|title=From Scotland to India: A Conversation with American Historian Betty Unterberger|date=August 2005|publisher=Organization of American Historians|accessdate=October 23, 2010}}</ref>
==Background==
Unterberger was born in [[Glasgow]], [[Scotland]], to Joseph "Scotty" Miller and the former Leah Milner,<ref name=bmuo>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theeagle/obituary.aspx?n=dr-betty-miller-unterberger&pid=157673293|title=Dr/ Betty Miller Unterberger|publisher=''The Bryan-College Station Eagle''|accessdate=May 18, 2012}}</ref> but was reared in the United States. In 1943, aided with a scholarship in speech, she obtained her Bachelor of Arts from Syracuse University in [[Syracuse]], [[New York]]. Her central interests were in history and [[political science]]. In 1946, she received the [[Master of Arts]] in history<ref name=bmuo/> from the women's Radcliffe College in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]], [[Massachusetts]], now part of [[Harvard University]].<ref name=oah/>
Unterberger was particularly influenced at Radcliffe/Harvard by the diplomatic historian Thomas A. Bailey, a visiting scholar from [[Stanford University]]. It was from Bailey that she learned about [[American Expeditionary Force]] troops sent to [[Siberia]] after [[World War I]] during the [[Russian Civil War]] between the [[Bolshevik]]s and the [[Menshevik]]s. Her [[Ph.D.]] dissertation at [[Duke University]] in Durham, [[North Carolina]], became the basis for her first book on the subject, the award-winning ''America's Siberian Expedition, 1918-1920: A Study of National Policy.''<ref name=oah/>
At Duke, Unterberger enrolled in a seminar with Professor Charles Sydnor. She wrote a paper on Thomas Braidwood of Scotland and the origin of schools for the hearing impaired.<ref name=oah/> This article, "The First Attempt to Establish an Oral School for the Deaf and Dumb in the United States," was published in 1947 in ''The Journal of Southern History'' and became the first of her many publications.<ref>Betty Miller Unterberger, "The First Attempt to Establish an Oral School for the Deaf and Dumb in the United States," ''The Journal of Southern History,'' Vol. XIII (November, 1947), pp. 556-566.</ref> This was a much different topic than her later writings, the majority of which focus on foreign policy.
==Academic career==
From 1948-1950, while she was still working on her Ph.D., Unterberger taught at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. From 1954 to 1961, she was an associate professor of history and the director of the Liberal Arts Center for Adults at Whittier College in Whittier, [[Californai]], and from 1961 to 1965, an associate professor at [[California State University, Fullerton]], at which from 1965 to 1968 she was professor and chair of the graduate studies division.<ref name=bmuvita>{{cite web|url=http://www.tamu.edu/history/faculty/unterberger/cv.pdf|title=Betty Miller Unterberger: Curriculum Vitae|publisher=tamu.edu|accessdate=October 23, 2010}}</ref>
In 1968, Unterberger came to Texas A&M University as a full professor. Her appointment coincidentally developed when her husband, Robert Ruppe Unterberger (April 27, 1921 – February 14, 2016), accepted a full professorship in geophysics at TAMU. In his career, Robert Unterberger researched unique forms of [[radar]] and [[sonar]] and obtained several international [[patent]]s.<ref name=robertr>{{cite web|url=http://www.theeagle.com/obituaries/unterberger-robert-ruppe/article_988183e4-3d4e-5c88-8a5a-b8974378f8c8.html|title=Robert Unterberger obituary|publisher=''The Bryan-College Station Eagle''|accessdate=February 17, 2016}}</ref><ref name=oah/> "I felt very much alone [as a woman] at Texas A&M, but it wasn't strange to me," Unterberger said much later (There had been only three women professors in southern California at the time that the Unterbergers came to Texas). "I had been told that I [was] taking the bread out of the mouths of deserving male grad students," Unterberger often recalled.<ref name=battalion>{{cite web|url=http://www.thebatt.com/2.8485/a-m-s-first-woman-prof-speaks-out-1.120703|author=Carrie Pierce|title=A&M's first woman prof speaks out|date=January 27, 2004|publisher=''Texas A&M Battalion'' student newspaper|accessdate=October 22, 2010}}</ref> Offered a full professorship by Horace R. Byers, then the Texas A&M vice president for academic affairs, Unterberger recalled that he asked her to "internationalize the history department and build the graduate program. I love to build programs, and this was a wonderful challenge."<ref>"Twelve Fearless Firsts," ''Spirit: The Texas A&M Foundation Magazine,'' Fall 2013, p. 42.</ref>
Unterberger related how she became close to the first [[African-American]] student who attended her class in 1969: "He came to see me in tears one day saying that on his dormitory room was a big sign that said 'N--- Go Home!' I took him under my wing. I tried to have students understand one another. The only thing that makes us different is our backgrounds, experience, and differences in cultures."<ref name=battalion/> By 1976, TAMU had elected its first black student body president, Fred McClure.<ref name=battalion/> She also invited her students on occasion for social gatherings at her home.
From January to August 1979, Unterberger was a [[Woodrow Wilson]] Fellow at [[Princeton University]] in Princeton, [[New Jersey]]. From the late 1980s on, she was a frequent visiting professor, teaching at the [[University of California, Irvine]] in 1987, at [[Peking University]]'s Institute of International Relations in [[Beijing]] in 1988, and at [[Prague]]'s Charles University in 1992. In 1991, she was appointed Patricia and Bookman Peters Professor of History at Texas A&M, and in 2000 was elevated to Regents professor of the TAMU System.<ref name=bmuvita/>
A high point of Unterberger's career was her election in 1986 as president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, an organization 99 percent male founded in 1967. She won the post over Professor Robert Dallek.<ref name=oah/> Toward the end of her career, she developed an interest in [[India]] and [[Pakistan]], particularly the work of Pandurang Shastri Athavale, the founder of the Swadhyay Movement. According to Unterberger, Swadhyay "liberated millions from poverty and moral dissipation." In 1997, she successfully nominated Athavale for the $1.3 million Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.<ref name=oah/>
Unterberger served on the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] Advisory Committee for Access to Documents and Open Information. She received a personal letter of appreciation for her service from [[Leon Panetta]], the then CIA director.<ref name=bmuo/>
===Selected publications===
*Unterberger, Betty Miller (1947) "The First Attempt to Establish an Oral School for the Deaf and Dumb in the United States." ''The Journal of Southern History.'' '''13'''(4):556–566. {{doi|10.2307/2198327}}.
*______ (1956) ''America's Siberian Expedition, 1918-1920: A Study of National Policy.'' Durham: Duke University Press. 271 p. {{OCLC|397147}}.
**[https://books.google.com/books?id=r7EqAAAAYAAJ Republished] in 1969 by Greenwood University Press.
*______ (1976) "The American Image of Mohammad Ali Jinnah." ''Pakistan Affairs'', Vol. 29, pp.2–7.
*______ (1981) "American Views of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Pakistan Liberation Movement." ''Diplomatic History,' Vol. 5|p.313–336. {{doi|10.1111/j.1467-7709.1981.tb00786.x}}.
*______ (1987) "Woodrow Wilson and the Bolsheviks: The Acid Test of Soviet-American Relations." ''Diplomatic History,'' Vol. 11, pp.71–90. {{doi|10.1111/j.1467-7709.1987.tb00006.x}}.
*______ (1989) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=itRmAAAAMAAJ The United States, Revolutionary Russia and the Rise of Czechoslovakia].'' Supplementary volumes to The papers of Woodrow Wilson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 463 p. ISBN 0-8078-1853-4.
== Legacy ==
In 2004, the Betty M. Unterberger Dissertation Prize was established by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in her honor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.shafr.org/members/prizes/|title=Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations prizes|publisher=Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations|accessdate=October 23, 2010}}</ref> The prize, awarded biannually in the amount of $1,000, recognizes distinguished research and writing by graduate students in the field of diplomatic history. It has been awarded since 2005 in odd years.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://shafr.org/content/betty-m-unterberger-dissertation-prize|title=The Betty M. Unterberger Dissertation Prize|publisher=The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations|accessdate=May 22, 2015}}</ref>
==Family==
Robert Unterberger also held a Ph.D. from Duke University. Howard Mumford Jones, Unterberger's Harvard graduate school advisor, had urged her to marry Robert. At first reluctant, she consented after being stricken by [[influenza]]. Robert Unterberger served in both [[World War II]] and the [[Korean War]]. He was severely injured when his jeep blew up in the [[Philippines]] two days after the official end of World War II.<ref name=oah/> The Unterbergers were the parents of Glen Alan Unterberger (1951–1978), the Reverend Dr. Gail L. Unterberger (born 1952), the wife of Randall Adams, and Gregg R. Unterberger (born 1958).<ref name=bmuo/> Howard Jones had much impact on Unterberger, having introduced her to the technical advantages of having a dictaphone in her historical writing.<ref name=oah/>
Both Robert and Betty Unterberger were [[cancer]] survivors. He overcame [[prostate cancer]].<ref name=robertr/> She endured four surgeries between 1950 and 1964.<ref name=oah/> The couple resided in College Station, where she died at the age of 89; he at 94, in 2016. There were memorial services for both in 2012 and 2016, respectively, at the All Faith Chapel on the Texas A&M campus. Both were [[Cremation|cremated]].<ref name=obit/><ref name=robertr/>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unterberger, Betty Miller}}
[[Category:Women]]
[[Category:Texas]]
[[Category:Scotland]]
[[Category:North Carolina]]
[[Category:California]]
[[Category:Historians]]
[[Category:Professors]]
[[Category:American Authors]]
[[Category:Democrats]]