In Memoriam: David J. Weber, December 20, 1940 - August 20, 2010
Teacher, Scholar, Colleague, Friend

DAVID J. WEBER (1940-2010), founding director of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies, and Robert and Nancy Dedman Professor of History at Southern Methodist University, was the author of a number of prize-winning books, including: The Taos Trappers: The Fur Trade in the Far Southwest (1971); Foreigners in Their Native Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican Americans (1973); The Mexican Frontier, 1821-1846 (1982); Richard H. Kern: Expeditionary Artist in the Far Southwest (1985); and The Spanish Frontier in North America (1992), recently republished in an abridged version. Named one of the "notable books" of 1992 by the New York Times, The Spanish Frontier won several awards, among them the "Spain and America" prize from the Spanish Ministry of Culture. His book Bárbaros. Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment  (Yale University Press, 2005) was quickly translated into Spanish for scholars in Latin America and Spain.  His most recent book,  Fiasco:  George Clinton Gardner's Correspondence from the U.S.-Mexico Boundary Survey, 1849-1854 (2010) was co-edited with Jane Lenz Elder.

David was a Frederick W. and Carrie S. Beinecke Senior Fellow, at the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders at Yale, a Fulbright-Hays Lecturer in Costa Rica and a visiting professor at Harvard. He held fellowships from the Huntington Library, the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. He is a past president of the Western History Association and the only American historian elected to membership in both the Mexican Academy of History and the Society of American Historians. In May 2003, he was knighted by order of the King of Spain, receiving the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel La Católica. In February 2005, he was named to membership in the Orden Mexicana del Águila Azteca (the Order of the Aztec Eagle), the highest award the Mexican government bestows on foreign nationals. In October 2007, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2010, he received the Willis M. Tate Award, given by the SMU Students’ Association, which honors an outstanding faculty member who has been involved in student life. David retired from teaching in May 2010, and passed away in his beloved New Mexico, on August 20, 2010.

For more information about David J. Weber, please see:

 The David J. Weber Memorial Fund
David Weber Tribute
SMU Obituary  http://www.smu.edu/News/2010/david-weber-23aug2010.aspx