IN MEMORIAM

Eric Henry Monkkonen
Professor of History and Public Policy
Los Angeles
1942 – 2005

When Eric Monkkonen died of cancer at the age of 62, the UCLA Departments of History and Policy Studies lost a beloved teacher, a brilliant colleague, and generous friend. Eric was a Minnesotan – raised in Duluth of Finnish ancestry with both B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota – and his Midwestern common sense and lack of pretense permeated every aspect of his personal and professional life. He was intensely proud of his roots but, after his appointment at UCLA in 1976, he was also deeply devoted to Los Angeles. Eric was a big-hearted man who, with his beatific smile, brought his students and friends into his intense enjoyment of life: whether skiing or spending time with family, reading coroners’ records or fixing sports cars, hanging out with his Culver City swimming buddies as well as LAPD homicide cops. His favorite pronouncement - “This was fun” followed by his smile - was applied equally to a family dinner, a scholarly meeting, a formula one grand prix race, or just lunch in a diner with a friend. Eric had the remarkable capacity to take delight from every aspect of daily life and infuse pleasure in those around him.

 

But our personal loss should not overshadow the professional loss of this innovative scholar to historians and social scientists around the country. Certain themes ran through his research over three decades: urban history, crime, policing, municipal finance, and social science methodology. And he was among the first to apply rigorous quantitative methods to historical problems. From his first book, The Dangerous Class: Crime and Poverty in Columbus, Ohio, 1860-1885, (Harvard, 1975), Eric’s work represented the best of social science history in its methods, its questions, and its interdisciplinary nature. He was a stalwart of the Social Science History Association and he served as president in 1992-93. He trained a new generation of social science historians, and many of his graduate students gave papers at SSHA meetings. In 2004, the SSHA devoted a session to Eric’s scholarly contributions, and, though he was too ill to attend, he was delighted to participate in it via telephone.

 

Even though he grew up in the Minnesota woods, Eric loved cities (beginning with Minneapolis) and became their defender against what he regarded as unscholarly prejudice. He helped to define various aspects of urban history with books like Police in America: 1860-1920 (Cambridge, 1981), America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities and Towns, 1780-1980 (Univ. of California, 1988) and The Local State: Public Money and American Cities (Stanford, 1995). In his edited collection, Engaging the Past: The Uses of History Across the Social Sciences (Duke, 1994), he helped define social science history for a broader audience. In 2002 his selected essays were published as Crime, Justice, History (Ohio State Univ. Press).

 

In recent years, Eric was primarily engaged in the history of crime. He edited the series Crime and Justice in American History and he expanded his focus to explore crime internationally in his book (edited with Eric Johnson), The Civilization of Crime: Violence in Town and Country since the Middle Ages (Illinois, 1996). Over his last decade Eric researched the long term trends in homicide, examining the impact of age structure and region on violence. His last completed book, Homicide in New York City (Univ. of California, 2001), used statistical material dating back to the early 19th century to analyze the interconnections between social transformation and homicide. More recently he extended that work to Los Angeles. His final articles, “Homicide in Los Angeles, 1827-2002,” and “Western Homicide, 1830-1870” were published posthumously in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History and The Pacific Historical Review. The PHR will publish an appreciation of Eric’s work in a forthcoming issue.

 

Eric was an excellent teacher at every level. For more than two decades he taught lecture courses on U.S. Urban History to enthusiastic undergraduate students basing many lectures on his own research. His undergraduate seminars often propelled students into the Los Angeles community to find research materials and to write brief histories of non-profit organizations; he taught them how to do history. It is little wonder that year after year Eric’s students received thesis prizes and graduation honors. Perhaps his most remarkable pedagogical gift was in the training of several dozen graduate students. He was accessible, warm, and eager to provide useful criticism – a “model mentor” in the view of many students. In the last decade he also contributed his organizational energy to the School of Public Policy where he created the undergraduate program in policy studies. He believed deeply that UCLA undergraduates could do serious research, if given the opportunity and guidance, and he was brilliant at doing just that.

 

As Eric’s work on crime became more widely known, he was interviewed in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, and other national venues. The long obituary in The Los Angeles Times (June 15, 2005) paid a particular tribute in its interviews with leading scholars and its careful review of the importance of Eric’s hard-nosed quantitative research in “puncturing myths” about crime. For example, he found that New York City had a lower murder rate than the nation as a whole during the first half of the 20th century. His database of murders in Los Angeles between 1830 and 1960 reached 6,600 and it showed that Los Angeles in 1900 was four times more violent than New York.

 

Eric Monkkonen was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995 and for a decade he fought it with tenacity and good humor. Even in his last months, he visited friends, received students, and even participated in meetings by telephone. Both in the good years and the bad, Eric set us the example of a scholar, a teacher, and a man who was determined to do the best he could in the time allotted. It was an amazing example of courage, intelligence, and integrity. While we grieve at his absence, we also recognize that his professional and human accomplishment was extraordinary and left the world (and UCLA) a better place.

 

Eric is survived by Judy, his beloved wife of forty years, and his sons Pentti and Paavo. Though he knew of his grandson Otto, he unhappily did not live to see his arrival. His family and UCLA colleagues established an Eric Monkkonen Fund to support students working in social history.

 

 

Joel Aberbach

Ronald Mellor

Gary Nash

Mary Yeager