Photo: Courtesy of Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives of the Johns Hopkins University.
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IN MEMORIAM WILLIAM H. McCLAIN
1917 -1994
his issue, the forty-third, of The Report is
dedicated to the memory of Professor
William H. McClain, who lost his life under
tragic circumstances, the victim of a criminal
attack, on May 16,1994.
During his long and successful career as a
scholar and teacher, Bill McClain always gener-
ously shared his profound knowledge of Ger-
man literature, culture and history with his col-
leagues, friends and countless students, and he
dedicated much of his time to serving pro-
fessional organizations.
In 1939 Bill began his studies of German at
Case Western Reserve University in his native
Cleveland. He did his graduate work at the
University of Wisconsin, where he received his
doctorate in 1943. His first post was as an in-
structor in German in the Army Specialized
Training Program at Wisconsin. In the spring
of 1945, he was assigned to the staff of Robert
Murphy, the U.S. political advisor to General
Eisenhower, and was afterwards attached to the
Consular Office in Frankfurt am Main. After
his service abroad he began his academic
teaching career at Harvard University (1946-
1952). He then taught from 1953 to 1982 at
the Johns Hopkins University, where for seven
years he served as the chairman of the Depart-
ment of German.
As a teacher of German, Bill devoted part of
his time to the instruction of undergraduates.
His classes were extraordinarily popular, at-
tracting students from various fields, many of
whom would perhaps not have studied this sub-
ject, an elective for most of them, if it had not
been for the contagious enthusiasm with which
Bill taught the masterworks of German litera-
ture. His graduate seminars were also well at-
tended, inspiring and highly informative, and,
as an advisor of doctoral candidates, Bill
guided nearly thirty dissertations. Most of his
students are still following his excellent exam-
ple, teaching German language and literature
to young Americans, thus keeping the tradi-
tion very much alive. In a letter of appre-
ciation, presented on the occasion of Bill's
65th birthday, one of the students who wrote a
doctoral thesis with him expressed his grati-
tude by saying that one of the best things he
had received from Bill and which he sought to
emulate in his own work, was "a style of teach-
ing and scholarship that actively elicits partici-
pation of students in real discussions and treats
literature as a thing of deep human interest.
not merely as 'material' to be categorized, cata-
logued and transported to the consumer or as
mere exemplification of more important philo-
sophical ideas or structural schemes."
Bill McClain's excellence as a teacher
earned him numerous awards, among them a
special citation from the Hopkins administra-
tion, the Lindback award for distinguished
teaching, and the student council's Gilman
Award. An honor of a different kind was the
Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma
mater in 1967; and, in 1981, the Johns Hopkins
Alumni Association honored him with its Her-
itage Award for exceptional service to the Uni-
versity.
As a scholar widely known and respected in
his field, Bill McClain has enriched German-
istic studies with important contributions of
lasting value to Romanticism, Realism and
contemporary literature. He treated the writ-
ings of Goethe, Kleist, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Otto
Ludwig, Gerhart Hauptmann, and Thomas
Mann, in each case expanding our knowledge
of the author and the works he discussed.
He also made significant contributions to
the study of German-American literary rela-
tions, revealing and delineating far-reaching
crosscurrents. He co-edited the letters of Ger-
stàcker, Bodenstedt, and Mûhlbach and pub-
lished articles on the importance of their
works for the American audience and on the
reception of their American novels and Reise-
berichte among German readers, whose image
of the United States was profoundly influenced
by these writings.
Bill McClain wrote many reviews for the Bal-
timore Sun concerned with the works of promi-
nent German writers, among them Kleist,
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T
Heine, Mann, Kafka, Frisch, Dürrenmatt, and
Nelly Sachs, addressing the general public,
conveying stimulating information which may
well have encouraged many a reader to acquire
these books.
Active as an officer in several professional or-
ganizations, Bill founded the Maryland Chap-
ter of the American Association of Teachers of
German and was for many years (1954-1972)
faculty advisor of Delta Phi Alpha, the national
German honor society, of which he established
a chapter at Johns Hopkins. For a number of
years he served as President of the American
Goethe Society, which at its monthly meetings
introduced many national and international
scholars to the Baltimore community.
The Society for the History of the Germans
in Maryland owes Bill McClain an immeasur-
able debt. From 1955 to the present he served
on the Executive Committee, from 1983-1987
as Second Vice President. A member and, most
recently, chairman of the Editorial Committee
of the The Report, he was substantially involved
in the planning and preparation of various is-
sues of our journal. The articles he published
in The Report are evidence of his fascination
with the history of German-American relations
in Maryland. His series of "Salutes" to the Ger-
man-American business enterprises of Balti-
more, beginning in 1990, is being concluded
in the present issue. His very last article, on
Jacob Gross, superintendent of the Stieff Piano
Company, is in many ways characteristic of
Bill's versatility. He was, of course, consistently
interested in the academic study of great Ger-
man writers and the elucidation of their fa-
mous works, but he also treated more mun-
dane matters for the enlightenment of the
general reader. He enjoyed working with oth-
ers and in the process continued to make new
friends with whom he then collaborated, con-
genially and effectively, on these projects.
Bill McClain's sudden death has saddened
many. He is mourned here and abroad with
deep sorrow. His friends will miss his kind and
gentle ways and the eagerness with which he
shared his interesting experiences with them,
often with a wonderful sense of humor; his
graduate students have lost a fatherly friend to
whom they could always turn for advice and
encouragement; the many undergraduates he
taught and counseled long into his retirement
will fondly remember him because of his gen-
uine concern for their welfare and develop-
ment; and our Society has lost an active and ar-
dent supporter. All of us will often think of Bill
with appreciation for his friendship and loyalty,
with great esteem for his excellent scholarly
work and with gratitude for his dedicated
participation in our continuing contribution
to the study of German-American relations.
. Lieselotte E. Kurth
The Johns Hopkins University
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