Gus L. Seligmann, Denver, Colorado: an interview by Greg Smoak, 4 October 2012

Transcript (34 pages) of an interview by Greg Smoak with historian Gus Seligmann at Denver, Colorado, on 4 October 2012. Part of the Western History Association Oral History Project, Everett Cooley Collection tape no. U-3169

Gustav L. Seligmann, professor of history at University of North Texas and a lifetime member of the Western History Association, remembers his career and relationship with the WHA. A military brat, he attended school in Bremerhaven, Germany, Virginia, Oklahoma, and the New Mexico Military Institute. Dr. Seligmann´s family came to new Mexico in the 1850s and he remembers his father describing a scene when he was a boy, when Sheriff Pat Garrett was brought into town dead in the back of a wagon. However, he had little interest in Western history at the time, and even now claims he teaches history of political parties instead. He was recruited into a program at White Sands Missile Range out of high school, and soon revised his family's aim that he be a West Point graduate and a civil engineer by taking a history degree at New Mexico A and M and an ROTC commission instead. He credits his high school teacher in Germany, a Mr. Warren, and New Mexico historian Ira Clark with turning him toward history, which he loves. Indeed, Dr. Seligmann speaks highly of both Dr. Clark and his scholarship. A guided missile officer at Fort Bliss, he also became friends with Western historian John Porter Bloom, who taught in El Paso. He earned an MA in history at New Mexico A and M in one year with Ira Clark and Burl Noggle, then left the Army and pursued a PhD under Jack Carroll and Russell Ewing at the University of Arizona, receiving his degree in 1967.Dr. Seligmann remembers the first WHA conference in Santa Fe vividly, and relates both a lurid story and his amazement at meeting so many professors whose names he had encountered in bibliographies. He shares his views on Jack Carroll, whom he describes as a "polarizing figure" but nonetheless gives great credit for helping found the WHA. Dr. Seligmann was also active in the WHA´s administration, serving during the early 1980s on the site selection committee for future meetings. He observes that conferences must be held in large venues due to the organization´s size, though that means shutting out some significant but smaller Western venues. A founder of H-Net, he speaks at some length on its value as an online sounding board for the WHA and Western history issues in general. On his own approach to history, Dr. Seligmann sees himself as a New Mexico historian working in a larger region and nation. He comments on the increased professionalization, atomization and political bent of the WHA and bemoans its evident loss of touch with the "buffs," amateur historians he feels add color to the program. He emphasizes historians´ need to relate to ordinary people rather than a solely academic audience. Project: Western History Association. Interviewer: Greg Smoak