Stephen Botein

Stephen Botein, historian and teacher, was born in 1941 in New York City, the son of Marian Berman Botein and the late Judge Bernard Botein. He took his AB degree summa cum laude from Harvard in 1963, attended Columbia University Law School for one year, and received his Ph.D. in American history from Harvard in 1971. Between his year at Columbia and his return to Cambridge for doctoral work in history, he spent a year as an assistant editor in the Book Division oí American Heritage. From 1970 to 1972 he was an assistant professor of history at Williams College and from 1972 to 1977 held an equivalent rank at Harvard. Erom there he ventured to the Midwest for a permanent position in the history department of Michigan State University, where he rose to the rank of professor. He was held in high esteem by his colleagues and students in East Lansing, but managed to spend considerable blocks of time back in the East, especially in Cambridge and in Worcester. During the academic year 1985-86 he served as visiting editor of pubhcations at the Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg.

Steve speciahzed in legal history, the history of professions, and the field that has come to be known as the history of the book. With his remarkable skill at synthesis, all became like one. His published output was actually relatively slender. Except for a book entitled Early American Law and Society, published in 1983, his publications consist of articles, reviews, and edited works. But many of these were very influential, his '"'Meer Mechanics' and an Open Press: The Business and Political Strategies of Colonial American Printers," which appeared in the journal Perspectives in American History in 1975, especially so. But his real influence lay not so much in the printed page as in his personal contacts with, encouragement of, and helpfulness to coundess students, scholars, and other colleagues.