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Founder of UVa oral history program Young dies
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James Sterling Young
Posted: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 8:05 pm | Updated: 8:06 pm, Tue Aug 13, 2013.
James Sterling Young, who founded the nation’s only oral history program focused on American presidents at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, has died. He was 85.
The Miller Center announced Tuesday that Young died Thursday at his home in Albemarle County.
At the Miller Center, Young directed oral histories of the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and on former Sen. Edward Kennedy. Kennedy based his memoir, “True Compass,” on dozens of interviews with Young.
Young recorded more than 400 oral history sessions for the Miller Center’s various projects, current Presidential Oral History Program chairman Russell Riley said in a statement.
After leaving the U.S. Army, Young received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton. He received a doctorate from Columbia University in 1964, staying at the school as a professor and then an administrator until 1978. That’s when he came to UVa as research program director at the recently established Miller Center. He taught courses on the American presidency and founded the oral history program.
Young’s book, “The Washington Community, 1800-1828,” was awarded the Columbia University Bancroft Prize.
Miller Center spokeswoman Kristy Schantz said no memorial service was planned. Young will be buried in a private family cemetery in New York.
Source: dailyprogress
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