Nathan Reingold, 1927-2004

Abstract

Nathan Reingold, senior historian emeritus, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, and former editor of the Joseph Henry Papers, died of a stroke and aspiration pneumonia on 30 October 2004 at his home in Bethesda, Maryland. Nate, as he was universally known, was seventy-seven. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in the Bronx, Nate became, in his own words, a compulsive reader at age nine after a bout with rheumatic fever.1 His interest in history was piqued by his reading of historical fiction.2 After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School he attended New York University, where he majored in English, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1947. Having decided to pursue a career in history, he earned his master's degree in 1948 in American studies from New York University. He received his Ph.D. in American civilization in 1951 from the University of Pennsylvania, where a mentor, the medical historian Richard H. Shryock (who had just served as Brooke Hindle's dissertation advisor), encouraged an interest in the history of science. He moved to Washington the same year to work at the National Archives. From 1959 to 1966 he was on the staff of the Science and Technology Division of the Library of Congress, before moving to the Smithsonian Institution as founding editor of the Joseph Henry Papers Project. After nineteen years at the Henry Papers, Nate became senior historian at the National Museum of American History in