Dr. Milton M. Klein, retired professor of history and former University of Tennessee historian, died Thursday at St. Mary's Residential Hospice. He was 86.A specialist in early American history and American legal history, Mr. Klein came to UT in 1969. He received an Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award in 1974, was named Alumni Distinguished Service Professor in 1977 and a Lindsey Young Professor in 1980. He also earned two Chancellor's Citations for Extraordinary Service, in 1988 and in 1998.
"He was brought in to give the University of Tennessee's history department a national reputation for scholarship," said Todd Diacon, head of the history department. "Before Milton, the history department was largely a teaching department and did not really have a research and publications agenda. When he was hired, he was already a well-known scholar."
History professor William Bruce Wheeler remembers Klein as an academic father figure.
"Usually, we were hiring people fresh out of graduate school, and he was a little bit older than most of us," Wheeler said. "He was a guide not only to his students but to his young colleagues."
UT Vice Chancellor Anne Mayhew said Klein had a love of UT and held the institution to high standards.
"Milton Klein was a scholar, a teacher, and above all else, a great University citizen," Mayhew said in a statement. "He cared deeply about this university and about universities in general and was not about to let any of his colleagues forget the high standards that he held for us all. This made him seem cantankerous at times, but you always knew that Milton's criticisms came from his deep love of what universities are all about."
After his retirement from active teaching in 1984, Klein was named the university's first official historian, and retained that position until the office was abolished for budgetary reasons in 1997. While holding that position, Klein gave numerous lectures on the history of the university to student groups, civic organizations and alumni chapters around the country.
Diacon said Klein's work as the university historian was his most important legacy.
"I would say that Milton Klein's work and life is important because he touched not only historians at the University of Tennessee and historians in the profession, but he touched a broader public through his popular histories of the University of Tennessee," Diacon said.
"Milton Klein was a wonderfully erudite historian and master of his craft," UT Knoxville Chancellor Loren Crabtree said in a statement. "His books and articles are models of historical research and writing, and his works on the University help to preserve for all time the essential story of the institution. All of us who were privileged to know Milton keenly regret his passing but celebrate his memory."
He published numerous articles and books on early American history. One of the principal publications was his editorship, with Professor Jacob E. Cooke of Lafayette College, of the 13-volume "History of the American Colonies," which has been a standard work on American Colonial history. He also collaborated with Cooke on a four-volume encyclopedia, "North America in Colonial Times," published in 1998. His most recent work is a biography, "An Amazing Grace: John Thornton and the Clapham Sect," published this year.
Before coming to UT, Klein served as dean of graduate studies at the State University of New York at Fredonia, and before that as chairman of the history department and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Long Island University. In 1976-77, he was the Walter E. Meyer Visiting Professor at New York University School of Law.
Klein received his undergraduate education and master's degree at City College of New York. He earned his doctorate at Columbia University.
He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and remained in the Air Force Reserve until his retirement, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Visitation will be at Rose Mortuary Mann Heritage Chapel, 6200 Kingston Pike, on Sunday from 5-7 p.m., with services and military burial at 12:30 p.m. Monday at the Tennessee Veterans Cemetery.
He is survived by his wife of 41 years, Margaret Gordon Klein sons, Edward Klein of San Francisco and Peter Klein of Columbia, Mo., two grandsons, several nephews, great-nephews and great-nieces.
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