Father Eugene H. Korth died of cancer in Milwaukee on July 28, 1987 at the age of 69. He was born on November 23, 1917 in Mankato, Minnesota to a German-Norwegian family with a strong religious tradition. Two uncles on his mother’s side and two of his own brothers also joined the Jesuit order. Father Korth himself entered the Society in 1936 and was ordained in 1949. While specializing in colonial Latin American history, his broad training was reflected in his publications on modern European history.
Father Korth served the Society of Jesus and the students of two continents as a teacher, administrator, librarian, and archivist. He began his university career in 1956 at Marquette University, where he taught history and headed the department from 1958 to 1960 before becoming dean of the College of Liberal Arts between 1960 and 1963. He helped found the Catholic University of Salta, Argentina, in 1964 and served as a dean and professor of English while establishing the university library between 1967 to 1969, personally cataloguing 8,000 books. In the latter year, he continued his work as professor of Latin American and modern European history at the University of Detroit, where he also served as department head (1973-77) and librarian from 1980 until his retirement in 1984. He rejoined the Jesuit community and his brother, Francis, at Marquette University where he worked as an archivist until his death in 1987.
Eugene Korth is best known among Latin Americanists for his book on Spanish Policy in Colonial Chile whose subtitle, The Struggle for Social Justice, 1553-1700, reflects the influence of Lewis Hanke at the University of Texas, where Father Korth received his doctorate in 1956. A generation after its publication in 1968, the book is still an important comparative source for scholars working on conquest and frontier societies. Father Korth retained an interest in social justice that was reflected in a second book, co-authored with Della M. Flusche, on Forgotten Females: Women of African and Indian Descent in Chile, 1535-1800, published in 1983. He was working on studies of Spanish women and haciendas in colonial Chile when he retired. In addition to several articles, Father Korth published more than two hundred book reviews. He is remembered by all who knew him and benefited from his life and work.
