The Passing of Dr. Jenn Steenshorne

The Selected Papers of John Jay project at Columbia University just published its seventh and final printed volume, covering the years 1799 to 1829.

The project is also converting those volumes into a digital edition. A couple of years ago, the National Archives’ Founders Online website added those documents to its database, which symbolically elevates Jay to the top tier of Founders along with Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and Madison.

After all, Jay was a strong voice in the Continental Congress, U.S. minister to Spain, signer of the Treaty of Paris, Confederation secretary of foreign affairs, contributor to the “Federalist” essays, first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, negotiator of a crucial and controversial treaty with Great Britain, and governor of New York for six years.

The completion of The Selected Papers of John Jay was tinged with sadness this month as word spread that one long-time editor on the project, Jennifer Steenshorne, had died suddenly of Covid-19. On 28 December she tweeted, “Just took a home Covid test. Positive. I’ve had two shots, so not so bad aside from the exhaustion and cough.” However, the next day she added, “My Covid Cough makes me feel like I have been slammed in the ribs by baseball bats.” Three days later, she died.

Dr. Steenshorne was a warm presence among academic historians on Twitter, so her loss produced a real outpouring of sadness. I never met her, but I liked spotting the avatar of “Dr. JE Steenshorne, Harborer of Cats” (shown above). I knew her comments would be smart and kind. Scrolling back, I saw that my birthday gifts in 2020 included her reply to one of my silly tweets about British clerics’ overblown sleeves (not that she knew it was my birthday).

New York University colleague George Platt wrote:

Besides her many professional accomplishments, Jennifer was a supportive colleague and great friend to many of us, and was always ready with a precisely relevant fact from her encyclopedic knowledge of New York City. Her vast array of interests ranged from fashion and design (having worked for Perry Ellis), to music (having interned with Electra Records), to horse racing, and public health. She brewed stouts and porters. A fan of the Rolling Stones, she worked for jazz legends Max Roach and Dizzy Gillespie. . . . She also published on topics as diverse as cemetery removal in Manhattan, and James Bond films.

In 2018, Steenshorne became director and editor-in-chief of the Washington Papers. Colleagues at the University of Virginia Press lamented:

Beyond conferring about John Jay, George Washington, and the founding generation, we recall lively discussions about such wide-ranging figures as Ann Cary Randolph Morris, George Templeton Strong, and Joseph Urban—wonderful conversations that made evident the breadth of her knowledge and her interests, from the substantive role of women in the early republic to the rigors of the Civil War era to the design of Ziegfeld’s Follies. She will be missed.

Steenshorne’s husband, Brant M. Vogel, was a co-editor at the Jay Papers. He just announced that on Friday, 21 January, from 6:00 to 9:00 P.M. the Jazz Alternatives show on WKCR will play a tribute show to Dr. Jenn Steenshorne. Anyone can tune in at http://wkcr.org.