Fred Bateman Obituary

Professor J. Fred Bateman, 74, passed away on Monday, January 10, 2012 at his home in Athens, GA. He was born in Bogalusa, LA. Bateman was the Nicholas A. Beadles Professor in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia. He moved to Georgia to become department head in 1991 after a long and productive career at Indiana University that began in 1964.

Bateman received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Tulane University, and an M.A. from the University of North Carolina. He spent two years as a research associate at Harvard University before taking his first academic position in the School of Business at Indiana University. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1969, Professor in 1975, and added the position of Adjunct Professor of History in 1989. While at Indiana, he served as chairman of the Department of Business Economics and Public Policy from 1970-72 and 1980-88, and of the Graduate School of Business Doctoral Program from 1977-80. He also held visiting positions at the London School of Economics, Purdue University, the University of Lujubjana in Yugoslavia, and De Pauw University. He was the Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of the South in 1980.

Bateman was the author of two books and more than 50 scholarly articles. He edited two other volumes. He was an expert in agricultural history and manufacturing in 19th century America, and a valued co-author. His most frequent collaborators were Jeremy Atack, with whom he authored more than two dozen articles, and Tom Weiss. He also published works on such diverse topics as the economic impact studies of the Pan American Games and Indianapolis conventions.

He was interested in archival work and created several original databases that have been used by numerous scholars, including the panel database of American Agriculture. With James Foust he created the Agricultural and Demographic Records of 21,000 rural households from the 1860 census. With Foust and Tom Weiss he constructed a sample of U.S. Manufacturing Firms from 1850-1870, and with Jeremy Atack he constructed a sample of U.S. Manufacturing in 1880 and a matched sample of rural households in 1880.

He was the frequent recipient of grants and prizes for his research and teaching prowess. He received seven NSF grants and two research awards: the1986 All-University Outstanding Faculty Award from Indiana University, and the Kamerschen-Hampden Excellence in Research Award from the University of Georgia in 2002. In 1988 To Their Own Soil, coauthored with Jeremy Atack, was named the Outstanding Academic Book for 1987-88 by Choice Magazine. It also received the Theodore Saloutos Prize as the best book in agricultural history. In 1975 he was awarded the Arthur H. Cole Prize for the best article published in the Journal of Economic History. He was a five time winner of teaching excellence prizes at Indiana, and a two-time winner of the George P. Swift Award for outstanding undergraduate teaching at the University of Georgia.

Bateman was generous with his time. He mentored numerous graduate students, served on the editorial board of nine journals over the course of his career, and donated much time to university and professional service. Among his many committee positions were the presidency of the Business History Conference in 1982-83, and the Chair of program committees for The Business History Conference, The Economic History Association, and the Cliometric Society Conference.

Most recently, he was honored by the Cliometric Society for his lifetime research achievements. In the fall of 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the Cliometric Society. He will be inducted posthumously at the annual meeting of the Cliometric Society in May of this year.