Curtis Roseman, a specialist in population geography and human migration, dies at 79

Curtis Roseman, Emeritus Professor of Geography at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, died Dec. 13, 2020, from a brain injury resulting from a fall at his home. He died in hospital at UnityPoint Health – Trinity Rock Island in Rock Island, Illinois. He was 79.

A specialist in population geography, Roseman researched the migration and settlement of ethnic populations, especially within the United States. He held a special interest in the way ties between people and places affected decisions about migration. He had secondary research interests in the historical geography of the Upper Mississippi River, downtown Los Angeles and the neighborhood around USC’s University Park campus.

John Wilson, professor of sociology, spatial sciences, civil and environmental engineering, computer science, architecture and preventive medicine, and founding director of the Spatial Sciences Institute, first met Roseman shortly after joining USC Dornsife in 1997.

“Curt was a marvelous colleague and mentor as I navigated those first few years, and the university lost a charismatic and thoughtful scholar when he retired in 2004 and moved back to Moline, Illinois,” Wilson said. “He was a wonderful scholar and ambassador for the USC Dornsife Geography Department given the ways his work and classes considered geography and history as fundamental building blocks for the social sciences and the humanities and for the bridges he built with colleagues in the USC Libraries.”

From soda jerk to geographer

Roseman was born Feb. 3, 1941, on the Mississippi River in Moline, Illinois, the son of Clifford and Dorothy Roseman. His father managed the College Drug and Soda Fountain, later College Sundries, in nearby Rock Island. His mother, a homemaker, was also employed there, while an adolescent Curtis Roseman worked as a “soda jerk.” His father was also an employee of Rock Island County until he retired.

In his teens, Roseman became an amateur radio operator. A fondness for maps along with this new-found ability to talk to people around the world fostered his early interest in geography. And growing up on the Mississippi sparked a lifelong passion for the river, particularly its bridges.

After graduating from Moline High School in 1959, Roseman earned a bachelor’s degree in geography from Augustana College in Rock Island in 1963, a master’s degree from Southern Illinois University in 1965 and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1969.

Roseman held academic appointments at the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Kansas and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also made two six-month stops in New Zealand, first as a visiting professor at the University of Auckland in 1984 and then as a visiting scholar at the University of Canterbury in 1989.

In 1985, Roseman joined USC Dornsife, serving as chair of the Department of Geography, which has since closed, from 1985 to 1992. He was a faculty associate at USC’s Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies from 1992 to 1997 and at USC’s Population Research Laboratory from 1985 until he retired in 2004. He was also a member of the Association of American Geographers and the Population Association of America.

At USC Dornsife, he supervised the dissertation research for 15 Ph.D. students and was a respected instructor at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He also served as an advisor to the USC Office of Civic and Community Relations on various projects serving the USC neighborhood.

The recipient of a 1989 Fulbright Fellowship for research in New Zealand, Roseman’s numerous other honors and awards included a Distinguished Scholar Award from the Ethnic Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of American Geographers, the USC Community Service Award and the USC Faculty Volunteer Good Neighbor Award.

“A flâneur at heart”

Roseman’s wife Elizabeth Mercer Roseman said her husband loved to explore big cities. Joining USC Dornsife meant that, “now he lived in one, and L.A. became his ‘lab’ for teaching and research. He especially enjoyed teaching his L.A. class and sharing his enthusiasm for the city.”

Starting in 1986, Roseman conducted walking tours of downtown L.A. — continuing even after he retired — taking people to the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, the Central Library, the Bradbury Building, historic Broadway theatres, Angel’s Flight and Grand Central Market.

In 1996, he pioneered the Department of Geography’s “Downtown L.A. Walking Tour,” a website featuring contemporary and historic photographs and detailed descriptions of 80 buildings, historic landmarks, parks and other points of interest in the 5-square-mile area.

Roseman hoped the digital walking tour would inspire tourists, suburbanites and office workers to explore the area bordered by Chinatown on the north, the Los Angeles Convention Center on the south, the Pacific Stock Exchange on the west and Union Station on the east.

A prolific writer in both academic and public spheres, Roseman edited or wrote nine academic books and eight popular and local history books, along with numerous articles. Among his books were several about USC and L.A. that he wrote in collaboration with students and with staff from USC Libraries. They included The Historic Core of Los Angeles(Arcadia Press, 2004); A University and A Neighborhood: University of Southern California in Los Angeles, 1880-1984(Figueroa Press, 2006); Historic Hotels of Los Angeles and Hollywood (Arcadia Press, 2008) and Los Angeles in World War II (Arcadia Press, 2011).

Ruth Wallach, associate dean for public services, USC Libraries, collaborated with Roseman on all four books.

“In group projects, he had the rare ability to galvanize research ideas while also nurturing others’ leadership skills,” she wrote. “He was a great mentor. He knew a lot about Los Angeles, and his peripatetic walking tours of downtown were fun and informative (and full of humor). I think he was a flâneur at heart.”

University archivist Claude Zachary also collaborated with Roseman on three books.

“Curt was a passionate urbanist, and the most supportive and encouraging of colleagues as a collaborator on two books documenting USC and Los Angeles architectural history,” Zachary said. “He not only loved writing about Los Angeles, but also loved inhabiting and walking the streets of DTLA and sharing his knowledge in a lighthearted way.”

Roseman was a USC basketball and L.A. Clippers fan. He rarely missed his own noon basketball or racquetball games, which also enabled him to meet faculty and staff from other departments.

He was also a transportation enthusiast, riding the Blue, Red and Green Metro Lines the first day they opened, often commuting to USC by bus and using a bicycle to get around campus.

He also was a member of the USC Amateur Radio Club and participated in many radio contests from the club’s station on top of Vivian Hall.

“Half the digits and twice the kicks”

Upon retiring from USC Dornsife, Roseman and his wife, Elizabeth, moved back to his hometown of Moline, taking up residence in his childhood home, built by his maternal grandfather. Using business records and other resources his mother had saved, along with additional research, Roseman wrote Building the American Dream: A Swedish Immigrant Carpenter, Contractor, and Family in Moline, Illinois (Heritage Documentaries Inc., 2012) about his grandfather who built 80 homes in the area.

Roseman gave popular walking tours of Moline and became a regular at Dead Poet’s Espresso coffee house. Known for his dry sense of humor, Roseman continued to enjoy traveling and exploring new places, riding his bike and playing racquetball at the YMCA.

One of his many passions was traveling Historic Route 6, crisscrossing America, photographing and documenting the highway’s constantly changing story.

In 2013, the Rosemans were interviewed for the award-winning 2015 documentary, River to River: Iowa’s Forgotten Highway 6. The couple spoke on camera about their research, experiences and the huge archive of Route 6 maps, postcards, photos and memorabilia they had collected during years of driving the 3,662-mile transcontinental highway. Comparing his beloved Highway 6 to the iconic Route 66, Roseman coined the phrase, “Half the digits and twice the kicks.”

Roseman also collaborated with a cartography class at Augustana College to create an interactive website dedicated to collecting and compiling information on Historic Highway 6, its roadside landscapes and its regional and historical contexts. Along with Kevin Patrick, the Rosemans published a book: Route 6 in Pennsylvania (Arcadia Press, 2017).

Roseman’s last book, Historic Bridges of the Quad Cities Area (Heritage Documentaries, 2019), explored the stories of a diverse set of Illinois bridges that cross both the Mississippi and Rock rivers.

In 1966, Roseman married Joanne Darras, with whom he had a daughter, before separating in 1972. He then married Elizabeth Mercer in 1974, in Champaign, Illinois. They had two sons.

Roseman is survived by Elizabeth; their children, Charles and Eric; his daughter from his first marriage, Suzanne; his siblings, Cynthia and James; three grandsons, Tyler, Chad and Shane; and one great-grandson, Elijah.