# Ralph Roeder

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**Ralph Edmund LeClercq Roeder** (April 7, 1890 – October 22, 1969) was an American writer. He wrote the first major work in English on the Mexican President [Benito Juárez](/source/Benito_Ju%C3%A1rez).[1]

## Biography

Ralph Edmund LeClercq Roeder was born in [New York City](/source/New_York_City), a son of German immigrant George Roeder and Ida Carolina LeClercq of [Charleston, South Carolina](/source/Charleston,_South_Carolina). His maternal grandmother was the American composer [Marie Regina Siegling LeClercq](/source/Marie_Siegling).[2][3]

Roeder was educated at [Harvard University](/source/Harvard_University) and at [Columbia University](/source/Columbia_University). In the 1920s he was Rome correspondent for the *[Chicago Daily News](/source/Chicago_Daily_News)*. He contributed articles to *The Arts* and to *Theater Arts Monthly* and had a brief career as an actor on Broadway, playing among other roles, Orestes in [Sophocles](/source/Sophocles)'s *[Electra](/source/Electra_(Sophocles_play))*.[4][5] On December 3, 1929, he married Russian Empire-born [Fania Esiah Mindell](/source/Fania_Mindell) of New York, a theater set and costume designer, artist, and feminist who, together with [Margaret Sanger](/source/Margaret_Sanger) and her sister [Ethel Byrne](/source/Ethel_Byrne), had been a co-defendant in the Brownsville Clinic Trials of 1917.[6][7][8]

Well before meeting Fania, Roeder had shown interest in leftist causes. As a freshly minted college graduate Roeder had traveled to Mexico during the [Revolution](/source/Mexican_Revolution) which began in 1910. He had sided with [Pancho Villa](/source/Pancho_Villa) as a volunteer, and at one point was captured "by Mexican counter-revolutionaries and was stood against a wall to be shot. For some reason the order to fire was not given and he survived."[9] During the 1930s, Roeder researched and wrote three books on Italian history, but by the late 1940s, he again turned his interest to Mexico. During the 1950s, with [McCarthyism](/source/McCarthyism) on the rise at home, the Roeders moved to Mexico City. Here, "Ralph continued work he had begun in New York for the Exiled Writers Committee",[9]

Roeder spent much of his later life as an expatriate in Mexico City, where he wrote and translated works of a mostly historical nature.[10] In addition to Italian, he spoke German and French fluently, and authored books in Spanish.[11]

His 1947 biography of [Benito Juárez](/source/Benito_Ju%C3%A1rez) was reviewed in scholarly journals in the U.S. In *[Hispanic American Historical Review](/source/Hispanic_American_Historical_Review)* historian Walter V. Scholes praises Roeder's book for bringing a major biography of Juárez to an English-language readership, but faults it for its complete lack of scholarly citations, the hallmark of verifiability of information. Scholes also finds Roeder's lack of in-depth coverage of key problems in Mexico during the nineteenth-century and uneven coverage of Juárez's life.[12] A review in *[The Catholic Historical Review](/source/The_Catholic_Historical_Review)* by Robert J. Welch likewise faults Roeder for his lack of citations. "It is almost inconceivable that a full-length treatment, posing as a dependable history of a controversial figure and period, would have completely ignored so fundamental a requirement."[13]

In 1965, Roeder was given Mexico's highest literary award, the [Orden del Águila Azteca](/source/Orden_del_%C3%81guila_Azteca).[4] He died in [Mexico City](/source/Mexico_City) in 1969 of a gunshot wound to the head in an apparent suicide, at the age of 79. Roeder is buried at the city's [Panteón de Dolores](/source/Pante%C3%B3n_de_Dolores).[14]

## Works

- *Savanarola: A Study in Conscience*, Brentano's, New York, 1930.
- *The Man of the Renaissance: Four Lawgivers, Savonarola, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Aretino*, The Viking Press, 1933.
- *Catherine de Medici and the Lost Revolution*, The Viking Press, 1937.
- *Juárez and His México, a Biographical History – Complete in Two Volumes*, The Viking Press, 1947.
- *Hacia el México moderno: Porfirio Diaz*, 1973.

## References

1. Ralph Roeder, *Juárez and His México, a Biographical History – Complete in Two Volumes,* The Viking Press, 1947.

1. Siegling, Marie Regina (1908). *Memoirs of a Dowager* (Siegling Family Papers).

1. Archivegrid, "Memoirs of a Dowager : 1908 Dec. 20 / Mary Regina Siegling LeClercq"

1. "Ralph Roeder", *[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)* obituary, February 21, 1970.

1. ["Electra | IBDB: The official source for Broadway Information"](https://web.archive.org/web/20121104110204/http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=10509). *ibdb.com*. Archived from [the original](http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=10509) on 2012-11-04.

1. New York City, Marriage Indexes 1866–1937

1. *The New York Times*, January 9, 1917.

1. *[The Washington Post](/source/The_Washington_Post)*, February 7, 1917.

1. Folsom, Franklin. *Days of Anger, Days of Hope A Memoir of the League of American Writers, 1937–1942*. Niwot, Colo: University Press of Colorado, 1994. pp. 255–259.

1. Anhalt, Diana (2001). *A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico, 1948–1965*. Santa Maria, CA: Archer Books.

1. García, Ariadna (March 31, 2002). ["Noticia de un exilio"](http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/82583.html) (in Spanish). *El Universal*

1. Scholes, Walter V., "Review of *Juarez and His Mexico* by Ralph Roeder". *Hispanic American Historical Review*, vol. 28, No. 2 (May 1948), pp. 229–230.

1. Welch, Robert J., "Review of *Juárez and His Mexico* by Ralph Roeder". *The Catholic Historical Review*, vol. 34, no. 3 (October 1948), p. 351.

1. Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835–1974. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C.; General Records of the Department of State; Record Group: RG59-Entry 5166; Box Number: 75; Box Description: 1969 RA – SCHR.

## Sources

- Introduction of the book, Ralph Roeder *Juárez y Su México*, second edition.

## External links

- Martín Quirarte, RALPH ROEDER Y SU OBRA PÓSTUMA. [\[1\]](http://www.iih.unam.mx/moderna/ehmc/ehmc05/549.html) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20110929075044/http://www.iih.unam.mx/moderna/ehmc/ehmc05/549.html) September 29, 2011 at the Wayback Machine (A Spanish language biography of Roeder).
- Street in Mexico City named for him: *Calle*: RALPH ROEDER *Colonia*: IZTACCIHUATL. *Delegación/Municipio*: BENITO JUAREZ: *Código Postal*: 3520: *Ciudad*: MEXICO, D.F.

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