In 1951 at Harvard	As a professor at Case (Click to enlarge) Photo by permission of and property of Case Western Reserve University Archives

Robert H. Welker
Robert H. Welker (1917-1991) played the role of "English Major" and also played guitar in all three performances. At the time of the show, he was a graduate student in history.

Welker was an undergraduate at Franklin and Marshall College, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1940. During WWII, "he served with the U.S. Army Expeditionary Forces in North Africa and Italy and participated in the Naples-Foggia and Rome-Arno campaigns."¹ He was awarded the Bronze Star. He compiled several volumes of photo history of U.S. Army supply operations in the Mediterranean.

He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1953, and soon began teaching and research at Case Institute of Technology, which later became Case Western University. He continued work at Case until his retirement.

He "was a nationally recognized authority on birds and their role in history".¹ He wrote a well-received book, "Birds and Men: American Birds in Science, Art, Literature and Conservation" (1955) on the subject, based in part on his Ph.D. thesis work. He also wrote a widely-known autobiography, "A Different Drummer" (1958), and a biography of the naturalist William Beebe (1975).

He was active in the civil rights movements and peace movements of the 50s and 60s. In 1968, he conducted a series of twenty-two weekly radio programs, "Peace Line", with 15 minute commentaries each week. He was one of the sponsors of the Convocation on the Threat of Nuclear War in 1981.

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References:
1 - Newspaper obituary (name of newspaper unknown), December 1, 1991.

Background image: Covers for Tom Lehrer's albums