Foster, Mark S. 1939- (Mark Stewart Foster)

PERSONAL:

Born May 2, 1939, in Evanston, IL; son of Winfield (in business) and Jeannette Foster; married Judith Marie Buck, June 17, 1967 (divorced January 3, 1979); married Rickey Lynn Hendricks, 1982 (marriage ended); married Laurie Maxwell, January 17, 1998. Ethnicity: "Anglo." Education: Brown University, A.B., 1961; University of Southern California, M.A., 1968, Ph.D., 1971. Hobbies and other interests: "Vintage baseball," weightlifting.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Denver, CO.

CAREER:

History teacher at school in Claremont, CA, 1964-66; University of Missouri, St. Louis, visiting assistant professor of history, 1971-72; University of Colorado, Denver, assistant professor, 1972-76, associate professor, 1976-81, professor of history, beginning 1981, now professor emeritus, director of urban studies, 1975-77, department chair, 1976-77 and 1990-92. Military service: Air National Guard Reserve, 1961-67.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, American Society of Baseball Researchers, Phi Alpha Theta.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grants from Ford Motor Company Fund, 1977-78, Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, 1979, Harry S. Truman Library, 1982, Kaiser Family Foundation, 1983, and Porter Hospital Foundation, 1990; University of Colorado, Denver, named researcher of the year, 2001, university medal, 2007.

WRITINGS:

(With Frederick S. Allen, Ernest Andrade, Jr., and others) The University of Colorado, 1876-1976, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1976.

From Streetcar to Superhighway: American City Planners and Urban Transportation, 1900-1940, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1981.

The Denver Bears: From Sandlots to Sellouts, Pruett (Boulder, CO), 1983.

Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1989.

Henry M. Porter: Rocky Mountain Empire Builder, University Press of Colorado (Niwot, CO), 1991.

(With Irvin Moss) Home Run in the Rockies: The History of Baseball in Colorado, Hirschfeld Press (Denver, CO), 1994.

(With Rickey L. Hendricks) For a Child's Sake: History of the Children's Hospital, Denver, Colorado, 1910-1990, University Press of Colorado (Niwot, CO), 1994.

(With Duane A. Smith) They Came to Play: A Photographic History of Colorado Baseball, University Press of Colorado (Niwot, CO), 1997.

Castles in the Sand: The Life and Times of Carl Graham Fisher, University Press of Florida (Gainesville, FL), 2000.

Nation on Wheels: The Automobile Culture in America Since 1945, Thomson Wadsworth (Belmont, CA), 2003.

Citizen Quigg: A Mayor's Life of Civic Service, Fulcrum Press (Golden, CO), 2006.

Coeditor of "Technology and Urban Growth" series, Temple University Press, 1979—. Contributor of about sixty articles and reviews to history magazines.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mark S. Foster once wrote: "Having partly repaid my dues to the historical profession in the form of numerous scholarly books and articles, I am now concentrating more on the general field of popular or literary history. The more enjoyable a book is to research and write, the more enjoyable it will be for the reader.

"My primary motivation for writing is curiosity about topics I choose. I thoroughly enjoy the writing process, from the initial searches for information in secondary sources, through the digging into primary sources, including both rough drafts and final polishing.

"The way I choose topics to write about is serendipitous. When I am nearing the completion of one book, I start thinking about possible subjects for my next book. Exactly what influences my selection of one topic as opposed to another is impossible to identify precisely, but I am attracted to topics which have attracted little or no attention previously."