Dates

• Existence: 1905 - 1986

Biography

John Francis Bannon was a Jesuit priest and prominent History professor at Saint Louis University (1939-1973), where he chaired the Department of History for 28 years. His academic research focused on the Spanish borderlands of North America, Jesuits as pioneers during the westward expansion of the U.S., colonial Latin America, and local St. Louis history. He writings and memoirs also provide insight on SLU's history, the Department of History at the University, and the status of the local Jesuit community. He retired in 1973 after 34 years at Saint Louis University and passed away on June 5, 1986.

Bannon was born in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1905 to William Joseph and Clara Shortle Bannon. His brother James Bannon grew up to become an actor playing the role of Western hero Red Ryder on television. Jack Bannon was raised in Kansas City, Missouri, and attended Rockhurst High School, graduating in 1922. Two years later he entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri. From 1926 to 1929 he studied at Maison Saint Louis on Jersey, the Channel Islands, United Kingdom, the philosophate of the Paris Province of the Society. He took theology at St. Mary's College in Kansas and was ordained in June 1935. Meanwhile, he had earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy from Saint Louis University in 1928 and his master's degree in philosophy and history the next year. His thesis was entitled "A Philosophy of Medieval Art."

As a scholastic he taught history, French, and Spanish at St. Mary's College High School in St. Mary's, Kansas from 1929 to 1930, and French and Spanish at the college itself from 1930 until it closed the following year. He moved on to Regis College in Denver, Colorado, teaching the same languages during 1931 and 1932. In the summer of 1936 he taught history at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and between 1937 and 1939, he studied history and anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. His mentor was the renowned scholar of the Spanish borderlands Herbert E. Bolton, who earlier in the decade had sought graduate students to work on documenting Jesuit missionary activities in colonial Mexico. Bannon responded to the request and completed his doctorate with a dissertation on Jesuit missionary efforts in Sonora after Kino.

After teaching history for the summer at the University of San Francisco, Bannon began his 34 year association with the History Department of Saint Louis University in the fall of 1939. In 1943, he was appointed chairman of the department, a position he held for 28 years. He retired in 1973 as professor emeritus. During his career, he often accepted visiting professorships elsewhere, preferring to go west where he could more easily pursue his research. He taught at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of New Mexico, and Utah State University, among others. After retirement, although he spent one semester at Marquette University in 1974 and another at the University of Colorado, he dedicated himself to writing. He also served as archivist for Saint Louis University.

Bannon was the author of twelve books, including a biography of Bolton and several classroom texts, and was a recognized authority on the early trans-Mississippi West and colonial Latin America. Like Bolton, he regarded the histories of North and South America as inseparable parts of the story of the hemisphere as a whole. He co-founded the Western Historical Association and served as its president from 1965 to 1966. He was on the board of editors of the "Hispanic-American Historical Review" and on the executive council of the American Catholic Historical Association. He served as program chairman of the Mississippi Valley Historical Society four times and hosted the St. Louis meeting in 1955. That same year he was chairman of the Conference on Latin-American History of the American Historical Association. He edited the "Historical Bulletin" between 1943 and 1950 and was advisory editor for "Manuscripta" from 1957, when it appeared as a new publication of Pius XII Memorial Library at Saint Louis University, until his death.

In the 1950s, Bannon broadcast more than 100 television programs about the American West and Latin America on KETC-TV, Channel 9 as well as on the national educational television network (ETV). In 1958 and 1959 he hosted a popular 30-part lecture series about the first 100 years of St. Louis history on KMOX-TV, Channel 4. Several of his shows carried college credit from Saint Louis University.

In his later years, he was disturbed by what seemed to him the declining influence of the Society of Jesus in the educational institutions which bear its name. Bannon's sharp criticisms permeate his two volumes of memoirs. Although known for his caustic and acerbic personality, Bannon was a popular educator who mentored numerous students and developed an extensive network of former students teaching in both Catholic and secular universities, colleges, and high schools across the country. Bannon received the Alumni Merit Award in 1978, and in 1984 Genevieve "Genie" B. Janes established a fund in the History Department that was developed into the John F. Bannon, S. J. Endowed Chair of History. In 1982, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, a number of Bannon's former students presented a session in his honor that gave rise to the festschrift entitled "From the Mississippi to the Pacific: Essays in Honor of John Francis Bannon." Father Bannon died on June 5, 1986 after a long battle with emphysema.

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