Dr. Klein (1917-2004) wrote his own obituary several years before his death at age 82:
MILTON M. KLEIN retired professor of history and former University of Tennessee Historian died (today, yesterday) at (home, hospital) from (heart failure, etc.). He was 82. Klein came to the University of Tennessee in 1969 after having served as Dean of Graduate Studies at the State University of New York at Fredonia since 1966 and as chairman of the Department of History and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Long Island University from 1958 to 1966. In 1962 he spent the academic year at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, as visiting Fulbright professor, and in 1976-77, he was the Walter E. Meyer Visiting Professor at the New York University School of Law.
A specialist in early American history and American legal history, Klein published numerous articles and books on those subjects. One of his principal publications was his editorship, with Professor Jacob E. Cooke of Lafayette College, of a thirteen-volume History of the American Colonies , which has been a standard work since its appearance. He also collaborated with Cooke in producing a four-volume encyclopedia, North America in Colonial Times , which was published in 1998.
A native of New York City, he received his undergraduate education at the City College of New York, where he also received a master's degree. His doctorate was earned at Columbia University. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Forces and remained in the Air Force Reserve until his retirement with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
At UT, he received an Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award in 1974, was named an Alumni Distinguished Service Professor in 1977, and a Lindsay Young Professor in 1980. He also earned two Chancellor's Citations for Extraordinary Service, in 1988 and 1998. After his retirement from active teaching in 1984, he was named the University's first official Historian and retained that position until the office was abolished for budgetary reasons in 1997. In that capacity, he gave numerous lectures on the history of the University to student groups, civic organizations, and alumni chapters around the country. He wrote a series of 'Historical Vignettes' about the University for the Chancellor's newsletter, and for the Bicentennial of the University in 1974, he assembled a number of these and published them in book form as Volunteer Moments: Vignettes of the History of the University of Tennessee, 1794-1994 . A second edition appeared in 1996.
During the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, he served as chairman of the Knoxville-Knox County committee that oversaw the celebration of that event in the Knoxville area. The committee's extensive activities drew praise from the national chairman, Chief Justice Warren Burger, who called it one of the most active local committees in the country. For this service, the committee expressed its appreciation by planting a tree in Klein's honor in the garden of the Knox County Building. Klein also served as chairman of the University of Tennessee's Committee on the Bicentennial of the U. S. Constitution and numerous campus events to celebrate the years from 1787 to 1991, ending with the commemoration of the adoption of the U.S. Bill of Rights.
Klein was active in leadership positions in a number of campus, professional, and civic organizations. He was president of the UTK chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the UTK chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the UT Faculty Club, and the UT Retirees Association. He was also president of the East Tennessee Chapter of The Retired Officers Association, the East Tennessee Chapter of the City College Alumni Association, the American Society for Legal History, and the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. In 1975-76, he served as chairman of the steering committee of the Tennessee Bill of Rights Project, and from 1987 to 1988, he was chairman of the Tennessee Humanities Council. He was a member of a number of national honor societies, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Phi Alpha Theta. For over twenty-five years, he was a member of the editorial board of New York History , the scholarly journal published by the New York State Historical Association. A frequent contributor to that publication, he won the Kerr Prize twice for the best article appearing in that journal. He also won the Article Prize of the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies in 1976 for the best article appearing in any journal that year on an eighteenth-century subject. In 1988, the Society Daughters of Colonial Wars in Tennessee gave him its outstanding teaching award, and in 1997, the Tennessee State Conference of the American Association of University Professors gave him the Philander Claxton Award for Outstanding Service to Higher Education in Tennessee.
He leaves his wife, the former Margaret Gordon, an attorney in Knoxville, two sons, Edward, of San Francisco, and Peter, of Athens, Georgia, as well as a daughter-in law, Sandra, and a grandson, Cole. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Klein Lecture Endowment at the University of Tennessee.
