Many local historians knew this about John Carter: He was almost always more excited about your research topic than you were.
That’s just the way it was with the longtime Lincoln historian, who never felt history should be confined to books and dusty libraries. Carter considered history as relevant as current events and was always willing to talk with others about the past.
And boy could he talk.
“It was impossible to talk to him about most any subject related to Nebraska history that he wasn’t totally fascinated by,” said Lynne Ireland, deputy director of the Nebraska State Historical Society. “He could talk to anyone and always manage to elicit their stories at the same time he imparted his huge base of knowledge to people.”
Carter died Thursday of cancer. He was 64.
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He most recently served as senior research folklorist and associate editor for the State Historical Society, an institution for which he worked for almost 40 years. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Nebraska Wesleyan University and a Master of Arts in American folk culture from the State University of New York.
He wrote the 1985 book “Solomon D. Butcher: Photographing the American Dream” and co-authored the 1991 book “Eyewitness at Wounded Knee” along with Richard Jensen and R. Eli Paul. Carter also served as a scholarly consultant for many documentary films, including several produced by filmmaker Ken Burns.
He was the principal researcher for the documentary “Beef State,” produced by the Nebraska State Historical Society and Nebraska Educational Telecommunications.
But he was perhaps best known for his ability to talk.
“He was our most popular public speaker,” said Mike Smith, CEO of the State Historical Society. “He did have a tremendous amount of knowledge and the ability to transmit that to a wide variety of audiences.”
Carter never acted as though he knew more than his audience, even though he nearly always did, Smith said. He would speak to an audience of professional historians the same way he would to an audience of people who knew little about his subject matter.
“You sort of got his A game whether he was up in front of a crowd at a big event or he was standing outside with a few people waiting to get into a restaurant,” said Kevin Bower, director of historical studies for Nebraska Wesleyan University and a longtime friend.
Bower met Carter on a bus taking teachers from Lincoln to a powwow in Winnebago in July 2005. Carter explained to the teachers what a powwow was and who the Winnebago people were.
Later, Bower would share Carter’s explanation of Native history and culture with other educators.
“This was a person who was a historian, a storyteller and an educator through and through,” Bower said. “What he did was a calling, not just a job.”
Ed Zimmer, city historic preservation planner, worked with Carter to create an exhibit of photographs of Lincoln’s early black community by the late John Johnson. The exhibit eventually appeared at the Museum of Nebraska History, but it couldn’t have happened without Carter’s initial enthusiasm, Zimmer said.
The exhibit got its start when Zimmer’s former intern learned about glass plate negatives of Johnson's photography owned by a former Lincoln man. Zimmer passed the lead on to Carter, who worked to gain permission to show the photos at the museum.
“He was just smitten from that day with the beauty of these photos,” Zimmer said.
On Aug. 18, Zimmer will once again share the story of how he and Carter uncovered Johnson’s work documenting the lives of Lincoln’s early black community at a Malone Community Center symposium.
“The ripples for dropping John in the pond will continue for a very long time,” he said.