In Memoriam: Susan Jane Goldsmith Tolchin, 1941-2016

Susan Tolchin, a political scientist, educator, and author who taught for 16 years at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, died on May 18 at her home in Washington, D.C. She was 75 years old and had suffered from ovarian cancer.

Dr. Tolchin was a native of Brooklyn, New York. She was an alumna of Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Professor Tolchin earned a master’s degree at the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in political science at New York University. Before joining the faculty at George Mason University, she taught at the now-closed Mount Vernon College in Virginia and George Washington University in the nation’s capital.

Dr. Tolchin collaborated with her husband Martin, a correspondent for The New York Times and a founder of the Politico website, on eight books including To the Victor: Political Patronage From the Club House to the White House (Random House, 1971) and a follow-up entitled Pinstripe Patronage: Political Favoritism from the Clubhouse to the White House and Beyond (Routledge, 2010). Professor Tolchin also authored two books on her own, including The Angry American: How Voter Rage Is Changing the Nation (Westview Press, 1996).