John F. Sears

John Sears’s special interests include landscape history as well as the lives and times of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Sears served as executive director of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute from 1986 until 1999 and as associate editor of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers from 2000–2007. The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers: Vol. I appeared in 2007. Before joining the Roosevelt Institute, he taught at Tufts, Boston University, and Vassar.

Sears divides his time between Northampton, MA and Hawley, a hilltown in Western Massachusetts where his paternal ancestors settled in the late 1700s. He grows trees and produces maple syrup on the land he owns. As a board member of the Sons & Daughters of Hawley, the town’s historical society, he helped create Hawley’s Old Town Common historic site. Sears served on the Hawley selectboard from 2013 until 2017. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Disability History Museum.