Robert Parmet

Robert David Parmet was born on 11 December 1938 in New York City, the son of Isaac Parmet and Fannie (née Scharf). His brother Herbert S. Parmet became a noted historian of American presidents. Robert earned a Bachelor of Arts from the City College of New York in 1960, a Master of Arts from Columbia University in 1961, and a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1966. His doctoral work, directed in the Columbia tradition associated with John A. Garraty and Eric L. McKitrick, examined the 1884 presidential election and the Know-Nothing movement in Connecticut, themes that later shaped his writing on nativism and immigration.

Parmet taught at Newark State College (now Kean University) from 1965 to 1967. In 1967 he joined York College of the City University of New York as a founding, charter faculty member when the college opened. He remained on the York history faculty for fifty-seven years, becoming the longest-serving full-time professor in the institution's history. He retired from full-time teaching in Spring 2025 and indicated that he hoped to continue teaching one course.

His published books include American Nativism, 1830-1860, written with Ira M. Leonard (1971); Labor and Immigration in Industrial America (1981); The Master of Seventh Avenue: David Dubinsky and the American Labor Movement (New York University Press, 2005); and Town and Gown: The Fight for Social Justice, Urban Rebirth, and Higher Education (2011), a history of York's founding and its relationship to Jamaica, Queens. Across that shelf he treated immigration restriction, industrial labour, and urban higher education as connected strands of modern American history.

Parmet married Joan Levy in 1963. They had a son, Andrew. Outside the archive and the classroom he remained closely identified with York College's Queens community. Colleagues and students described a professor who kept long office hours and who saw the college's urban mission as part of the history he taught. His brother Herbert's parallel career as a presidential biographer placed the Parmet name on two generations of American historical writing.

Robert Parmet died on 6 November 2026 at the age of 87. A Dignity Memorial obituary associated with Great Neck, New York, announced his death. No medical cause of death was stated in public notices available at the time of writing.

Parmet's legacy rests on two intertwined achievements: a scholarly record that clarified American nativism, immigration, and labour, including a major biography of David Dubinsky, and an unmatched span of teaching at York College from its first year through 2025. Town and Gown preserved the institutional memory of a CUNY campus born in Jamaica, Queens. For alumni he embodied the founding faculty generation that built York's history department. His retirement coverage by York College media framed him as the college's longest-serving professor and as a living link to 1967.