Archives West Finding Aid

Giovanni Marie Denis George Costigan was a history professor at the University of Washington, a staunch defender of human rights, and a leader in the peace movement.

He was born February 15, 1905 in England. His father was a poor Irish Catholic peasant farmer, the youngest child of 12, who married the daughter of his wealthy Anglo-Irish landlord. Costigan’s mother was the youngest daughter of a Protestant family, the Warrens, that had lived in Ireland for 300 years. Costigan’s parents eloped to England and settled in Brighton, assuming a middle-class life style. Giovanni was the youngest of their three children. Giovanni’s father died when he was 11. Costigan was educated at a Catholic boarding school in Sussex and at Oxford University. At the age of 22 he came to the U.S. for graduate study at the University of Wisconsin. After completing his doctorate in history in 1930, he spent the next four years teaching at the University of Idaho’s southern branch in Pocatello. While there he met and, in 1931, married Amne Johnson. During World War II Costigan served as an information officer in the U.S. Air Corps. He taught Irish and English history at the University of Washington beginning in 1934, became a full professor in 1948 and retired in 1975. In retirement, he continued to lecture and was a popular speaker until his death in 1990. Amne Costigan died in 1995.

A staunch defender of human rights and leader in the peace movement, Costigan was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam war and U.S. involvement in Central America. His books include Sir Robert Wilson: A Soldier of Fortune in the Napoleonic Wars , Sigmund Freud: A Short Biography , Makers of Modern England: The Force of Individual Genius in History and History of Modern Ireland: With a Sketch of Earlier Times.