Oral history interview with Lewis L. McArthur

Collection

Identifier: SR 2955

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This oral history interview with Lewis L. McArthur was conducted by an unidentified person at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Oregon, on October 4, 1999. In this interview, McArthur discusses his family background. He speaks at length about the history of colonization in Oregon, about conflicts between colonizers and Native people, and about how that history is reflected in Oregon place names. He talks about the treatment of Native people by the United States government, discusses place names that include a derogatory term used to describe Native women, and describes the Oregon Geographic Names Board’s process for changing place names. He closes the interview by discussing resources at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library on the history of geographic names, and by talking about Oregon’s place name signage.

Dates

1999 October 4

Creator

McArthur, Lewis L. (Interviewee, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Biographical note

Lewis Linn McArthur was born in 1917 in Portland, Oregon. He studied economics at the University of California at Berkeley, and served in the U.S. Army in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. After the war, he worked for 40 years as an industrial engineer for the Ray F. Becker Company.

McArthur's father, Lewis A. McArthur, was the author of Oregon Geographic Names in 1928. Though Lewis L. McArthur was not formally trained as a historian, he was most well known for continuing his father's work in studying and compiling the history of place names in Oregon. He served on the Oregon Geographic Names Board from 1958 to 2006, and between 1974 and 2003, he published the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh editions of Oregon Geographic Names. McArthur also served on the state historic preservation committee and the Historic Columbia River Highway State Advisory Committee.

McArthur and Joyce Abigail Clark of Eugene, Oregon, married in 1946. The couple had four children: Lewis, Mary, Sarah, and Susan. Lewis L. McArthur died in 2018 at the age of 101.

Extent

0.1 Cubic Feet (1 audiocassette (45 min., 47 sec.))

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Oral history interview with Lewis L. McArthur conducted by an unidentified person on October 4, 1999. In this interview, McArthur discusses place names in Oregon and their relationship to Oregon's colonial history.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gift of Lewis L. McArthur, April 2001 (Lib. Acc. 24424).

Existence and Location of Copies

Audio available online in OHS Digital Collections.

Related Materials

Lewis L. McArthur's papers, Coll 854, and several additional sound recordings, SR 62, SR 2526, SR 2608, SR 2956, SR 2957, SR 9469, and SR 11092, are also available at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library.