Oral history interview with Luther S. Cressman

Collection

Identifier: SR 11348

Staff Only

Oral history interview with Luther S. Cressman

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Scope and Contents

This oral history interview with Luther S. Cressman was conducted by Rick Harmon at Cressman’s home in Eugene, Oregon, on July 31, 1987, as part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library’s oral history program.

In this interview, Cressman talks about the background of the Museum of Natural History at the University of Oregon in Eugene (now the Museum of Natural and Cultural History) while looking at photographs of the building. He then looks at photographs of archaeological digs he participated in, and talks about them.

Dates

Creation: 1987 July 31

Creator

Cressman, Luther S., 1897-1994 (Interviewee, Person)
Harmon, Rick (Interviewer, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and the estate of Luther S. Cressman. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Non-Commercial Use Permitted, https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/

Biographical note

Luther Sheeleigh Cressman was born near Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in 1897. He was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1923, and earned a Ph.D. in sociology and anthropology from Columbia University in New York in 1928. That same year, he left the priesthood. In 1929, he became a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon in Eugene. Six years later, he helped to found the school’s Department of Anthropology, and he served as chair of the department until he retired in 1963. He also directed the University of Oregon Museum of Natural History (now the Museum of Natural and Cultural History) in its early years. His autobiography, “A Golden Journey: Memoirs of an Archaeologist” was awarded the Oregon Book Award for literary nonfiction in 1989.

Cressman married Margaret Mead in 1923, but the couple divorced in 1927. The next year, he remarried, to Dorothy Cecelia Loch, with whom he had one child. Cressman died in 1994.

Sources: Vital records in Ancestry.com; Cressman’s obituary in the Eugene Register-Guard, April 13, 1994, "Luther Cressman," by Virginia Butler, Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/cressman_luther_1897_1994_/

Extent

0.1 Cubic Feet (1 audiocassette (32 min., 49 sec.))

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Oral history interview with Luther S. Cressman conducted by Rick Harmon on July 31, 1987. Cressman, who helped to found of the University of Oregon Department of Anthropology and served as its longtime chair, talks about the background of the Museum of Natural History at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and talks about archaeological digs he participated in.