Description
This collection contains the papers of Frederick Oskar Martin, a German who moved to the United States in 1891 and worked
as a mining engineer and geologist for a variety of employers over the course of his career. He spent a year working on the
Panama Canal and explored the holdings of Union Oil of California in Panama and Colombia in the 1920s. His papers include
mining reports, correspondence with his fiancé and brother in the late 1890s, and scrapbooks of his travels in South and Central
America.
Background
F. O. (Frederick Oskar) Martin was born in Mittweida, Germany in 1871. He came to the United States in 1891 after spending
several years at sea. Upon his arrival in the US, he worked as a mining engineer and geologist in the mines of Alaska, California,
Idaho, and Montana. He studied at George Washington University from 1900-02, worked for the US Departments of Agriculture
(1901-05) and Interior (1909-19), and also spent a year working on the Panama Canal. He married his wife, Agnes Elisabeth
Riese, in Missoula, Montana, in 1908. They had three daughters, Anna Elisabeth, Fritzi, and Margaret (who married Charles
Calvin Hamer).
Restrictions
The collection contains published materials; researchers are reminded of the copyright restrictions imposed by publishers
on reusing their articles and parts of books. It is the responsibility of researchers to acquire permission from publishers
when reusing such materials. The copyright to unpublished materials belongs to the heirs of the writers. Permission to publish,
quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.