William Ernst Winter (1899-1966) was a San Jose businessman with a voracious interest in Maya culture and the Mayan calendar. Winter studied Maya archaeology from at least 1932 until 1961, and created an entire library of hand-drawn glyphs. This collection from 1935 until about 1961 contains all of Winter's research on Maya culture and archaeology, and includes notecards and paper slips with hand-drawn symbols in black and colored pencils, dictionary notes, calendrical and planetary calculations, and newspaper clippings.

William Ernst Winter was born 1899 December 17 in Blue Rapids, Kansas. After high school, Winter attended United States Military Academy at West Point, followed by a year as a U. S. Army Second Lieutenant of Infantry at Camp Meade, Maryland. Winter resigned from the military in January 1924, moved to Wyoming, and then settled in Northern California by the end of the year. Winter attended Stanford University from 1925-1926 as a journalism student, then pursued work as a statistician in the Bay Area. He married Katherine Mary Steiner in 1932, and the two lived in San Jose until about 1961. Winter passed away in Palm Springs in October of 1966.

2.5 Linear Feet (4 boxes)

Copyright has not been assigned to the Autry Museum of the American West. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Research Services and Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Autry Museum of the American West as the custodian of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Appointments to view materials are required. To make an appointment please visit https://theautry.org/research-collections/library-and-archives and fill out the Researcher Application Form.