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The David Lavender - Fort Laramie Collection, [ca. 1970s - 1980s].
Wyles Mss 3LOCAL
Collection Overview
Title:
The David Lavender - Fort Laramie Collection, [ca. 1970s - 1980s]Creator/Contributor:
Lavender, David, 1910-2003, creatorCreator/Contributor:
Online Archive of CaliforniaAbstract:
The collection includes research files used in writing "Fort Laramie and the Changing Frontier (Official National Park Handbook,
1983), correspondence, diaries, and treaties.
Date:
1970 (issued)Subject:
n-us-wyFort Laramie (Wyo. : Fort) -- History -- Sources
Fort Laramie National Historic Site (Wyo.)
Fort Laramie (Wyom. : Fort) -- Histoire -- Sources
Fort Laramie National Historic Site (Wyom.)
Wyoming -- Fort Laramie (Fort)
Wyoming -- Fort Laramie National Historic Site
Lavender, David -- 1910-2003 -- Archives
Lavender, David -- 1910-2003
Note:
Use of the collection is unrestricted.
Gift of David Lavender, ca. 1983.
Use governed by UCSB Special Collections' policy.
Finding aid available in the Department of Special Collections.
David Lavender, teacher, cowboy, and historian of the West, was born in Telluride, Colorado on February 4, 1910. He attended
Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, graduated from Princeton University in 1931, and briefly attended Stanford law School.
His grandfather was chief justice of Colorado and his stepfather ranched and ran a stagecoach line. After his stepfather died
during the Depression, he took over the family ranch and , when it failed, worked in a gold mine for a while. He moved to
Denver, became a copywriter for an advertising agency, and later moved to California, where he became a screenwriter, providing
plots for Westerns, and writing stories for Western pulp magazines, juvenile publications such as "Boys' Life", and the "Saturday
Evening Post".
In 1939, Lavender moved to Ojai, California. In his first book, a collection of autobiographical essays entitled "One Man's
West", came out in 1943. The same year he began teaching at the Thacher School, a boarding school in Ojai, where he remained
on the faculty until 1970.
In all, Lavender published more than 40 books on western themes ranging from fur trappers to railroad barons and early San
Francisco bankers. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice and received many significant awards for his work, including
two Guggenheim fellowships to study the fur trade and four medals from the Commonwealth Club of California for his histories
of Colorado, the Pacific Northwest, early San Francisco, and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
For many years, David Lavender conducted research in and was a consultant to the William Wyles Collection (with extensive
holdings in western history) at the UCSB Libraries Special Collections. He died in Ojai, California on April 19, 2003, at
the age of 93.
Type:
Diaries.Diary
correspondence.
diaries.
treaties.
Archives.
History.
Sources.
Diaries.
Journaux intimes.
Physical Description:
.8 linear ft.
Language:
English
Identifier:
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt6489q39w/
Wyles Mss 3LOCAL
Origin:
CaliforniaCopyright Note:
Use of the collection is unrestricted.
Use governed by UCSB Special Collections' policy.