Pierce, Richard A(ustin) 1918-2004
PIERCE, Richard A(ustin) 1918-2004
OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born July 26, 1918, in Manteca, CA; died September 14, 2004, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Historian, educator, and author. Pierce was widely considered an authority on the history of Russia's settlement of Alaska during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1956, he spent the years 1958 through 1988 at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. From 1988 until his 1998 retirement he was a professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Pierce first became interested in Russian culture while studying the language before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was the author, editor, or translator of over sixty books during his career, including Russian Central Asia, 1867-1917: A Study in Colonial Rule (1959), Russia's Hawaiian Adventure, 1815-1817 (1965), Kodiak and Afognak Life, 1868-1870 (1981), Russian America: A Biographical Dictionary (1990), and Notes on Russian America (1994). A fellow in the Academy of Sciences of Russia, Pierce was named Alaska Historian of the Year by Alaska Northwest Publishing in 1989.
OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Grand Rapids Press (Grand Rapids, MI), September 23, 2004, p. B8.
Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2004, p. B9.