Arthur James Outram Anderson was born on November 26, 1907 in Phoenix, Arizona. His father was Arthur Cyril Edwin James Anderson who was a businessman. His mother was Grace Elizabeth Anderson who was an educator. He attended San Diego State College where he received a B.A. in 1930. He also received an M.A. from Claremont Colleges in 1931. On March 30, 1937, he married Christine Vivian Hayler, a musician. Together, they resided in San Diego, California. In 1940, Arthur received his Ph. D. from the University of Southern California.
Arthur was an anthropologist, and he specialized in the Aztec culture. From 1933 to 1937, he was employed as an assistant instructor in English at San Diego State College. In 1938, he was an instructor in English at Riverside Junior College in Riverside, California. From 1939 through 1945, he was employed at Eastern New Mexico College. He started out as an associate professor. From 1940 to 1945, he was a professor of anthropology and geology. From 1942 to 1945, he was head of the Social Science Division. From 1945 until 1957, he was employed as the curator of history and editor of publications for the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. From 1957 to 1961, he was an instructor in anthropology and sociology at El Camino College in Torrance, California. From 1961 through 1975, he was employed at San Diego State University as a professor of anthropology. After that, he became a full-time researcher and writer.
Arthur was the recipient of various awards and honors. In 1955 and 1957, he received the Guggenheim fellow in Europe. He also received the honorary fellow of the School of American Research and the honorary curator of Latin American ethnography at the San Diego Museum of Man. In the summer of 1964, he received a grant from the Del Amo Foundation.
Arthur's greatest accomplishment as a writer was the translations he and Charles E. Dibble did of Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec. Most of those works were published by the University of Utah. He was also the contributor to many other books and about 25 articles and reviews in scholarly journals.
Arthur's research has taken him all over the world to countries such as Mexico, Spain, England, France, Italy, Greece, and Peru. He feels his translations are important, not only for their wealth of historical information, but for their contributions to philosophy and linguistics.
References
http://www.lib.mnsu.edu/lib/files/nu.html, Bibliography, Nov, 2003
Locher, Frances Carol, Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Authors and their Works. Detroit, Michigan, Gale Research Company, 1980
Written By: Chad Anderson, 2003