Richard Strachan was born on October 11, 1946 in
East Chicago, Illinois to Norma Lee Schmidt Strachan and William Strachan. His
father died in 1948 and his mother remarried in 1951 to Frank Lengyel. Mr.
Lengyel was a strong influence on Richard, teaching him how to think for
himself and stand up for what he believed. Richard was quite a precocious child
with interests ranging from photography to history, from geology to
physics.
Richard completed his Bachelor's degree in History and Foreign Affairs from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, in 1964. In 1965, Richard took a class from Dr. Gordon Grosscup. The class was Introduction to Archaeology, which ultimately changed the focus of his professional career for good. As a result of the influence of Dr. Grosscup, Richard's Master's Degree and Ph.D. were both in Anthropology from Wayne State University. Richard's Ph.D. was in Archaeology with an emphasis on Upper Great Lakes Prehistory. His dissertation was a statistical analysis of artifacts from the Cady Site in Macomb County, Michigan.
In 1971, Dr. Strachan accepted a teaching position in the Department of Sociology/Anthropology at Mankato State College in Mankato, Minnesota. Over the years the name of the school has changed to Minnesota State University - Mankato. He taught the full range of classes and was eventually instrumental in the department separating into a department of it's own, the Department of Anthropology. He was the first Chair of the new department. Dr. Strachan did a great deal of fieldwork in the Upper Midwest in the 1970's and 80's including Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota, and authored or co-authored scores of reports. They ranged from small projects for local highway engineers to substantial, multidisciplinary projects for the US Army Corps of Engineers. A list of the survey projects written by Dr. Strachan can be found in his electronic office.
Dr. Strachan had always been interested in the computer. He began applying the capabilities of the computer to archaeological data in 1968. When the personal computer became available, he used them in order to facilitate the statistical applications as well as the general word processing needed for report preperation.
Then, in 1995, Dr. Strachan began to formulate the idea of a
museum located on the World Wide Web, which would be available to the general
public, students and colleagues. The "EMuseum" was born. The concept of a museum
in cyberspace was new and unique. Ultimately, the EMuseum became a structure of
three floors with three wings on each floor. The museum displays include
Ancient Egypt, the Aegean, Vikings in North America, Minnesota Prehistory,
North American Prehistory, Mesoamerican Prehistory, Rock Art, Biographies,
Kinship, Evolution, Human Anatomy, Streets of Old Mankato, and the History of
Mankato State University. Each display was written and designed by students and
students work on a daily basis to maintain the museum under the over-all
curation of Dr. Strachan. The EMuseum will have approximately 25 million
hits in 2000. They come from all over the globe, from almost every country
in the world. Dr. Strachan retired in the summer of 2004, and is Professor
Emeritus at MSU and continues to do work with the EMuseum.
Personal Communication Richard A. Strachan Feb 1999
Richard Strachan's Email Address: alpha@mnsu.edu
last updated 10/26/04