Austin, Oliver Luther, 1903-1988

Oliver Luther Austin, Jr., (1903-1988) was born on May 24, 1903, in Tuckahoe, New York. He did his undergraduate work at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He went on to Harvard University and the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ). While at Harvard, he traveled and collected, serving as a naturalist on the Mason-Blodgett Expedition in 1927, collecting for the MCZ on the Yucatan Peninsula and in British Honduras. He received Harvard's first doctorate degree in ornithology in 1931. In 1930, he began to work for the Bureau of Biological Survey in Minnesota. He later surveyed waterfowl, particularly terns, on the East Coast. When the depression hit its height, Austin was laid off. When World War II, began he enlisted to the Navy, and served as a line officer in the South Pacific through the war. At the end of the war, he was stationed in Korea for almost a year. He continued to collect, and even published a book called "Birds of Korea." In 1946, he was transferred to Japan, where he was head of the Wildlife Branch of the Occupation government until late 1949. He returned to Cape Cod in 1950, and moved to Montgomery, Alabama, to be a professor of zoology at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base. He later became a curator of birds at the Florida State Museum. Austin built the bird skin collection from 1,800 to more than 17,500 specimens, where his major accomplishment was the publishing of "Birds of the World," in 1961. He died in December of 1988. His field work in the United States is documented in the National Museum of Natural History, Division of Mammals.

Smithsonian Institution Archives Field Book Project: Person : Description : rid_339_pid_EACP336

Elizabeth S. Austin, author and ornithologist, was a Research Associate of the Florida State Museum. She authored several birding books, all represented here, including The Birds That Stopped Flying, Penguins, and The Random House Book of Birds, co-authored by Oliver Austin. She was the editor of Frank Chapman in Florida, and wrote a weekly newspaper column on birds, "Wild Adventure."

Her husband Oliver L. Austin, Jr., was born in 1903 and educated at Wesleyan University and Harvard (Ph.D.). He was the author of numerous books including Birds of the World (1961). His positions included Curator of Ornithology at the Florida State Museum of the University of Florida. Previously he was director of the Austin Ornithological Research Station on Cape Cod. He was the editor of Auk, the Journal of the American Ornithologists Union and of the Bulletin of the Florida State Museum .

From the guide to the Elizabeth S. and Oliver L. Austin Papers, 1933-1967, (Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida)

Oliver Austin, Jr. was born May 24, 1903 in Tuckahoe, New York. He received his BS at Wesleyan University (1926) and his Ph.D. from Harvard University (1931). In 1929, Austin and his father established the Austin Ornithological Research Station in Wellfleet, Mass. He directed the Research Station for 25 years before being appointed as curator of ornithology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Between 1932 and 1971, Austin published eight titles, all around ornithology, including Families of Birds, The Birds of Japan, The Birds of Newfoundland and Labrador and is best known for his work Birds of the World . Oliver Austin Jr. died in December 1988.

Biographical source: Something About the Author . Volume 7, 1975.

From the guide to the Oliver Austin Jr. papers, 1962-1968, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])