The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
July 1966, Volume 12, Number 3
Elvira L. Wittenberg, Editor
Barbara Lamb, Assistant Editor
Tim MacNeil, Assistant Editor

By Lionel U. Ridout

Dr. A. P. Nasatir, recent recipient of the California State Colleges’ Outstanding Professor Award, has been named this Society’s Official Historian.

A native Californian, Dr. Nasatir has been a professor of history at San Diego State for thirty-eight years, during which time he has become a beloved campus legend, and has gained a national and international reputation as a noted scholar, masterful classroom teacher, and devoted counselor and friend to thousands of students. His friends and admirers in the academic community are world-wide.

Dr. Nasatir attended the University of California at Berkeley, from which institution he was graduated with honors in history. From the same institution he earned the Master of Arts degree and received his doctorate. In 1926-27 be was a history instructor at the University of Iowa, and in 1928 began his long local career. In 1959-60 he received at Fulbright Lectureship for teaching at the University of Chile.

Confined by space, this brief biography can present only representative selections of Dr. Nasatir’s contributions to the academic world and the community which he serves.

In 1924-25 he was granted a Native Sons Traveling Fellowship which took him to Spain for research. A Social Science Research Council Fellowship awarded in 1930-31 permitted his return to Spain and took him also to France. In 1950-51 he traveled again to France as a Fulbright Scholar. He was a Huntington Library Fellow during the Summer of 1952. During his travels abroad Dr. Nasatir collected thousands of documents and other archival materials. These he has used not only for his own scholarly production in two fields in which he is the authority (Spain in the Mississippi Valley and the French in California), but they are also available to graduates in history here and at other institutions. From them some forty Masters theses have evolved, and at least one doctoral dissertation. He is ever helpful to the aspiring scholar.

Long a board member of this Society, Dr. Nasatir has also served on the Board of Editors for the Pacific Historical Review, acted as a National Councillor for Phi Alpha Theta (National Honorary History Fraternity), and has been President of the Pacific Coast Council of Latin American Studies. He is a recent past president of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. He has read papers and chaired sessions at countless state and national historical organizations.

Dr. Nasatir was Vice-Consul of Paraguay (1936-1951), Vice-Consul of Ecuador (1942-1944), and served as secretary of the local Consular Corps for ten years. Other important committees, commissions and directorships have consumed much of his time through the years.

Dr. Nasatir has authored or co-authored ten books, with two others now in publishers’ hands. His text on Latin America (with Helen M. Bailey) has recently been revised; it has been translated into Polish and will soon appear in Spanish.

In scholarly journals and cooperative works he is represented by more than sixty monographs, articles, and documentary studies; well over 120 of his book reviews have appeared in numerous major periodicals.

The San Diego History Center is proud to welcome this fine scholar as its Official Historian and acknowledges with gratitude the benefits it has received from his long interest in its welfare.