PETERSON, Mendel (Lazear) 1918-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born March 18, 1918, in Moore, ID; died July 30, 2003, in McLean, VA. Historian and author. Peterson was a museum curator who was especially interested in the undersea exploration of shipwrecks, and he became known to colleagues as the "father of underwater archaeology." He initially studied English in college, earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1938 and a master's degree from Vanderbilt University the next year. He then found work with the Civilian Conservation Corps as a camp educational adviser. It was during World War II, when he was in the U.S. Navy serving in the Pacific theater, that Peterson learned to be a deep-sea diver and he became fascinated by underwater exploration. Returning to the states, he studied textile engineering at Lowell Technical Institute and then got a job designing and testing foul-weather gear for the Navy in Antarctica. The Smithsonian Institute hired him in 1948 as curator of their department of history. This position provided Peterson with the opportunity to study naval archives, and he became an expert in underwater archaeology, leading many dives to explore shipwrecks, especially in the Caribbean. One such venture led Peterson and his colleagues to discover the true location where Christopher Columbus first set foot in the New World; it turned out not to be the island of San Salvador, as was originally believed, but rather a small island in the Caicos archipelago. Peterson was made chair of the department of armed-forces history at the Smithsonian in 1956, curator of the division of historical archaeology in 1969, and director of underwater exploration in 1973. He was also vice president of the Explorers Research Corporation for Underwater Exploration. Continuing to work as a consultant even after retirement, Peterson was the author of a number of books on his favorite subject, including History under the Sea (1965; third edition, 1969), Buried Treasure beneath the Spanish Main (1972), and Funnel of Gold: Commerce and Warfare in the West Indies (1975).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Washington Post, August 28, 2003, p. B4.