Alexander, Edward P(orter) 1907-2003
ALEXANDER, Edward P(orter) 1907-2003
OBITUARY NOTICE—
See index for CA sketch: Born January 11, 1907, in Keokuk, IA; died of a heart ailment July 31, 2003, in Chevy Chase, MD. Historian and author. Alexander, an authority on museums, was a former director of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. After earning his undergraduate degree from Drake University in 1928, he completed his master's degree at the State University of Iowa in 1931, and his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1938. Beginning his career as a secondary-school teacher in Iowa and Minnesota during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Alexander eventually became executive director of the New York State Historical Association, where he worked from 1934 to 1941, and was supervisor of the Historical Records Survey for the state of New York from 1936 to 1938. During World War II Alexander resided in Wisconsin, where he directed the state historical society in Madison. Then, in 1946, he became director of interpretation at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, where he remained until 1972. The last years of his professional career were spent at the University of Delaware, where he was director of museum studies until his retirement in 1977. Alexander was the author of several history books, among them A Revolutionary Conservative: James Duane of New York (1938), The Museum: A Living Book of History (1959), and The Museum in America: Innovators and Pioneers (1997).
OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
New York Times, August 16, 2003, p. A13.
Washington Post, August 10, 2003, p. C11.