A. Hunter Dupree

leading historian of American Science and Technology

Of Cambridge, MA and Squirrel Island, ME, died peacefully at home in Cambridge on November 30, 2019.  He was two months short of his 99 ^th birthday.  Born in Hillsboro, TX on January 29, 1921, Hunter was the son of George Washington and Sarah Anderson Hunter Dupree, both first generation university graduates.  He and his elder brother, the late George Weldon Dupree, were raised in Lubbock, TX, where their father was a partner in a leading law firm, Crenshaw, Dupree and Milam.  Hunter excelled at Lubbock High School and at Oberlin College where he graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in History in 1942.

Shortly before graduation, Hunter hitchhiked from Oberlin to Cleveland and enlisted in the Navy, attending Midshipman School at Notre Dame University, receiving his commission in 1943.  His first duty was as an instructor in navigation and naval history at the Naval Training School at Fort Schuyler, NY.  Following assignments in Hollywood, FL and San Diego, he received orders to Seattle, where he met his future wife, Betty Arnold.  Assigned to sea duty in 1945, he served as a watch officer in the Combat Information Center of the USS Tennessee in the Pacific theatre of World War II, including Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  He received an honorable discharge in 1946 with a rank at separation of Lieutenant.  In the Navy he experienced the information revolution born out of the war, which involved the electronic environment created by computers and radar linked in systems.  These wartime experiences, and encouragement from mentors at Oberlin, played a significant role in his intellectual development, influencing his decision to pursue a career as a historian after the war.

Hunter received his M.A. from Harvard in 1947.  Under the guidance of Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., one of the first scholars to examine the impact of science and technology on American society from a historian’s perspective, Hunter completed his doctoral thesis on the life and work of Asa Gray, the leading American botanist of the nineteenth century, in 1952 while teaching history at Texas Technological College (1950-52).

In 1953 Hunter became a research fellow at the Gray Herbarium at Harvard to continue his work on Asa Gray.  His planned biography was interrupted when the National Science Foundation selected Hunter to lead a research project on the history of science in the federal government.  Sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, his findings were published in the landmark 1957 book, Science in the Federal Government: a History of Policies and Activities to 1940. It was the first investigation of its kind, exploring the relationships between science and the American government, including the social and political impact of government science policies.  On completion of the book, Hunter devoted more time to his research on Gray.  Published in 1959, Asa Gray, 1810-1888, is recognized as the seminal biography of Darwin’s leading advocate in nineteenth-century America.

Hunter joined the history department at the University of California, Berkeley in 1956.  His professional career was firmly rooted in the study of science and technology in American society, and the historical impact of government science policy.  During his career at Berkeley, he held various administrative posts including Assistant to Chancellor Glenn Seaborg (1960-62) and Director of the Bancroft Library (1965-66).  He was a first-hand witness to the Free Speech Movement of 1964, which led to Berkeley’s lasting reputation as a hotbed of student activism during the Vietnam War period.

Throughout the 1960s Hunter held numerous advisory posts with the federal government and scientific institutions. He was a member of the Library of Congress Committee where he helped develop the National Union Catalogue of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC).  He was a consultant to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Public Policy (COSPUP), and drafted its report, Federal Support of Basic Research in Institutions of Higher Learning (1964).  He was on the NASA Historical Advisory Committee (1963-73) and Atomic Energy Commission Historical Advisory Committee (1967-73), where he helped prepare manuscripts documenting some of the most important scientific decision in modern history.  He also served on the House of Representatives panel on Science and Technology (1969-73), where he gave advice on the role science and technology could play in addressing critical national and global problems.

Hunter became George L Littlefield Professor of History at Brown University in 1968.  Although he continued to pursue his primary research interests from the previous two decades, he also studied general systems theory, especially as it related to the controversial field of sociobiology.  And, he began to write extensively on the social history of measurement, a subject he became interested in as a fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto (1967-68).  Later he enjoyed a year as one of the first group of fellows of the National Humanities Center (1978-9).

In the 1970s, Hunter held positions in numerous professional organizations, including membership of the Smithsonian Council (1975-85) and Secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1973-76), where he had been elected a Fellow in 1967.  He was an advisor to both the National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities, and a trustee of the Museum of American Textile History (1978-89).

Hunter retired from Brown in 1981, yet remained active in academic life.  He served as a consultant on the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Government-University Relationships in Support of Science (1982).  He was Scholar in Residence at Southern Oregon State College in 1983 and Visiting Professor of the History of Science at the University of Minnesota in 1984.  He was a member of the Research Advisory Committee for the National Air and Space Museum (1986).  After returning the live in Cambridge MA from the mid-1980s, Hunter’s renewed association with the Gray Herbarium and his regular participation in the activities of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences gave him much pleasure.

Throughout the 1990s Hunter continued to write within his areas of expertise and share his views on the direction of science policy in America.  In 1995, his cousin Mike Thompson was killed in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  Working with Mike’s brother, Toby Thompson, Hunter offered suggestions and guidance on the establishment of a “living memorial”, which evolved into the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism.

Throughout his career Hunter was an enthusiastic, conscientious and supportive undergraduate and graduate teacher and doctoral and post-doctoral supervisor.

In recognition of his many professional achievements, Hunter was the recipient of the New York Academy of Sciences President’s Award (1976) and the History of Science Society Sarton Medal (1990).

Hunter married Marguerite Louise (Betty) Arnold of Seattle, WA on July 18, 1946.  He and Betty were a team, during nearly 68 years of marriage, until her death in 2014.  Betty supported Hunter by accompanying him on research trips, by transcribing documents, by providing a sounding board and commonsense as he pursued his career, and by creating a succession of new homes across the country, where they entertained colleagues and friends.  Wherever they lived, Hunter and Betty were active member of the local Congregational church. Hunter, who had been an Eagle Scout, particularly relished hiking, and they both enjoyed a range of outdoor pursuits, including tennis, family camping trips, sailing and boating.  After they acquired a house on Squirrel Island in 1971, Hunter delighted in spending at least part of the next 41 summers there.  He was a loving husband, father, grandfather and, for three months, great grandfather, who will be deeply missed by his two children, Marguerite W Dupree and Anderson H “Andy” Dupree, and their spouses Rick Trainor and Jillon Dupree, and four grandchildren: Richard and Meg Trainor and Nicholas and Sarah Dupree, and by Richard’s wife Rachel Finnegan, by their daughter and Hunter’s great granddaughter, Juno, and by Meg’s fiancé, Luke Auty.

Hunter Dupree’s funeral service will be on Saturday, January 18 ^th at 11am at First Church, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge 02138.