Gloria Griffen Cline (née Gloria Griffen; March 21, 1929 – April 2, 1973) was an American historian of the

Great Basin The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...

and professor at

Sacramento State College California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California, United States. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is part of the California State Universit ...

Biography

She was born in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

to parents Robert A. and Grace G. Griffen. In 1931 the Griffens moved to

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...

, where Gloria attended local grammar schools and

Reno High School Reno High School (RHS) is a public secondary school in Reno, Nevada, United States. It is a part of the Washoe County School District. The school's teams are known as the Reno Huskies, and the school colors are red and blue. History Reno High wa ...

, graduating in 1947. She received her BA and MA in history from the

University of Nevada The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a public land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada, United States. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant institution. It was founded ...

in 1951, before going on to complete her Ph.D. in history at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

in 1958. She adapted her dissertation into the book ''Exploring the Great Basin'' (University of Oklahoma press). After receiving her Ph.D., Cline taught at several universities, including the

, Nevada Southern University (which became the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada, United States. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the ...

), and

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

. In 1960, she took a permanent position at Sacramento State College, where she was an assistant, then associate professor of history. Cline became the first woman to win Sacramento State College's Annual Faculty Research Award in 1965. In 1966, she married John Harrison, and resigned her professorship to move to Bray, Ireland, with her husband. Cline's scholarship continued to focus on the settling of the Great Basin and the west. She contributed four biographies ( Job Francis Dye, David Meriwether, Jacob P. Leese, and William Kittson) to LeRoy R. Hafen's ten-volume ''The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West''. She also worked extensively with the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

records, writing a biography of

Peter Skene Ogden Peter Skene Ogden (alternately Skeene, Skein, or Skeen; baptised 12 February 1790 – 27 September 1854) was a British-Canadian fur trader and an early explorer of what is now British Columbia and the Western United States. During his many exped ...

that was published posthumously in 1973 by the

University of Oklahoma Press The University of Oklahoma Press (OU Press) is the publishing arm of the University of Oklahoma. Founded in 1929 by the fifth president of the University of Oklahoma, William Bennett Bizzell, it was the first university press to be established ...

. While living in Europe, Cline was lecturer at ''Cambridge University''. She and her husband were in the process of moving permanently to the United States when Gloria died on April 2, 1973, as a result of a fall. After her death her parents gave an endowment to the University of Nevada, which named the reading room of the Special Collections Department in the Getchell Library Building after Gloria Griffen Cline. In 1974 after the death of her father, Robert A. Griffen, her mother donated the family's extensive collection of western Americana books and Native American artifacts to the Department, as well as this collection of Gloria Griffen Cline Papers.

References

Cline, Gloria Griffen (1929–1973) - U.S. History in ''American Women Historians, 1700s-1990s: A Biographical Dictionary''(1996) by Jennifer Scanlon and Shaaron Cosner p. 41

External links

A Guide to the Gloria Griffen Cline Papers NC1041
Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Reno. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cline, Gloria Griffen 1929 births 1973 deaths Historians of Nevada University of Nevada, Reno alumni UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni University of Nevada, Las Vegas faculty University of Nevada, Reno faculty California State University, Sacramento faculty 20th-century American historians American women historians 20th-century American women writers Writers from San Francisco Historians from California