Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
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Source: April 1969 Volume 15 Number 3, Pages 52–52

In Memorium: John Alden Mason

Page 52

John Alden Mason, curator emeritus of the American Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum and a noted anthropologist, died Tuesday November 7, 1967 at Bryn Mawr Hospital. He was 82, and lived at 725 Conestoga Road, Berwyn, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Mason, museum curator since 1926, retired in 1955. Before coming to the University Museum, he was assistant cura­tor of Mexican and South American archeology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and was in charge of Mexican Archeology at the Museum of Natural History in New York.

He was a 1903 graduate of Central High School and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1907. He took his doctorate from the University of California in 1911, and received an honorary doctor of literature degree in 1958 from Franklin and Marshall College.

Dr. Mason was a past president of the following societies:­Society of American Archeology; Eastern States Archeological Federation; Society of Pennsylvania Archeology; Philadelphia Anthropological Society; and the Pan American Association of Philadelphia. He was past vice president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; also of the American anthropological Association; as well as past Treasurer of the American Ethnological Association.

Dr. Mason was the author of numerous books the most famous of which was "The Ancient Civilizations of Peru," Pub­lished in 1957.

He was a member of numerous archeological and ethnological expeditions, heading many of them. Since 1958 he was an adviser and editor of the New World Archeological Foundation.

Surviving are his wife, the former Florence Roberts; a son, John Alden,Jr.; a daughter Mrs. Kathleen Eagleson, and four grandchildren.