Oscar Osburn Winther

Oscar Osburn Winther (22 December 1903, Weeping Water, Nebraska – 22 May 1970, Bloomington, Indiana) was a history professor, specializing in the history of the western United States. He was the president of the Western History Association from 1963 to 1964 and the president of the Oral History Association from 1969 to 1970.

Biography Winther was born into a Danish-American family as the youngest of six sons. The novelist Sophus Keith Winther was one of his five brothers. After secondary education at Eugene, Oregon's Eugene High School, Oscar Winther matriculated at the University of Oregon and graduated there in 1925 with a bachelor's degree in history. He became a graduate student in history and graduated in 1928 with an M.A. from Harvard University and in 1934 with a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His doctoral dissertation is titled The Express and Stagecoach Business in California, 1848–60.

After receiving his Ph.D., Winther held visiting positions at Stanford University and the San Jose Adult Education Center. He was elected a Fellow of the UK's Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. In 1970 the Western History Association Council established the Oscar O. Winther award given each academic year in recognition of the peer-reviewed article judged to be the best published for that past year in the Western Historical Quarterly.

with William H. Cartwright:

as editor

as translator