Arrell Morgan Gibson was a historian and author specializing in the history of the state of Oklahoma. He was born in Pleasanton, KS on December 1, 1921. He earned degrees from Missouri Southern State College and the University of Oklahoma. He is best known for writing Oklahoma: A History of Five Centuries (University of Oklahoma Press 1965, 1981) and The Oklahoma Story (University of Oklahoma Press 1978). He died in Norman, OK on November 30, 1987. There have been two literary awards created in Gibson's honor. The Oklahoma Center For The Book grants its Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award annually to an Oklahoman for a body of literary work. The Indian Territory Posse of Westerners International awards a $500 cash prize annually to the year's best essay on the history of Native Americans.
B.A. - Missouri Southern State College - 1946
M.A. - University of Oklahoma - 1948
Ph.D. - University of Oklahoma - 1954
Professor of History and Government - Phillips University, Enid, OK - 1949-1957
Professor; George Lynn Cross Research Professor of History - University of Oklahoma - 1957-?
Curator: Western History Collections - University of Oklahoma - 1957-1970
Curator: Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (then called the Stovall Museum) - University of Oklahoma - 1960-1987
Visiting Professor - University of New Mexico - 1975
Visiting Distinguished Professor; Graduate Studies Consultant - University of South China - 1985
Goldwater Distinguished Professor of American Institutions - Arizona State University - 1986
Research Grant - American Philosophical Society
Research Grant - Duke Foundation
Research Grant - University of Oklahoma
Rockefeller Foundation Award
Oklahoma Writer of the Year Award from the University of Oklahoma School of Journalism
American Association for State and Local History Award of Merit for his book Wilderness Bonanza
Oklahoma Hall of Fame Award
University of Oklahoma's Distinguished Citation Award
Honorary Doctorate - University of South China
Honorary Doctorate - College of Idaho
Board Member - Oklahoma Historical Society
Board Member - Museum of the Great Plains
Board Member - Mississippi Choctaw Cultural Center
First President - Oklahoma Center for the Book
President Elect - Western History Association
The Kickapoos (1963)
The Life and Death of Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain (1965)
Oklahoma: A History of Five Centuries (1965)
The Chickasaws (1971) which placed second for a Pulitzer Prize
Wilderness Bonanza (1972)
The West in the Life of the Nation (1976)
The Oklahoma Story (1978)
The American Indian: Pre-History to the Present (1980)
The Santa Fe and Taos Colonies: Age of the Muses 1900-1942 (1983)
editor - The West Wind Blows: The Autobiography of Edward Everett Dale (1984)
editor - Between Two Worlds: The Survival of Twentieth Century Indians (1986)
