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Samuel N. Dicken was a professor of Geography at the University of Oregon (1947-1970), and head of the departments of Geography and Geology (1957-1963), and Geography (1971-1983). Dicken was born near Colfax, Kentucky in 1901 to William and Sarah Dicken. He attended Brea College Academy before attending Marietta College, graduating in 1924 with an A.B. in Geology. In 1931, Newton graduate from the University of California, Berkeley with a Ph.D. in Geography. He taught geography at the University of Minnesota from 1929 to 1947, before beginning his thirty-year career at the University of Oregon. He was a member of the Association of American Geographers, the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, and a Fellow of the American Geographical Society. He is best known for his application of Walter Penck's principles of slope formation and demonstration of unique factors in soil erosion in Kentucky, as well as his studies of the effect of land expropriation on the Mexican hacienda, and his measurement of man's activities on the physical changes of the Oregon coastline.
The Samuel N. Dicken faculty papers primarily documents the later career of American geographer and University of Oregon professor Samuel N. Dicken. The collection includes biographical material, including curriculum vitae, bibliographies, diplomas, and award certificates, as well as clippings, both loose and bound in two large scrapbook albums. The papers also contain both professional and personal correspondence, photographs, primarily of Dicken's memorial at the University, and publications, including several copies of Dicken's memoir, entitled Education of a Hillbilly: Sixty Years in Six Colleges. Also included are an audiocasette recording of Dicken recounding a 1977 trip to Baja, a small pocket knife, and pick hammer.