James Dugan papers

James Dugan (1912-1967) was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Altoona High School in 1929. In the mid-thirties, he graduated from the Pennsylvania State College with a degree in journalism. As an undergraduate, Dugan served on the staff of many campus publications. He was editor-in-chief of the literary magazine, Old Main Bell and later became editor of the campus humor magazine, Penn State Froth. Lynn Christy, a 1935 graduate from Penn State, commented that Dugan brought a heightened awareness of socio-economic pressures to the Bell and his "Claycatures" to Froth. Claycatures were lifelike caricatures modeled in clay and then photographed for magazine use. Frequently they were featured in articles lampooning faculty, administration and student leaders. During World War II, Dugan served with the 8th Army in Europe and contributed to the Army publications, Yank and Salute. Soon after Paris was liberated from the Nazis during World War II, Dugan met the French oceanographer Jean-Jacques Cousteau and later participated with him in a number of undersea explorations. After the war, he wrote articles for such magazines as the Saturday Evening Post, Holiday, New York Times Magazine and National Geographic. He became an author on ship and sea subjects and was a noted underwater explorer. Dugan wrote more than ten books, three of which were in collaboration with the noted French oceanographer, Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau. A major venture was the Calypso Marine Archeological Expedition of Grand Conglove Islands from 1952 to 1954. This expedition recovered an ancient Greek amphora, or wine jar, from a third century B. C. cargo vessel. Dugan presented the amphora to Penn State prior to his death in 1967. His first major work, The Great Iron Ship, published in 1953, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and the basis for a three-part serial in the New Yorker magazine. Among his other writings are Ploest, written in collaboration with Carroll Stewart, The Great Mutiny, The Living Sea and "Man Under the Sea." He also wrote the narrative for the film based on Jacques-Yves Cousteau's book, The Silent World, exhibited at the World Theater in 1956. Dugan held memberships with the Undersea Advisory Board of the Philadelphia Maritime Museum and the French Benevolent Society founded by Benjamin Franklin. In 1967, Dugan died in his quarters aboard a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. The submarine was stationed there for Dugan and associates to obtain material for a National Geographic Society book.