Preserving the History of Recreational and Scientific Diving

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The history of recreational skin and scuba diving in North America only dates back to the 1930's. Many of the people who were there in those formative years have passed on now and it is now more important than ever to protect all this valuable history for future generations. 

The Scuba America Archives include over 500 interviews with diving pioneers as well as thousands of photographs, books, documents, and other items detailing the human history of diving in America. The collection is the result of 40 years of research by diving pioneers Albert Tillman and Zale Parry.

The Skin Diver Magazine Research Library consists of the books that were accumulated by the pioneering dive magazine by the same name. The magazine was started by Chuck Blakeslee and Jim Auxier in 1951 but the books date from the 1930s up until the final printed issue of the magazine in 2002.

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