Warren L. d'Azevedo Papers

Dr. Warren Leonard d'Azevedo (1920-2014), was born in Oakland, California, and received a bachelor's degree in Anthropology at UC Berkeley in 1942 after first attending Modesto Junior College and Fresno State University. He served in World War II in the Merchant Marines, and later worked on the Oakland docks. Pursuing an experience-based interest in labor issues, he began a graduate degree in anthropology at Berkeley in 1951. He did field work with the Wašiw people in Nevada. In 1953, d'Azevedo and his family moved to Illinois, where he studied with noted Africanist Melville J. Herskovits. A few years later, they moved to Liberia for his doctoral field work, where d'Azevedo began his lifelong relationship with the Gola people. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1960, d'Azevedo taught at Berkeley, the University of Utah, and the University of Pittsburgh, before the University of Nevada invited him to found an anthropology program in 1963. Originally combined with psychology and sociology under the auspices of the Desert Research Institute, anthropology was established as an independent department in 1967. Under his leadership, the department became an internationally-recognized hub for the Great Basin and other international areas. His service work included the University Human Relations Action Council, which worked with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission, advising in the formation of UNR Black Student Union, and support for Race Relations Center of Reno, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Nevada Intertribal Council. Dr. d'Azevedo retired from the University in 1988, though he kept working on his data analyses until shortly before his death in 2014. His bibliography is extensive and even includes some fiction and poetry.