Weston La Barre papers, 1930-1996

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Summary

Creator:
La Barre, Weston, 1911-
Abstract:
Weston La Barre (1911-1996) was an anthropology professor at Duke University from 1946 to 1977. Prior to coming to Duke, La Barre worked in military intelligence in the U.S. Navy during World War II. The Weston La Barre Papers include correspondence, publications, lectures, committee materials, teaching materials, photographs, audio recordings, scrapbooks and other materials. La Barre's professional interests included cultural anthropology, religion, psychodelic drugs such as peyote, and psychology. Major correspondents include George Devereux, Allen Ginsberg, Alexander Morin, Richard Evans Schultes, and Howard Stein. English.
Extent:
31 Linear Feet
30,000 Items
Language:
English.
Collection ID:
UA.29.02.0070
University Archives Record Group:
29 -- Papers of Faculty, Staff, and Associates
29 -- Papers of Faculty, Staff, and Associates > 02 -- Individuals

Background

Scope and content:

The Weston La Barre Papers include correspondence, publications, lectures, committee materials, teaching materials, photographs, audio recordings, scrapbooks and other materials related to the personal life and professional career of anthropologist Weston La Barre. The collection is arranged into 8 series. The first series, Personal, contains materials related to La Barre's family, friends, education, and Navy career during World War II. The next series, Correspondence, contains extensive chronological files of letters to and from La Barre's colleagues and friends. Several correspondents were filed by name, including George Devereux, Allen Ginsberg, Alexander Morin, Richard Evans Schultes, and Howard Stein. The following series, Publications, includes articles and books that La Barre wrote during his long career. It also includes drafts, editing notes, correspondence, and other materials related to the writings. Next, Lectures and Addresses includes the text of many speeches La Barre made across the country, as well as materials related to the conferences and events at which La Barre spoke.

La Barre's participation in conferences, committees, editing projects, and research is documented in the Professional Activities series. The Duke University series contains teaching materials like tests, quizzes, and syllabi. It also contains administrative information from the Department of Anthropology, and a scrapbook and memoir by La Barre recalling the controversy over a possible Nixon Presidential Library at Duke. The next series, Audio Recordings, contains a small selection of speeches and music on anthropological subjects. Finally, the Scrapbooks series contains a number of scrapbooks documenting La Barre's travels in the Navy, on anthropological and research voyages, and for vacation. There are also a large number of scrapbooks in which La Barre appeared to collect clippings of anthropological or psychological interest.

For several of the series (including Correspondence, Publications, Lectures and Addresses, Professional Activities, and Duke University), La Barre annotated the folders with comments about the events, people, and places described within the documents. Because these folders were physically deteriorating, the comments have been photocopied and placed in the front of the corresponding file. La Barre also occasionally annotated individual items, apparently years after the documents were originally created.

Biographical / historical:

Weston La Barre was born on December 13, 1911, in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Until about the age of 30, La Barre sometimes went by the names "I. Weston LaBarrer" and "Raoul La Barre" before using "Weston La Barre" exclusively. La Barre attended Princeton University and graduated with an A.B. degree in 1933. He then attended Yale University and received his Ph.D. degree in 1937. La Barre conducted a number of anthropological field trips beginning in 1935, when he studied Kiowa Indians. He conducted research on peyote in 1936, which grew into his dissertation and later his book, The Peyote Cult. In 1937, La Barre traveled to Bolivia to research the Aymara.

La Barre began teaching in 1939 at Rutgers University, the same year he married Maurine Boie, a social worker. After World War II broke out, the La Barres moved to Utah to work for the War Relocation Authority. After a short period, Weston La Barre joined the Navy and was trained a parachutist. He was assigned to parachute into an area of Laos because of his previous study of Southeast Asian ethnography. However, due to changes caused by the newly created Office of Strategic Services, La Barre spent several months each in Calcutta, Kunming, and Chungking before being moved to Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for nine months. He then returned to the United States and worked with the Atlantic Fleet before commissioned out of the naval reserve in 1946.

In that same year, La Barre was offered a teaching position at Duke University, a position he held until 1977. During his Duke career, La Barre taught many anthropology courses on culture, religion, psychiatry, and symbolism. He was known as a popular, if difficult, professor. He co-currently taught in the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine from 1956 to 1959, and was a visiting clinical professor of psychiatry at UNC from 1959 to 1969. In addition to his teaching duties, La Barre lectured at hundreds of universities and conferences and published numerous articles. He also published several books during his Duke career, including The Aymara Indians of the Lake Titicaca Plateau (1948), The Human Animal (1954), Materia Medica of the Aymara Indians (1959), They Shall Take Up Serpents: Psychology of the Southern Snake-Handling Cult (1966), The Ghost Dance: Origins of Religion (1970). In 1970, he became a James B. Duke Professor of Anthropology.

La Barre retired in 1977, but continued to publish articles and books. Books published after La Barre's retirement include Culture in Context (1980), Muelos: A Stone Age Superstition About Sexuality (1985), Shadow of Childhood: Neotony and the Biology of Religion (1991), and Jonathan (1993, published under the name Jonathan Crocker).

La Barre's wife passed away in 1991. They had three children: John, David, and An. Weston La Barre passed away on March 13, 1996 in Chapel Hill. He was 84 years old.

Acquisition information:
The Weston La Barre Papers was received by the University Archives as a gift in 1981, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1996, and 1997.
Processing information:

Processed by Valerie Gillispie

Completed January 15, 2005

Encoded by Valerie Gillispie, February 4, 2005

Physical location:
For current information on the location of these materials, please consult University Archives, Duke University.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Contents

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Using These Materials

Restrictions:

Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection.

For a period of twenty-five years from the origin of the material, permission in writing from the office of origin and the University Archivist is required for use. After twenty-five years, records that have been processed may be consulted with the permission of the University Archivist.

Records, such as search committee files or others pertaining to employment where individuals are identified, are closed for 70 years.

In accordance with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 as amended, Duke University permits students to inspect their education records and limits the disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records.

Materials such as private legal and financial records, counseling records, student and faculty records and information, classified information, job candidate information, letters of recommendation, employment records, certain congressional papers, and medical records may all be protected by law or by third party privacy rights. Living individuals have a legally enforceable right to privacy, and release of personally identifiable information contained in archival collections may give rise to liability (e.g., for defamation of character or invasion of privacy).

Audio recordings require a listening copy; contact University Archives for more information.

In off-site storage; 48 hours advance notice is required for use.

Terms of access:

Copyright for Official University records is held by Duke University; all other copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Weston La Barre Papers, University Archives, Duke University.