Sherwood Washburn

Sherwood Larned Washburn (birth date|1911|11|26|mf=y– death date|2000|4|16), nicknamed "Sherry", was an American physical anthropologist and pioneer in the field of primatology, opening it to study of primates in their natural habitats. His research and influence in the comparative analysis of primate behaviors to theories of human origins established a new course of study within the field of human evolution.

Infobox Scientist
name = Sherwood L. Washburn


image_width =
caption =
birth_date = birth date|1911|11|26|mf=y
birth_place = Cambridge, Massachusetts
death_date = death date and age|2000|4|16|1911|11|26
death_place = Berkeley, California
residence =
citizenship = United States
nationality = United States
ethnicity =
field = Anthropology
work_institutions = Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley
alma_mater = Harvard University
doctoral_advisor = Earnest A. Hooten
doctoral_students = F. Clark Howell, Vincent M. Sarich, Jane Lancaster, Ralph Holloway
known_for = Comparative approach to understanding human evolution, renaissance of behavioral primatology
author_abbrev_bot =
author_abbrev_zoo =
influences = W. T. Dempster, W. LeGros Clark, Alfred Romer
influenced =
prizes = Viking Fund Medal, Huxley Memorial Medal and Lecture, Distinguished Service Award of the American Anthropological Association
religion =
footnotes = Designated by the AAPA as the premier American physical anthropologist of the twentieth century

Biography

Washburn was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Henry and Edith Washburn, the younger brother of Henry Bradford Washburn. His father Henry was the dean of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge. In his youth, Washburn had a keen interest in the field of natural history, and during school vacations worked with exhibits and collections in Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Washburn later graduated "summa cum laude" from Harvard University with a Bachelors Degree in Anthropology in 1935, followed by a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1940. For a time, Washburn considered pursuing his doctorate in zoology, and in his first year in graduate school, worked as an assistant with a zoological expedition in southern Asia called the Asiatic Primate Expedition. His work as a graduate student in comparative anatomy, comparative psychology, animal locomotion mechanics, and paleontology helped shape in him a multi-disciplinary perspective of the study of evolutionary origins.

Washburn married Henrietta Pease in 1939, and they had two children, Sherwood and Stan. After leaving Harvard, he took a position as associate professor of anatomy in Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he remained for eight years. From 1947-1958 he was a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, for a time serving as department chair. He left the University of Chicago for a professorship in University of California, Berkeley, where he remained until his retirement in 1979. In 1975 the university named him to the select position University Professor, one of just 35 such appointments granted since the position was first created in 1960. ["University Professorships", University of California [http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/facultystaff/universityprofessors.html] ] Washburn died in Berkeley in 2000 at age 88.

Published Works

*"Social Life of Early Man", Rutledge Library 2004

*"The Evolution of Man", "Scientific American" v239 n3 p194-208 September 1978

*"Human evolution: Biosocial perspectives", edited with Elizabeth McCown, Menlo Park, California: Benjamin/Cummings Pub. Co. 1978

*"Ape Into Man; A Study of Human Evolution", Boston: Little, Brown. 1973.

References

*"Sherwood L. Washburn", F. Clark Howell, Biographical Memoirs V.84 (2004) National Academy of Sciences (NAS) [http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10992&page=348]

*"Sherwood Washburn -- Famed Anthropologist", obituary San Francisco Examiner, April 20, 2000 [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/04/20/MN17052.DTL]

*"Sherwood Washburn, Pioneer in Primate Studies, Dies at 88", Wolfgang Saxon, "The New York Times", April 19, 2000. Reprinted Primate Info Net, National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison [http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/edu/careers/washburn.html]

Notes