Leslie White

Leslie Alvin White (January 19, 1900, Salida, Colorado – March 31, 1975, Lone Pine, California) was an American anthropologist known for his advocacy of the theories on cultural evolution, sociocultural evolution, and especially neoevolutionism, and for his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. White was president of the American Anthropological Association (1964). Early years White lived first in Kansas and then Louisiana. He volunteered to fight in World War I, serving in the US Navy before enrolling at Louisiana State University in 1919. In 1921, he transferred to Columbia University, where he studied psychology, receiving a B.A. in 1923 and a M.A. in 1924. His Ph.D. in Anthropology and Sociology came from the University of Chicago(1925). White studied at Columbia, where Franz Boas had lectured, however he supported cultural evolution as defined by writers such as Lewis. H Morgan and Edward Tylor. White's interests were diverse, and he took classes in several other disciplines, including philosophy at UCLA, and clinical psychiatry, before discovering anthropology via Alexander Goldenweiser courses at the New School for Social Research. White also spent a few weeks with the Menominee and Winnebago in Wisconsin during his Ph.D. His thesis proposal was a library thesis, which foreshadowed his later theoretical work. He conducted fieldwork at Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico.