Oliver La Farge

Oliver La Farge
Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge II (December 19, 1901 – August 2, 1963) was an American writer and anthropologist. In 1925 he explored early Olmec sites in Mexico, and later studied additional sites in Central America and the American Southwest. In addition to more than 15 scholarly works, mostly about Native Americans, he wrote several novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Laughing Boy (1929). La Farge also wrote and published short stories, in magazines such as The New Yorker and Esquire.
His more notable works, both fiction and non-fiction, emphasize Native American culture. He was most familiar with the Navajo people, had a speaking knowledge of their language, and was nicknamed by them 'Anast'harzi Nez', i.e. "Tall Cliff-Dweller".
Early life and education
Oliver La Farge was born in New York City but grew up in Newport, Rhode Island. He was the son of Christopher Grant La Farge, a noted Beaux-Arts architect, and Florence Bayard Lockwood. His older brother Christopher La Farge became a writer and was a novelist. La Farge and his paternal uncle, architect Oliver H.P. La Farge, were both named for their great-great-grandfather Oliver Hazard Perry.
La Farge received both his Bachelor of Arts degree (1924) and his master's degree (1929) from Harvard University.
Career
La Farge worked as a writer and an anthropologist. In 1925, he traveled with the Danish archeologist Frans Blom, who taught at Tulane University, to what is now known as the Olmec heartland. He (re)discovered San Martin Pajapan Monument 1 and more importantly the ruins of La Venta, one of the major Olmec centers.
La Farge devoted considerable study to Native American peoples and issues, especially after moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1933. He became a champion for American Indian rights and was president of the Association on American Indian Affairs for several years..
During World War II, La Farge served with the U.S. Air Transport Command, ending service with the rank of major. He participated with the Battle for Greenland, commanded by Colonel Bernt Balchen. Balchen, together with Corey Ford and La Farge, wrote War Below Zero: The Battle for Greenland (1944) about the actions to defend Greenland.
Marriage and family
La Farge married heiress Wanden Matthews and had two children with her: a son, Oliver Albee La Farge (b. 1931, later known as Peter La Farge and a daughter, Povy. They moved to Santa Fe in 1933, but Wanden disliked the area, and they eventually divorced in 1937.
Their first son, Oliver Albee, became estranged from his father and changed his name to Peter La Farge. His son moved to New York City, where he became a well-known folksinger and songwriter in Greenwich Village, performing during the 1950s and 1960s. Some of his more successful songs have Native American themes, including "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow", which takes its name from the title of one of his father's books.
La Farge married a second time to Consuelo Otile Baca with whom he had a son, John Pendaries "Pen" La Farge. La Farge's non-fiction book Behind the Mountains (1956) is based on his memories of Consuelo's family, the Baca family of New Mexico, who were ranchers in northern New Mexico. He wrote a regular column for The New Mexican, a Santa Fe newspaper. Some of his columns were collected and published as The Man with the Calabash Pipe (1966).
La Farge died of heart failure in Santa Fe in 1963 at age 61.
Legacy and honors
Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Laughing Boy (1929)
Building dedicated as the "Oliver La Farge" branch of the Santa Fe Public Library system
Works
Non-fiction
Tribes and Temples (with Frans Blom), 1926-1927
The Year Bearer's People (with Douglas Byers), 1931
Introduction to American Indian Art (with John Sloan), 1931
An Alphabet for Writing the Navajo Language, 1940
As Long As The Grass Can Grow - Indians Today, with photographs by Helen M. Post, 1940
The Changing Indian (editor), 1942
War Below Zero: The Battle for Greenland (Colonel Bernt Balchen, with Major Corey Ford), 1944
Santa Eulalia: The Religion of a Cuchumatan Indian Town, 1947
The Eagle in the Egg, 1949
Cochise of Arizona, 1953
The Mother Ditch, 1954
A Pictorial History of the American Indian, 1956
Behind the Mountains, 1956
Santa Fe: The Autobiography of a Southwestern Town (with Arthur N. Morgan), 1959
Fiction and personal
Laughing Boy (1929), novel, adapted for the 1934 motion picture of the same name
Sparks Fly Upward (1931), novel
Long Pennant (1933), novel
All the Young Men (1935), collection of short stories
The Enemy Gods (1937), novel
The Copper Pot (1942), novel
Raw Material (1945), a memoir
A Pause in the Desert (1957), collection of short stories
The Door in the Wall (1965), collection of short stories
The Man With the Calabash Pipe (1966), collected columns, edited by Winfield Townley Scott
Translation
A Man's Place (1940), translation of El lugar de un hombre, by Ramón J. Sender
References
External links
An Inventory of the Oliver La Farge Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas
excerpts from Tribes and Temples at Mesoweb
1901 births
1963 deaths
20th-century Mesoamericanists
20th-century American novelists
American columnists
American Mesoamericanists
American short story writers
Harvard University alumni
Mesoamerican anthropologists
Olmec scholars
Writers from Newport, Rhode Island
Perry family
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel winners
Novelists from New York City
American male novelists
American male short story writers
American male non-fiction writers
20th-century American anthropologists
20th-century American male writers
La Farge family
Burials at Santa Fe National Cemetery
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters