Correspondence
name: label: Collection Correspondent
content: Zalinger, Alvin D.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Swift, Arthur L.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Sturtevant, William C.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Yanez Perez, Luis
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Wolf, Eric R.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Service, Elman R. (Elman Rogers), 1915-1996
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Seda Bonilla, Eduardo, 1927-
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Steward, Julian Haynes, 1902-1972
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Reining, Priscilla
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Steinbert, Arthur
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Reining, Conrad Copeland, 1918-1984
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Rouse, Irving, 1913-2006
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Nnoke Grant, Barbara S.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: O'Brien, Denise A.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Padeilla, Elena
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Reichel-Dolmatoff, Alicia
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Dancer, Clifford C.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Diamond, Stanley, 1922-1991
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Diskin, Martin
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Douglas, Richard M.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Brown, Jennifer
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Caro, Isabel Sklow
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Codere, Helen F., 1917-2009
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Comhaire, Jean L.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Ascher, Robert
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Boggs, Stephen Taylor
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Bott, Elizabeth
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Brant, Charles Sanford
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Armstrong, Robert Geiston
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Drake, St. Clair
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Drucker, Susana
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Dubreiul, Guy
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Griffith, Sanford
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Harris, J.S.
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Heath, Dwight Braley
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Leslie, Charles
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Manners, Robert A. (Robert Alan), 1913-1996
label: Collection Correspondent
content: McWilliams, Carey
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Meggers, Betty Jane
label: Collection Correspondent
content: Mintz, Sidney W. (Sidney Wilfred), 1922-2015
label: Collection Creator
content: Murra, John V. (John Victor), 1916-2006
setName: label: See more items in
content: John Victor Murra papers
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 19.75 Linear feet (40 boxes)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1937-1998
label: Date
content: 2004 - 2004
label: Date
content: bulk 1950-1990
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.1982-59, Series 1
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This series contains correspondence with individuals and organizations relating to Murra's family, personal interests, research, and professional activities.  It is a testament to Murra's proficiency with languages.  Most of the correspondence is written in English, Spanish and French.  However, there is also correspondence written in Romanian, Italian, German and Russian.  Many of the letters also have photographs, newspaper clippings or other attachments.  The bulk of the collection's correspondence is in this series but there is correspondence in other series, most notably in Series II --Chronological Correspondence.

Materials are filed under an individual or an organization name.  The arrangement is alphabetical by individual and institution name.  Given the polyglot nature of this collection, the archivist tried to retain and/or denote the appropriate accent marks in folder titles.  Many of the correspondents from Spanish speaking countries have two surnames: the first from their father, the second from their mother.  Their names are listed alphabetically by their father's name and where known the mother's name is included thereafter (e.g. Rodríguez Suy Suy, Ant. [Victor Antonio]).  Items are filed chronologically with undated materials at back of folder.  Multiple folders are indicated in parenthesis (e.g., (3 folders)).  Oversized materials are stored separately from their folders and notated [Oversize].  Restricted folders contain confidential information concerning individual students (e.g., course grades).

Among the many notable correspondents in this series are:  Murra's close friends and classmates from his days at the University of Chicago (e.g., Robert Armstrong, Conrad and Priscilla Reining, Anne Lynch, and Philleo Nash) and his colleagues from a variety of teaching posts and research projects (e.g., Bob Manners, Elena Padilla, and Eric Wolf, who taught with him at the University of Puerto Rico; Helen Codere, his colleague at Vassar College; J. H. Rowe, Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, Nathan Wachtel, R. Tom Zuidema, to name a few).  Indeed, his correspondents covered the globe and included researchers behind the Iron Curtain and in Finland, Japan and Israel.

The correspondents also include a number of Murra's former students such as author Kurt Vonnegut, who sent a letter of congratulations to Murra upon his receiving a Guggenheim fellowship (see Box 15, Guggenheim Fdtn., 1982-1985).  His correspondence with M.I.T. Professor Heather Lechtman, a former student at Vassar College, spans one of the longest timeframes in the collection.   Another notable Vassar connection is the feminist Laura Rand Orthwein, who at one time took Murra's surname as her own and is known today as Laura X.

Most of the materials relating to Murra's family are found in this series in the folders titled: [Iosifecu, Ata and family], 1940-1978, 1988-1990 and [Lipschitz, A. and family], 1927-1934. Beatrice Iosifecu, or Ata as he addresses her, is Murra's sister.  A. Lipschitz was Murra's father and the materials in this folder, which include an invitation to Murra's bar mitzvah, are among the oldest in the collection.  Almost all of the correspondence in these two folders are in Romanian as is that in the folder titled Pop, Mihai.  Additional and  extensive correspondence among Murra, Ata Iosifecu and Mihai Pop may be found in Series VIII --J. V. M. Publications in the folder titled [Economic Organization of the Inca State, Romanian Translation]—Ata, 1978-1988 and n.d.  Murra had a difficult relationship with his mother, whose maiden name appears to be Bialik based on a check stub found in the folder Matos [Mar], José, 1958-1987 (Box 23).

Most materials of a biographical nature may be found in Series V—Biographical.  However, information about Murra's childhood and career may also be found in this series under Guggenheim, Scott and [The Hispanic American Historical Review] HAHR.  Discussion of Murra's experiences in the Spanish Civil War may also be found under Meyer, Jean and Valledor, J. A. [José Antonio].