Raoul Naroll
Born: 1920Death: 1985
Raoul Naroll was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1920. He grew up in Los Angeles, California and attended UCLA at the age of 16. In 1939, he joined the U.S. Army and served in Hawaii and Germany during World War II. Naroll served in an infantry division, then as an Officer in the Army Finance Department and in the Military Intelligence Service, screening officials and prisoners of war in Germany. After the war, Naroll returned to UCLA, receiving an A.B. in 1950, a Master's degree in 1952, and his Ph.D. in history in 1953. He conducted fieldwork in Austria (1956) and in Greece, Switzerland and Belgium (1965-1966).
Naroll was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University from 1954-1955. Afterward he went to the Washington, D.C. branch of the Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF) to work as a research associate where he wrote country background studies. Returning to California in 1957, he taught anthropology at California State University-Northridge, then known as San Fernando Valley State College. He moved to Chicago, teaching at Northwestern University (1962-1967) in the departments of anthropology, sociology and political science. At Northwestern, Naroll worked on cross-cultural research and applied his methods to military deterrence and data quality.
Naroll joined the Department of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo in 1967 where he taught until 1984. He was named a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and continued his research in cross-disciplinary cultural studies, while serving as President of HRAF from 1973-1983. Naroll wrote eight books, three manuals, numerous articles and book reviews and was an avid computer programmer and engineer. After a battle with cancer, Naroll died in Buffalo in 1985 at the age of 64.
Affiliation(s): Anthropology
Record Group(s): 22
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