Woodrow Borah facts for kids

Woodrow Wilson Borah (born December 23, 1912, in Utica, Mississippi; died December 10, 1999, in Berkeley, California) was an important American historian. He studied the history of colonial Mexico. His work on how many people lived there, how the economy worked, and how society was structured made him a leading expert on Latin America.

People remember him as one of the last great historians from a group who helped Latin American studies grow a lot in the United States after World War II. He worked with other experts at the University of California, Berkeley. Together, they were known as the "Berkeley School." They gathered information from old records about native populations, colonial businesses, and how people lived on the land. This new way of studying history changed how we understand Latin America.

Life Story

Woodrow Borah was named after President Woodrow Wilson. His family were Jewish business people. He wasn't sure how his family ended up in Mississippi. When he was young, they moved to New York. Later, they moved to Los Angeles when he was a teenager.

He went to high school in Los Angeles and really liked his strict teachers there. He then went to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He earned his first degree in history and then a master's degree there. He started his Ph.D. studies at UCLA too. However, his teacher told him to go somewhere else to learn more.

So, he moved to UC Berkeley for his Ph.D. He studied with famous professors like Herbert E. Bolton and Carl O. Sauer. These teachers had already made Berkeley a top place for Latin American studies. In 1945, he married his wife, Terry. They had two children, Jonathan and Ruth.

Borah grew up in a non-religious Jewish family. But he later joined a Jewish community and raised his children as Jewish. He often talked about facing unfair treatment early in his career. His teacher, Bolton, even told him it would be hard to find a job because he was Jewish. He spent most of his teaching career at UC Berkeley. He retired in 1980.

Academic Work

Borah was not very interested in political history. His professors at Berkeley suggested he study silk farming in colonial Mexico for his Ph.D. paper. He finished this in 1940 and published it as a book in 1943.

In 1941, he got a surprise offer to teach at Princeton for one year. During World War II, he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942. He helped the war effort by looking at information about Latin America. He stayed with the OSS until 1947.

In 1948, he returned to UC Berkeley. He worked in the Speech Department for 14 years. He also received special awards called Guggenheim Fellowships in 1951–1952 and 1958–1959. In 1962, he moved to the History Department. He became the Shepard Professor of History and stayed there until he retired in 1980.

After the United States got involved in the Dominican Republic in 1965, Borah joined 103 other Latin American experts. They signed a letter to President Lyndon Johnson, sharing their concerns about the event.

Studying Populations

Woodrow Borah started working with Sherburne F. Cook to study the number of native people in the Americas. They had known each other for almost 20 years. Their research took them from Berkeley's Bancroft Library to old records in Mexico. They even traveled on mules to reach some places!

They published several books about the populations before and during the Spanish colonial period. Some of their books include:

• The population of Central Mexico in 1548 (1960)
• The Indian Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest (1963)
• The Population of the Mixteca Alta, 1520-1960 (1968)
• Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean (3 books, 1971–79)

They believed that over 25 million native people lived in central Mexico before the Spanish arrived. These numbers were much higher than what others thought. This led to a big discussion among historians. Their research suggested that millions of native people died when the Spanish came.

They thought the huge drop in the native population happened because of very hard labor forced by the Spanish. Also, their traditional way of life was disrupted. New European diseases also played a big part.

Economic History and Justice

Borah also wrote important books about economic history. His book New Spain's Century of Depression suggested that the economy went down. This was because so many native people had died. He also looked at how trade worked between Mexico and Peru in his book Early Colonial Trade and Navigation between Mexico and Peru (1954).

His last major book was Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-Real (1983). This book won a major award called the Herbert E. Bolton Prize.

In 1979, the Conference on Latin American History gave Borah its highest award, the Distinguished Service Award. He was also invited to teach at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1981–82. As President of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, Borah shared his ideas in a speech called "Discontinuity and Continuity in Mexican History."