Biography
He was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts to Henry Bradford Washburn, Sr., dean of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, and Edith Buckingham Hall. He was the younger brother of Henry Bradford Washburn. In his youth, Washburn took a keen interest in the field of natural history, and during school vacations worked with exhibits and collections in Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Washburn graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University with a Bachelors Degree in Anthropology in 1935, followed by a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1940. For a time, Washburn considered pursuing his doctorate in zoology, and in his first year in graduate school, worked as an assistant with a zoological expedition in southern Asia called the Asiatic Primate Expedition. His work as a graduate student in comparative anatomy, comparative psychology, animal locomotion mechanics, and paleontology helped shape in him a multi-disciplinary perspective toward the study of evolutionary origins.
Washburn married Henrietta Pease in 1938, and they had two children, Sherwood "Tuck" and Stan. They subsequently resided in New York, Chicago, Illinois and Berkeley, California, where Sherwood held university positions. Washburn died in Berkeley in 2000 at age 88.
Read more about this topic: Sherwood Washburn
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