Ray, Verne Frederick (1905 - September 28, 2003)

Verne Frederick Ray (1905 - September 28, 2003) was an American anthropologist and an anthropology professor at the University of Washington. He received a B.A. and M.A. in anthropology from the University of Washington before earning a Ph.D. from Yale in 1937. Then, he returned to the University of Washington and eventually became head of the Department of Anthropology and associate dean of the Graduate School. His is best remembered for helping Northwest Native American tribes with tribal land-claims settlements. He is also remembered as a pioneer of ethnohistory. Over the course of his career, Ray authored or edited fifty-two books on anthropology, with a particular focus on the Native Americans of the Northwest. He married Dorothy Jean Ray, a fellow anthropologist.