Ralph E. Turner

Ralph E. Turner (born Nov. 6, 1893, Anthon, Iowa, U.S.—died Oct. 5, 1964, New Haven, Conn.) was an American cultural historian, professor at Yale from 1944 to 1961, and, as an American delegate to an educators’ conference in London (1944), one of the planners of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In his historical research he relied on the methods of cultural anthropology.

He was chairman of the international editorial board preparing a six-volume Cultural History of Mankind, and he lived to see the publication (1963) of the first volume. From 1936 until 1941 he was economic historian for the Bureau of Research and Statistics, Social Security Board. During World War II he served in various governmental capacities as an economic analyst and as cultural-relations officer for the Department of State. His publications include America in Civilization (1925), James Silk Buckingham: A Social Biography (1933), and The Great Cultural Traditions, 2 vol. (1941).