Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Steve Talbot Papers
- Dates:
- 1965-1985
- Creators:
- Talbot, Steve
- Abstract:
- The Steve Talbot Papers document Talbot's activities as an adjunct professor of anthropology at Oregon State University and as a lecturer at the University of California, Davis.
- Extent:
- 21.4 linear feet
- Language:
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Steve Talbot Papers, D-362, Archives and Special Collections, UC Davis Library, University of California, Davis.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains Talbot's research files from 1965-1985 on the impact of the oil discovery in Prudoe Bay and the building of the pipeline on Alaska Native rights, files for his masters thesis on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, documents from the United Nations Geneva conference in 1977, readers and syllabi in Native American Studies at UC Davis, and Native American publications.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Steve Talbot was an anthropology and Native American studies professor at numerous universities who specialized in anthropology and Native American Studies. He was born on March 28, 1930 in Alameda County, California and lived there and in Akron, Indiana with his grandparents in his childhood. He attended the University of Oregon and studied anthropology from 1948-1952. His academic career was interrupted when he was drafted into the Korean War in 1952. Although he applied as a conscientious objector due to his religious beliefs, his request was denied, and he was conscripted into the Marines. He received a dishonorable discharge in 1953 due to his opposition to the war, and returned to the University of Oregon and completed his anthropology degree in 1955. He graduated from the University of Arizona in 1967 with a master’s degree in anthropology and community development, and from the University of California, Berkeley with a PhD in anthropology in 1974. His research was largely within the field of Native American Studies, including Native American resistance movements, government Indian policy, and Native American religion and spirituality. His PhD dissertation later became his first book, Roots of Oppression, which focused on the Wounded Knee Massacre and had Jack Forbes, one of Talbot’s mentors and a major founder of Native American Studies in California, as a committee member. Talbot worked extensively throughout his career with Native American organizations and in the University development of Native American Studies courses. In the 1960s he worked as a fieldworker for the American Friends Service Committee and the San Carlos Apache Reservation on community development, and worked as a state social worker for the Tohono O'Odham Reservation in Arizona. He moved back to the Bay Area in the mid-1960s and served for two years as a board member of the Oakland Intertribal Friendship House. He began working at UC Berkeley in 1965 as an applied anthropologist and in 1967 became a research assistant in the University's multicultural program for Jack Forbes. In 1969 he became heavily involved in the 1969 Third World Liberation Movement on campus, which advocated for the establishment of a College of Ethnic Studies, and later, as a teaching assistant, aided Forbes and other students in the formation of the Native American Studies program for the University's new Department of Ethnic Studies. He taught “Native American Liberation” as a teaching assistant, one of the first Native American Studies classes offered at the university, and taught many of the Native American students who occupied Alcatraz Island in 1969. He resigned as an acting assistant professor after graduating in 1974 and moved with his wife to Finland for her work with a United Nations-related non-governmental organization. In Europe he taught courses in Native American history at Turku and Helsinki Universities and guest lectured in Denmark, Germany, and the former Soviet Union. He returned to the United States and became Chair of the sociology and anthropology department at the University of District Columbia from 1977-1983, and throughout the 1980s was an active member of the Indigenous NGO at the United Nations - the International Indian Treaty Council, in the the Desecration Committee. From 1988-1990 he taught as a lecturer at University of California, Davis in the Native American Studies program. He resigned from his position at Davis in 1990 due to budgetary constraints and accepted a position at San Joaquin Delta College teaching Native American Studies, sociology, and anthropology. He retired in 1999 and moved to Florence, Oregon with his wife. While living in Oregon he continued to teach as an adjunct professor of anthropology at Oregon State University, and sociology and Native American Studies at Lane Community College. Talbot was honored with numerous research and guest lecture opportunities throughout his career. From 1969-1971 he received a career fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct field research in Alaska on the impact of oil discovery on Alaskan Natives. From 1981-1986 he was sponsored by the National Endowment of the Humanities as a visiting scholar in the Summer Seminar for Teachers, and taught at the University of Arizona and Stanford University. He published extensively in the field of Native American Studies, including the article “Why Native American Heritage Should Be Taught in College” in the Indian Historian journal (1974), his first book Roots of Oppression: The American Indian Question (1981), the article “Academic Indianismo: Social Scientific Research in American Indian Studies” in the journal of American Indian Culture and Research (2002), the article “Spiritual Genocide: The Denial of American Indian Religious Freedom from Conquest to 1934,” in the Wicazo Sa Review (2006), the book Native American Voices: A Reader, co-written with Susan Lobo and the third edition with Traci L. Morris (2010), and the book Native American Nations of North America: An Indigenous Perspective (2015). Talbot passed away at 87 years old in Florence, Oregon.
- Processing information:
-
The biography was written by Sacramento State Public History graduate student Ettienne LeFebre. Michelle Trujillo updated this finding aid in 2026.
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Prepared:
- July 14, 2025, 2:54 p.m.
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using Record Express for OAC5 on July 14, 2025, 2:54 p.m.
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Collection is open for research.
- Terms of access:
-
All applicable copyrights for the collection are protected under chapter 17 of the U.S. Copyright Code. Requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Regents of the University of California as the owner of the physical items. It is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Steve Talbot Papers, D-362, Archives and Special Collections, UC Davis Library, University of California, Davis.
- Location of this collection:
-
University of California, Davis, Special Collections, UC Davis Library100 NW QuadDavis, CA 95616-5292, US
- Contact:
- (530) 752-1621