Pearsall, Marion, 1923-

Marion Pearsall was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 27, 1923. Although not much is known of her childhood, her academic record begins with her graduation from Hamilton High School in Hamilton, New York, in 1940. She received her A. B. from the University of New Mexico in 1944, and in 1950 took a Ph. D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. That same year she accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Arkansas. In 1951, as a Fellow with the Rhodes-Livingston Institute, she spent time in then British Central Africa, studying the Tonga tribe of northern Nyasaland (now Malawi). After returning to the states she accepted a position in 1952 with the Anthropology Department at the University of Alabama, where she remained until 1956.

An active researcher and prolific writer, Pearsall had by this time published several articles and books on a variety of subjects and had begun to establish herself as an authority on the rural South and on the problems and potential of developing health care systems in the United States, both on the local and national levels. From 1956-58 she worked at Boston University as a Social Science Resident, working with several of the city hospitals and researching nursing supervision and outpatient care. In 1958 she took a position as Associate Professor of Sociology with the University of Kentucky, and became a full professor in the behavioral science department (through the College of Medicine) in 1964.

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