William R. (William Ray) Manning

Born in 1871 and active during the early growth of Latin American studies in the United States, William R. Manning built his reputation through careful work with original documents. An obituary in The Hispanic American Historical Review credits his doctoral study, The Nootka Sound Controversy (1905), with winning the Justin Winsor Prize of the American Historical Association and becoming a standard work on the subject.

After completing his doctorate at the University of Chicago, he taught at Purdue University, George Washington University, and the University of Texas. He later joined the U.S. Department of State, where he worked on Latin American affairs for many years and served as a technical adviser to the Third Pan American Highway Conference in Santiago de Chile in 1939.

Manning also left behind a substantial body of published work. Records collected by The Online Books Page list titles including Early Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Mexico, Texas and the Boundary Issue, 1822-1829, and major documentary editions on the diplomatic correspondence of the United States and the independence of the Latin American nations. He died in 1942.