Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge was born in New York City on December 19, 1901, the second of four children of Christopher Grant and Florence Bayard La Farge. La Farge's father, a prominent New York architect whose firm drafted the first plan for the Cathedral of St.

John the Divine, had a strong interest in Native American culture. On his mother's side, La Farge counted the American naval hero Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry among his ancestors. Born into affluence, he spent his childhood summers at the family home on the Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, and his winters in New York City, where he received his early schooling. After graduating from the Groton School, he enrolled in Harvard as an undergraduate, majoring in anthropology.

His highly literate mother advised him that a young man should live for a while in a culture different from his own so...