William Edward Dunn (1888–1966) was a student of Herbert Eugene Bolton at the University of Texas and went with Bolton to Mexico City to assist in research work on the early history of the Spanish Southwest. He returned to Austin in 1913 and taught history and then Latin-American history and economics; in 1915–16 he served as Spanish archives investigator for the Library of Congress. During World War I he served in the naval intelligence service, and saw duty in various Latin-American countries. After the war he returned to the university to teach, then resigned to become Latin-American editor for the New York Sun Herald. Dunn spent approximately the next 30 years in various positions of foreign relations for the United States Dept. of State and other government positions. In 1950 he became a lecturer at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., and in 1953 he became a director for the Inter-American Scholastic Service of the American Council on Education.

Dunn was the author of Commercial and Industrial Handbook on Peru (1925) and numerous monographs in the field of Latin-American history. He was married to Linda Tays, and they had two children. The family lived in Washington, D.C., and Dallas. Dunn died in Dallas on November 18, 1966, and was buried at Sulphur Springs.