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Alfred Kroeber

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Alfred Kroeber
Kroeber in 1920
Born
Alfred Louis Kroeber

(1876-06-11)June 11, 1876
Hoboken, New Jersey,U.S.
DiedOctober 5, 1960(1960-10-05)(aged 84)
Paris,France
Spouses
  • Henriette Rothschild
    ​
    ​
    (m.1906; died 1913)​
  • ​
    ​
    (m.1926)​
    [2]
Children4, includingKarlandUrsula
AwardsViking Fund Medal(1946)
Academic background
Alma materColumbia University
Doctoral advisorFranz Boas
Academic work
DisciplineAnthropology
Sub-disciplineCultural anthropology
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
Doctoral studentsCora Du Bois,Margaret Lantis,Katharine Luomala,Laura Maud Thompson,Charles F. Voegelin,
InfluencedH. Stuart Hughes[1]

Alfred Louis Kroeber(/ˈkroʊbər/KROH-bər;June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an Americancultural anthropologist.He received his PhD underFranz BoasatColumbia Universityin 1901, the first doctorate inanthropologyawarded by Columbia. He was also the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.[3]He played an integral role in the early days of itsMuseum of Anthropology,where he served as director from 1909 through 1947.[4]Kroeber provided detailed information aboutIshi,the last surviving member of theYahi people,whom he studied over a period of years. He was the father of the acclaimed novelist, poet, and writer of short storiesUrsula K. Le Guin.

Life

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Kroeber (left) withIshiin 1911

Kroeber was born inHoboken, New Jersey,to parents of German Protestant origin. His mother, Johanna Mueller, was an American of German descent; his father, Florenz Friederick Martin Kroeber, came to the United States from Germany at the age of ten, with his parents and family, and became an importer of French clocks as his wife's father, Nicholas Mueller.[5]The family belonged to a German-American milieu that was upper middle-class, classical and rationalistic, and schooled in the German intellectual tradition.[6][7]

Alfred's family moved into New York City when Alfred was quite young, and he was tutored and attended private schools there. He had three younger siblings and all had scholarly interests. The family was bilingual, speaking German at home, and Kroeber also began to studyLatinandGreekin school, beginning a lifelong interest in languages.[2]He attendedColumbia Collegeat the age of 16, joining thePhilolexian Societyand earning an BA in English in 1896 and an MA in Romantic drama in 1897. Changing fields to the new one ofanthropology,he received his PhD underFranz BoasatColumbia Universityin 1901, basing his 28-page dissertation on decorative symbolism on his field work among theArapaho.It was the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia.

Kroeber spent most of his career in California, primarily at theUniversity of California, Berkeley.He was both a Professor of Anthropology and the Director of what was then the University of California Museum of Anthropology (now thePhoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology). The anthropology department's headquarters building at the University of California was named Kroeber Hall in his honor, before being un-named January 26, 2021, in order to "help Berkeley recognize a challenging part of our history, while better supporting the diversity of today's academic community."[8]He was associated with Berkeley until his retirement in 1946. He died inParison October 5, 1960.

Personal life

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Kroeber married Henriette Rothschild in 1906. She contractedtuberculosisand died in 1913, after several years of illness.[2]

In 1926 he married again, toTheodora Kracaw Brown,a widow who had been a student in one of his graduate seminars.[2]They had two children:Karl Kroeber,a literary critic, and the science fiction writerUrsula Kroeber Le Guin.In addition, Alfred adopted Theodora's sons by her first marriage, Ted andClifton Brown,who both took his surname.

In 2003, Clifton and Karl Kroeber published a book of essays onIshi's story, which they co-edited, called,Ishi in Three Centuries.[9]This is the first scholarly book on Ishi to contain essays by Native American writers and academics.

After her husband's death, Theodora Kroeber wrote a biography of him, titledAlfred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration.It was published by theUniversity of California Pressin 1970.David G. Mandelbaum,a cultural anthropologist and former colleague of Alfred,[10]stated that this biography was just as important a work from an anthropologist's perspective asIshi in Two Worlds.[11]

Influence

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Although he is known primarily as acultural anthropologist,he did significant work inarchaeologyandanthropological linguistics,and he contributed to anthropology by making connections between archaeology and culture. He conducted excavations inNew Mexico,Mexico,andPeru.In Peru he helped found theInstitute for Andean Studies(IAS) with the Peruvian anthropologistJulio C. Telloand other major scholars.

Kroeber and his students did important work collecting cultural data on western tribes ofNative Americans.The work done in preserving information about Californian tribes appeared inHandbook of the Indians of California(1925). In that book, Kroeber first described a pattern in Californian groups where a social unit was smaller and less hierarchically organized than atribe,[12][13]which was elaborated upon inThe Patwin and their Neighbors[14]in which Kroeber first coined the term "tribelet"to describe this level of organization. Kroeber is credited with developing the concepts ofculture area,cultural configuration (Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America,1939), andcultural fatigue(Anthropology,1963).

Kroeber influenced many of his contemporaries in his views as a cultural historian. During his lifetime, he was known as the "Dean of American Anthropologists". Kroeber andRoland B. Dixonwere very influential in the genetic classification ofNative American languagesin North America, being responsible for theoretical groupings such asPenutianandHokan,based on common languages.

He is noted for working withIshi,who was claimed to be the last CaliforniaYahiIndian. (Ishi may have been of mixed ethnic heritage, with a father from the Wintu, Maidu or Nomlaki tribes.)[15]His second wife,Theodora Kracaw Kroeber,wrote a well-known biography of Ishi,Ishi in Two Worlds.Kroeber's relationship with Ishi was the subject of a film,The Last of His Tribe(1992), starringJon Voightas Kroeber andGraham Greeneas Ishi.[16][17]

Kroeber's textbook,Anthropology(1923, 1948), was widely used for many years. In the late 1940s, it was one of ten books required as reading for all students during their first year atColumbia University.His book,Configurations of Cultural Growth(1944), had a lasting impact on social scientific research ongeniusandgreatness;Kroeber believed that genius arose out of culture at particular times, rather than holding to "the great man" theory.[18]

Kroeber's childhood friend Carl Alsberg described him as a "good listener" and able "to be objective, to see the other point of view, to penetrate behind another person's behavior to his underlying thought [...] These traits indicate a sincerity and simplicity of character that primitive peoples sense at once and to which they respond by giving their confidence."[19]

From 1920 to 1923 Kroeber conducted an active practice as a lay psychoanalyst, with an office in San Francisco.[19]

Indian land claims

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Kroeber served early on as the plaintiffs' director of research inIndians of California v. the United States,a land claim case.[20]Omer Stewartof the University of Colorado served as associate director.Ralph Bealsof the University of California, Los Angeles, served as director of research for the federal government in the case. Both men were former students of Kroeber.[21]Kroeber's impact on theIndian Claims Commissionmay well have established the way expert witnesses presented testimony before the tribunal.[22]Several of his former students also served as expert witnesses; for instance, Stewart directed the plaintiff research for theUteand for theShoshonepeoples.[23]

Awards and honors

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Partial list of works

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  • Indian Myths of South Central California(1907), inUniversity of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology4:167–250. Berkeley.
  • The Religion of the Indians of California(1907), inUniversity of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology4:6.
  • Kroeber, Alfred Louis;Waterman, Thomas Talbot;Sapir, Edward;Sparkman, Philip Stedman (January–March 1908)."Notes on California folk-lore".Journal of American Folklore.21(80): 35–42.doi:10.2307/534527.hdl:2027/uc1.31822005860226.JSTOR534527.
  • Handbook of the Indians of California(1925),Washington, D.C:Bureau of American Ethnology BulletinNo. 78
  • "Native American Population"(1934) inAmerican Anthropologist,Vol. 36, No. 1.
  • The Nature of Culture(1952). University of Chicago.
  • withClyde Kluckhohn:Culture. A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions(1952). Cambridge.
  • Paracas Cavernas and Chavin(1953).Letras (Lima),19(49), 49-71.
  • Style and CivilizationsWestport Conn.: Greenwood, 1957.
  • Anthropology: Culture Patterns & Processes(1963). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World (earlier editions in 1923 and 1948).

References

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  1. ^Gilkeson, John S. (2010).Anthropologists and the Rediscovery of America, 1886–1965.New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 217.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511779558.ISBN978-1-139-49118-1.
  2. ^abcdJulian H. Steward, "Alfred L. Kroeber 1876–1960: Obituary",American Ethnography,first published inAmerican Anthropologist,October 1961, New Series 63(5:1):1038–1087, accessed 5 Nov 2010
  3. ^"History, Anthropology Department, UC Berkeley".University of California, Berkeley. Archived fromthe originalon October 9, 2014.RetrievedJanuary 7,2015.
  4. ^Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology – HistoryArchived2011-07-25 at theWayback Machine
  5. ^The Clock Guy,F. Kroeber Clock Company.
  6. ^Staff."Dr. Kroeber Dies; Anthropologist; Authority on Indians Taught at California 45 Years—Wrote Standard Text",The New York Times,October 6, 1960. Accessed February 6, 2013. "A native of Hoboken, N. J., Dr. Kroeber was graduated from Columbia in 1896."
  7. ^J.H. Steward, "Alfred Louis Kroeber, 1876-1960", American Anthropologist 63 (1961), p. 1038-1087.
  8. ^Kell, Gretchen (January 26, 2021)."Kroeber Hall, honoring anthropologist who symbolizes exclusion, is unnamed".Berkeley News.RetrievedJanuary 27,2021.
  9. ^Clifton and Karl Kroeber (2002)Ishi in Three Centuries,Univ. of Nebraska PressISBN978-0-8032-2250-2
  10. ^"David G. Mandelbaum".The New York Times.New York City. April 23, 1987. p. D31. Archived fromthe originalon May 16, 2022.RetrievedOctober 29,2022.
  11. ^Mandelbaum, David (1979)."Memorial to Theodora Kroeber Quinn (1897–1979)"(PDF).Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology.1(2): 237–239.RetrievedJanuary 25,2019.
  12. ^Kroeber, A (1976).Handbook of the Indians of California.New York: Dover Publications. pp.160–163, 228–230, 234–235.ISBN978-0-486-23368-0.
  13. ^Golla, Victor (2011).California Indian languages.Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN978-0-520-26667-4.
  14. ^Kroeber, A.L. (1932).The Patwin and their neighbors(PDF).bUniversity of California Press.
  15. ^"ARF Newsletter 1996 v3-2 | Archaeological Research Facility".Arf.berkeley.edu.RetrievedAugust 29,2013.
  16. ^Higgins, Bill (March 20, 1992)."Makers of HBO's 'Tribe' Given a Warm Reception".Los Angeles Times.
  17. ^Fleras, Augie (2006). "Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America".Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.27(3): 265–268.doi:10.1080/01434630608668780.S2CID216112743.
  18. ^Simonton, D.K. 1994.Greatness: Who Makes History and Why.New York: The Guilford Press. p. 375–382
  19. ^abBurnham, John C. (2012)."Anthropologist A. L. Kroeber's Career as a Psychoanalyst: New Evidence and Lessons from a Significant Case History".American Imago.69(1): 5–27.ISSN0065-860X.JSTOR26304897.
  20. ^13Ind. Cl. Comm.369 (1964)
  21. ^Beals, R. L. (1985). "The Anthropologist as Expert Witness: Illustrations from the California Indian Land Claims Case," inIrredeemable America: the Indians' Estate and Land Claims,ed. I. Sutton (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press); ch. 6. Heizer, Robert F., and Alfred L. Kroeber (1976). "For Sale: California at 47 Cents per Acre".Journal of California Anthropology.3:38–65.
  22. ^Stewart, Omer C (1961). "Kroeber and the Indian Claims Commission Cases".Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers.25:181–190.
  23. ^Stewart, Omer C. (1985). "The Shoshone Claims Cases," inIrredeemable America...,op. cit., ch. 8.
  24. ^"Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B"(PDF).American Academy of Arts and Sciences.RetrievedJune 1,2011.
  25. ^Steward, Julian H.; Gibson, Ann J.; Rowe, John H. (1961). "Alfred Louis Kroeber, 1876–1960".American Anthropologist.63(5): 1039.doi:10.1525/aa.1961.63.5.02a00100.JSTOR667051.
  26. ^"Alfred Kroeber".www.nasonline.org.RetrievedApril 26,2023.
  27. ^"APS Member History".search.amphilsoc.org.RetrievedApril 26,2023.

Further reading

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