Alfred Irving "Pete" Hallowell (; 1892–1974) was an award-winning American anthropologist, archaeologist and businessman.

Early life and education

Hallowell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended the

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...

receiving his B.S. degree in 1914. It was assumed he would follow a career in business but Hallowell developed interests in sociology and became first a social worker for the Family Society. Hallowell expanded his interests, taking classes in anthropology. At the University of Pennsylvania, he completed his M.A. in 1920, and his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1924. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere". Hallowell was a student of the anthropologist

Frank Speck Frank Gouldsmith Speck (November 8, 1881 – February 6, 1950) was an American anthropologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in the Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples among the Eastern Woodland Native Americans of ...

but whilst studying for his Ph.D., Hallowell travelled to Columbia University to attend the weekly seminar led by Franz Boas - the ideas discussed at which greatly influenced Hallowell's development as an anthropologist.

Career

From 1927 through 1963 Hallowell was a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania - excepting 1944 through 1947 when he taught the subject at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. Hallowell played a central role in developing Northwestern's Anthropology department as a major centre in the United States for the study of the discipline. Hallowell's main field of study was Native Americans including the

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pre ...

, the Montagnais-Naskapi but particularly the

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

, about whom he wrote nearly forty individual papers, articles, chapters, and one monograph. This output has been described as "one of the most complete recordings of the changing way of life of a hunting-and-gathering population that is available in the ethnographic record". In his research he utilised anthropological techniques such as ethnography and linguistic studies but also methods drawn from clinical psychology - mainly the Rorschach, or ink-blot, test - to assess the personality structures of Native American populations. Use of such a methodology made Hallowell a controversial figure for many anthropologists. His students included the anthropologists

Melford Spiro Melford Elliot Spiro (April 26, 1920 – October 18, 2014) was an American cultural anthropologist specializing in religion and psychological anthropology. He is known for his critiques of the pillars of contemporary anthropological theory� ...

Anthony F. C. Wallace Anthony Francis Clarke Wallace (April 15, 1923 – October 5, 2015) was a Canadian-American anthropologist who specialized in Native American cultures, especially the Iroquois. His research expressed an interest in the intersection of cultural a ...

, Raymond D. Fogelson,

George W. Stocking, Jr. George W. Stocking Jr. (December 28, 1928July 13, 2013) was a German-born American scholar noted for his scholarship on the history of anthropology. Early life and education Stocking was born in Berlin, Germany in 1928. His father, the economist ...

Regna Darnell Regna Darnell (born July 10, 1943, Cleveland, Ohio) is an American-Canadian anthropologist and professor of Anthropology and First Nations Studies at the University of Western Ontario, where she has founded the First Nations Studies Program. Ov ...

Erika Eichhorn Bourguignon Erika Eichhorn Bourguignon (February 18, 1924 – February 15, 2015)

, James W. VanStone and

Marie-Françoise Guédon Marie-Françoise Guédon, Ph.D., is a Canadian anthropologist and professor of religious studies at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada. She has done fieldwork among the Inuit, Gitksan, Ahtna, and Tanana peoples of Canada and Alaska. Ma ...

. After his retirement, his position was filled by the linguistic anthropologist and folklorist Dell Hymes.

Honours

Hallowell received numerous honors and awards. He served as president of the American Anthropological Association (1949), the American Folklore Society (1940-41), and the Society for Projective Techniques. Hallowell also served as chairman of the Division of Psychology and Anthropology of the

National Research Council National Research Council may refer to: * National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development * National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome * National Research Council (United States), part of ...

(1946–49) and was elected a Fellow of the both the National Academy of Sciences (1961) and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

(1963). He received the Viking Medal for outstanding achievement in anthropology in 1956.

Selected publications

* ''Bear Ceremonialism in the Northern Hemisphere ''(1926) * ''The Role of Conjuring in Saulteaux Society'' (1942) * ''Culture and Experience'' (1955) * ''Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View'' (1960) * ''Contributions to Anthropology'' (1976)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hallowell, Alfred Irving 1892 births 1974 deaths Hallowell family American anthropology writers American male non-fiction writers Psychological anthropologists Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty Northwestern University faculty Anthropology educators Writers from Philadelphia 20th-century American archaeologists 20th-century American anthropologists 20th-century American male writers Presidents of the American Folklore Society

Early life and education

Career

Honours

Selected publications

Further reading

References