Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American
cultural anthropologist
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portman ...
. He received his PhD under
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 1901, the first doctorate in
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
awarded by Columbia. He was also the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
.
He played an integral role in the early days of its
Museum of Anthropology
This is a list of museums with major collections in ethnography and anthropology. It is sorted by descending number of objects listed.
# Canadian Museum of History, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
#: 3.75 million artifacts
# Musée du quai Branly, P ...
, where he served as director from 1909 through 1947. Kroeber provided detailed information about
Ishi, the last surviving member of the
Yahi people
The Yana were a group of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada, on the western side of the range. Their lands, prior to encroachment by white settlers, bordered ...
, whom he studied over a period of years. He was the father of the acclaimed novelist, poet, and writer of short stories
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...
.
Life
Kroeber was born in
Hoboken, New Jersey
Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,690 i ...
, to parents of German Protestant origin. His mother Johanna Muller was an American of German descent; his father Florence 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. The family belonged to a German-American milieu that was upper middle-class, classical and rationalistic, schooled in the German intellectual tradition, and of mixed Jewish and Protestant ancestry.
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 study
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
in school, beginning a lifelong interest in languages.
He attended
Columbia College at the age of 16, joining the
Philolexian Society
The Philolexian Society of Columbia University is one of the oldest college literary and debate societies in the United States, and the oldest student group at Columbia. Founded in 1802, the Society aims to "improve its members in Oratory, Compo ...
and earning an BA in English in 1896 and an MA in Romantic drama in 1897. Changing fields to the new one of
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
, he received his PhD under
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 1901, basing his 28-page dissertation on decorative symbolism on his field work among the
Arapaho
The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.
By the 1850s, Arapaho ba ...
. It was the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia.
Kroeber spent most of his career in California, primarily at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. He was both a Professor of Anthropology and the Director of what was then the University of California Museum of Anthropology (now the
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology (formerly the Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology) is an anthropology museum located in Berkeley, California, on the University of California, Berkeley, campus.
History
Founded in 1901 under the pa ...
). 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." He was associated with Berkeley until his retirement in 1946. He died in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
on October 5, 1960.
Personal life
Kroeber married Henriette Rothschild in 1906. She contracted
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
and died in 1913, after several years of illness.
In 1926 he married again, to
Theodora Kracaw Brown, a widow who had been a student in one of his graduate seminars.
They had two children:
Karl Kroeber
__NOTOC__
Karl Kroeber (November 24, 1926 – November 8, 2009) was an American literary scholar, known for his writing on the English Romantics and American Indian literature. He was the son of Theodora and Alfred L. Kroeber, both anthropologists ...
, a literary critic, and the science fiction writer
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the ''Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...
. In addition, Alfred adopted Theodora's sons by her first marriage, Ted and
Clifton Brown, who both took his surname.
In 2003, Clifton and Karl Kroeber published a book of essays on
Ishi's story, which they co-edited, called, ''Ishi in Three Centuries''. 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, titled ''
Alfred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration''. It was published by the
University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
in 1970.
David G. Mandelbaum
David Goodman Mandelbaum (August 22, 1911, in Chicago – April 19, 1987) was an American anthropologist.
He majored in anthropology at Northwestern University, studying with Melville J. Herskovits. His major published work dealt with the Plains ...
, a cultural anthropologist and former colleague of Alfred, stated that this biography was just as important a work from an anthropologist's perspective as ''
Ishi in Two Worlds
''Ishi in Two Worlds'' is a biographical account of Ishi, the last known member of the Yahi Native American people. Written by American author Theodora Kroeber, it was first published in 1961. Ishi had been found alone and starving outside Orov ...
''.
Influence
Although he is known primarily as a
cultural anthropologist
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portman ...
, he did significant work in
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
and
anthropological linguistics, and he contributed to anthropology by making connections between archaeology and culture. He conducted excavations in
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, and
Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
. In Peru he helped found the
Institute for Andean Studies (IAS) with the Peruvian anthropologist
Julio C. Tello
Julio César Tello (April 11, 1880 – June 3, 1947) was a Peruvian Archaeology, archaeologist. Tello is considered the "father of Peruvian archeology" and was the first indigenous people of the Americas, indigenous archaeologist in South America ...
and other major scholars.
Kroeber and his students did important work collecting cultural data on western tribes of
Native Americans. The work done in preserving information about California tribes appeared in ''Handbook of the Indians of California'' (1925). In that book, Kroeber first described a pattern in California groups where a social unit was smaller and less hierarchically organized than a
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...
,
which was elaborated upon in ''The Patwin and their Neighbors''
in which Kroeber first coined the term "tribelet" to describe this level of organization. Kroeber is credited with developing the concepts of
culture area
In anthropology and geography, a cultural region, cultural sphere, cultural area or culture area refers to a geography with one relatively homogeneous human activity or complex of activities (culture). Such activities are often associated ...
, cultural configuration (''Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America'', 1939), and cultural 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 and
Roland B. Dixon were very influential in the genetic classification of
Native American languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
in North America, being responsible for theoretical groupings such as
Penutian
Penutian is a proposed grouping of language families that includes many Native American languages of western North America, predominantly spoken at one time in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. The existence of a Penutian s ...
and
Hokan
The Hokan language family is a hypothetical grouping of a dozen small language families that were spoken mainly in California, Arizona and Baja California.
Etymology
The name ''Hokan'' is loosely based on the word for "two" in the various Hokan ...
, based on common languages.
He is noted for working with
Ishi, who was claimed to be the last California
Yahi
The Yana were a group of Native Americans indigenous to Northern California in the central Sierra Nevada, on the western side of the range. Their lands, prior to encroachment by white settlers, bordered the Pit and Feather rivers. They w ...
Indian. (Ishi may have been of mixed ethnic heritage, with a father from the Wintu, Maidu or Nomlaki tribes.) His second wife,
Theodora Kracaw Kroeber, wrote a well-known biography of Ishi, ''
Ishi in Two Worlds
''Ishi in Two Worlds'' is a biographical account of Ishi, the last known member of the Yahi Native American people. Written by American author Theodora Kroeber, it was first published in 1961. Ishi had been found alone and starving outside Orov ...
''. Kroeber's relationship with Ishi was the subject of a film, ''
The Last of His Tribe
''The Last of His Tribe'' is a 1992 American television film, made-for-television drama (film and television), drama film based on the book ''Ishi in Two Worlds'' by Theodora Kroeber which relates the experiences of her husband Alfred L. Kroeber w ...
'' (1992), starring
Jon Voight
Jonathan Vincent Voight (; born December 29, 1938) is an American actor. He came to prominence in the late 1960s with his Academy Award–nominated performance as Joe Buck, a would-be gigolo, in ''Midnight Cowboy'' (1969). During the 1970s, h ...
as Kroeber and
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
as Ishi.
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 at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. His book, ''Configurations of Cultural Growth'' (1944), had a lasting impact on social scientific research on
genius
Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabili ...
and
greatness
Greatness is a concept of a state of superiority affecting a person or object in a particular place or area. Greatness can also be attributed to individuals who possess a natural ability to be better than all others. An example of an expressio ...
; Kroeber believed that genius arose out of culture at particular times, rather than holding to "the great man" theory.
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."
From 1920 to 1923 Kroeber conducted an active practice as a lay psychoanalyst, with an office in San Francisco.
Indian land claims
Kroeber served early on as the plaintiffs' director of research in ''Indians of California v. the United States'', a land claim case.
Omer Stewart of the University of Colorado served as associate director.
Ralph Beals
Ralph Leon Beals (July 19, 1901 – February 24, 1985) was an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, a former president of the American Anthropological Association, and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He worked on ...
of 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. Kroeber's impact on the
Indian Claims Commission The Indian Claims Commission was a judicial relations arbiter between the United States federal government and Native American tribes. It was established under the Indian Claims Act of 1946 by the United States Congress to hear any longstanding clai ...
may well have established the way expert witnesses presented testimony before the tribunal. Several of his former students also served as expert witnesses; for instance, Stewart directed the plaintiff research for the
Ute
Ute or UTE may refer to:
* Ute (band), an Australian jazz group
* Ute (given name)
* ''Ute'' (sponge), a sponge genus
* Ute (vehicle), an Australian and New Zealand term for certain utility vehicles
* Ute, Iowa, a city in Monona County along ...
and for the
Shoshone peoples.
Awards and honors
*Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
(1912)
* Kroeber received five honorary degrees (Yale, California, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago)
* He was awarded two gold medals.
* He held honorary membership in 16 scientific societies.
* President of the
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
(1917–1918)
Partial list of works
''Indian Myths of South Central California''(1907), in ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'' 4:167–250. Berkeley.
''The Religion of the Indians of California''(1907), in ''University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology'' 4:6.
*
''Handbook of the Indians of California'' (1925) Washington, D.C: ''Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin'' No. 78
"Native American Population"(1934) in ''American Anthropologist'', Vol. 36, No. 1.
''The Nature of Culture''(1952). University of Chicago.
* with
Clyde Kluckhohn
Clyde Kluckhohn (; January 11, 1905 in Le Mars, Iowa – July 28, 1960 near Santa Fe, New Mexico), was an American anthropologist and social theorist, best known for his long-term ethnographic work among the Navajo and his contributions to the ...
: ''Culture. A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions'' (1952). Cambridge.
* ''Style and Civilizations'' Westport Conn.: Greenwood, 1957.
* ''Anthropology: Culture Patterns & Processes'' (1963). New York: Harcourt, Brace & World (earlier editions in 1923 and 1948).
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
*
*
*
Alfred L. Kroeber, ''Sex in Natural History'' (talk at UC Berkeley, 1956) (online audio recording)Guide to the A. L. Kroeber Papers The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kroeber, Alfred Louis
1876 births
1960 deaths
American anthropologists
American archaeologists
American ethnologists
American folklorists
Linguists from the United States
American people of German descent
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Writers from Hoboken, New Jersey
Columbia University alumni
University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty
Historians of Native Americans
American Mesoamericanists
Mesoamerican anthropologists
20th-century Mesoamericanists
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Linguists of Algic languages
Linguists of Hokan languages
Linguists of Penutian languages
Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages
Paleolinguists
Linguistic Society of America presidents
Kroeber family
Linguists of indigenous languages of North America
Presidents of the American Folklore Society