Melville Jacobs (July 3, 1902 – July 31, 1971) was an American anthropologist known for his extensive fieldwork on cultures of the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Tho ...

. He was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. After studying with Franz Boas he became a member of the faculty of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

in 1928 and remained until his death in 1971. Especially during the earlier part of his career, from 1928 until 1936, he collected large amounts of linguistic data and text from a wide range of languages including

Sahaptin The Sahaptin are a number of Native American tribes who speak dialects of the Sahaptin language. The Sahaptin tribes inhabited territory along the Columbia River and its tributaries in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Sahaptin-s ...

, Molale, Kalapuya, Clackamas,

Tillamook Tillamook may refer to: Places: * Tillamook County, Oregon, United States * Tillamook, Oregon, a city, the seat of Tillamook County * Tillamook River, United States * Tillamook Bay, a bay in the northwestern part of Oregon * Tillamook Head, a natu ...

Alsea The Alsea are a Native American tribe of Western Oregon. They are (since 1856), confederated with other Tribes on the Siletz Reservation, Oregon, and are members of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz. Their origin story says that the Yaquina, Al ...

, Upper Umpqua, Galice and Chinook Jargon. He left funds to establish the Jacobs Research Fund, which supports anthropological research in the Pacific Northwest. His papers, including extensive raw linguistic material that has provided the basis for subsequent research on now extinct languages, are held by the

in the Jacobs Archive. In 2019, the "Melville Jacobs Collection of Native Americans of the American Northwest (1929-1939)" was selected by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

for preservation in the

National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservati ...

as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". He was married to Elizabeth Jacobs (anthropologist), also an anthropologist.

Works

*''A Sketch of Northern Sahaptin Grammar'' (1931) *''Notes on the Structure of Chinook Jargon'' (1932) *''Northwest Sahaptin Texts, I'' (1934) *''Texts in Chinook Jargon'' (1936) *''Northwest Sahaptin Texts, II'' (1937) *''Coos Narrative and Ethnologic Texts'' (1939) *''Coos Myth Texts'' (1940) *''Historic Perspectives in Indian Languages of Oregon and Washington'' (1941) *''Kalapuya Texts'' (1945) *''Outline of Anthropology'' (1947) *''General Anthropology; A Brief Survey of Physical, Cultural, and Social Anthropology'' (1952) *''Clackamas Chinook Texts'' (1959) *''The People are Coming Soon; Analyses of Clackamas Chinook Myths and Tales'' (1960) *''Pattern in Cultural Anthropology'' (1964) *''The Anthropologist Looks at Myth'' (1966)

References

*Winters, Christopher. International Dictionary of Anthropologists. New York: Garland, 1991 *Seaburg, William. "Badger and Coyote Were Neighbors: Melville Jacobs on Northwest Indian Myths and Tales", Oregon State University Press

External links

Minnesota State University biographical sketchJacobs Research Fund

Works

References

External links

Archives