Alfred L. Kroeber

He married Henrietta Rothschild in 1906. Unfortunately his wife contracted tuberculosis and suffered several years of ill health before succumbing to her illness in 1913.

Several years after his first wife’s death he married Theodora Kracaw Brown, a widow, in 1926. Theodora had two sons from her previous marriage whom Kroeber adopted. The couple had a happy marriage that produced two more children.

He died on October 5, 1960, at the age of 84.

He was born on June 11, 1876, in New Jersey, to a German immigrant father, Florence Kroeber and his wife Johanna Muller. He was the eldest of their four children. The family moved to New York when Alfred was young.

When he was around seven years old he was tutored by Dr. Bamberger whom he later credited to be a brilliant teacher who instilled in his students a great curiosity for learning.

He went to Sachs’ Collegiate Institute, a grammar and high school, modeled on German gymnasium. This institute prepared boys for college.

He went to Columbia College in 1892 when he was 16 and received his A.B. in English in 1896 and an M.A. in Romantic drama the following year. However, he decided to change his field to anthropology.

In 1901, he received his doctorate degree in Anthropology from the Columbia University for his thesis on decorative symbolism on his field work among the Arapaho. His guide for Ph.D had been Franz Boas.

In 1901, he embarked on his professional career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he would spend most of his career. He would eventually serve as both, a Professor of Anthropology and the Director of the then University of California Museum of Anthropology (now the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology).

Anthropology at that time was an emerging field and thus Kroeber and his contemporaries were assigned to vaguely defined academic positions that offered uncertain financial support. However, with his dedication and hard work he eventually succeeded in popularizing the field of anthropology.

For the first five years of his career at the university his salary was fixed at $1200 per annum. Along with teaching semesters, he investigated the little-known languages and cultures of native California along with P.E. Goddard.

In 1923, he published the book ‘Anthropology’ which was one of the most influential books on the subject during that time. Since anthropology was an emerging field, his book was the only textbook available for aspiring anthropologists.

Kroeber was aided by his students in research and together they did significant works in studying the western tribes of Native Americans. The data collected by them and the research they conducted was published in the ‘Handbook of the Indians of California’ (1925).

He was made a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1912 in recognition of his contributions to the field of anthropology.

He is the recipient of several honorary degrees from reputed institutions like Yale University, Columbia University and Harvard.