21 Facts About Alfred Kroeber

Alfred Louis Kroeber was an American cultural anthropologist.

Alfred Kroeber received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia.

Alfred Kroeber was the first professor appointed to the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Alfred Kroeber played an integral role in the early days of its Museum of Anthropology, where he served as director from 1909 through 1947.

Alfred Kroeber was the father of the acclaimed novelist, poet, and writer of short stories Ursula K Le Guin.

Alfred Kroeber was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to parents of German Protestant origin.

Alfred Kroeber's 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.

Alfred Kroeber's family moved into New York City when Alfred Kroeber was quite young, and he was tutored and attended private schools there.

Alfred Kroeber had three younger siblings and all had scholarly interests.

The family was bilingual, speaking German at home, and Alfred Kroeber began to study Latin and Greek in school, beginning a lifelong interest in languages.

Alfred Kroeber attended Columbia College at the age of 16, joining the Philolexian Society and earning an BA in English in 1896 and an MA in Romantic drama in 1897.

Alfred Kroeber spent most of his career in California, primarily at the University of California, Berkeley.

Alfred Kroeber was both a professor of Anthropology and the Director of what was then the University of California Museum of Anthropology.

Alfred Kroeber contracted tuberculosis and died in 1913, after several years of illness.

In 2003, Clifton and Karl Alfred Kroeber published a book of essays on Ishi's story, which they co-edited, called, Ishi in Three Centuries.

Alfred Kroeber conducted excavations in New Mexico, Mexico, and Peru.

In that book, Alfred Kroeber first described a pattern in Californian groups where a social unit was smaller and less hierarchically organized than a tribe, which was elaborated upon in The Patwin and their Neighbors in which Alfred Kroeber first coined the term "tribelet" to describe this level of organization.

Alfred Kroeber is credited with developing the concepts of culture area, cultural configuration, and cultural fatigue.

Alfred Kroeber influenced many of his contemporaries in his views as a cultural historian.

Alfred Kroeber is noted for working with Ishi, who was claimed to be the last California Yahi Indian.

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