11 Facts About Berthold Laufer

Berthold Laufer was a German anthropologist and historical geographer with an expertise in East Asian languages.

Berthold Laufer had a brother Heinrich who worked as a physician in Cairo.

Berthold Laufer attended the Friedrich Wilhelms Gymnasium from 1884 to 1893.

Berthold Laufer continued his studies in Berlin, and completed his doctorate in oriental languages at the University of Leipzig in 1897.

Berthold Laufer was fluent in more than ten non Indo-European languages.

Berthold Laufer worked as assistant in Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, became a lecturer in Anthropology and East-Asiatic Languages at Columbia University.

In 1930 Berthold Laufer was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his research.

Berthold Laufer served as the president of the History of Science Society in 1932.

Berthold Laufer died on September 13,1934, after falling from the 8th floor fire escape of the Chicago Beach Hotel in Chicago, where he lived.

Berthold Laufer had been recovering from the removal of a tumor at the time, but his widow claimed he was in good spirits, and the Coroner's jury returned an undetermined verdict.

Berthold Laufer bequeathed his personal library and correspondence, including more than 7,000 volumes in Chinese, to the Field Museum library.