Esther Goldfrank

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Esther Goldfrank (born May 5, 1896 in New York City , † April 23, 1997 in Mamaroneck , Westchester County , NY ) was an American anthropologist .

Life

Esther Goldfrank, b. Schiff, studied economics at Barnard College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1918. During her thesis, she met Franz Boas in neighboring Columbia University and was his secretary from 1919 to 1922. During this time she accompanied Boas to New Mexico to research the Pueblo Indians and their culture. The project was funded by Elsie Clews Parsons , for whom Goldfrank carried out field research in Isleta in the summer of 1924 .

In 1922 Esther Goldfrank married the widower Walter Goldfrank († 1935), father of three sons. They had a daughter. After the death of her husband, Esther Goldfrank worked again as an anthropologist: together with Ruth Benedict , she researched the Blackfoot in Alberta, Canada in 1939 . Goldfrank was also involved in a Rockefeller Foundation sponsored research project on adolescence .

In 1940 Esther Goldfrank and Karl August Wittfogel (1896–1988) married. From 1943 on, she worked as an anthropologist in Wittfogel's project for the study of Chinese history ( Chinese History Project ), which was operated first at Columbia University and then at the University of Seattle .

membership

Esther Goldfrank was a member of the American Ethnological Society (founded in New York in 1842 by Albert Gallatin and John Russell Bartlett) in the following positions:

  • Treasurer 1945–1947
  • President 1948
  • Editor 1952–1956.

Publications (selection)

Author
  • The Social and Ceremonial Organization of Cochiti , American Anthropological Association Memoir , No. 33. Menasha, Wisconsin, 1927, pp. 5-129.
  • Changing Configurations in the Social Organization of a Blackfoot Tribe During the Reserve Period. The Blood of Alberta, Canada , Monographs of the American Ethnological Society , No. 8, JJ Augustin , New York, 1945.
  • with Karl August Wittfogel, Some Aspects of Pueblo Mythology and Society , Journal of American Folklore , Volume 56, No. 219, 1943, pp. 17-30.
  • Socialization, Personality, and the Structure of Pueblo Society , American Anthropologist , Vol. 47, No. 4, 1945, pp. 516-537.
  • The Artist of "Isleta Paintings" in Pueblo Society , Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology No. 5. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1967.
  • Notes on an Undirected Life. As One Anthropologist Tells It , Queens College Publications in Anthropology , No. 3, Queens College, Flushing, New York, 1978.
  • Another View: Margaret and Me , Ethnohistory , Vol. 30, No. 1, 1983, pp. 1-14.
Editor
  • Isleta Paintings. With Elsie Clews Parsons. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin , No. 181.Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1962.

literature

  • Gloria Levitas, Esther Schiff Goldfrank, (1896-) , in: Ute Gacs, et alii (Eds.), Women Anthropologists, Selected Biographies , [Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1988], Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1989 , Pp. 120-126. (Google books)

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Remarks

  1. ↑ Parents: The doctor Dr. Herman J. Schiff († 1905) and Matilda Schiff, b. Butcher.
  2. ↑ See Isleta Paintings (1962) and The Artist of "Isleta Paintings" (1967). Clear presentation by Bill Anthes, Native Moderns. American Indian Painting, 1940-1960 , Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 2006.
personal data
SURNAME Goldfrank, Esther
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Goldfrank Schiff, Esther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1997
Place of death Mamaroneck , New York