Abbott, Charles Conrad (04 June 1843–27 July 1919), naturalist and archaeologist, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Timothy Abbott, a banker, and Susan Conrad. As a child he loved nature and began a lifelong fascination with the flora and fauna of the Delaware River Valley. Like many young men drawn to natural history, he saw no prospects for turning his passion into a livelihood and so chose to study medicine....
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Abbott, Charles Conrad (1843-1919), naturalist and archaeologist
Michael J. Brodhead
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Albright, William Foxwell (1891-1971), biblical archaeologist
Kevin E. Stilley
Albright, William Foxwell (24 May 1891–19 September 1971), biblical archaeologist, was born William Thomas Albright in Coquimbo, Chile, the son of Wilber Finley Albright and Zephine Viola Foxwell, Methodist missionaries. William and his five siblings received most of their early education from their mother. Extremely poor eyesight and a crippled right hand resulting from a farm accident curtailed William’s physical activity and promoted his intellectual pursuit. At age twelve he came to Iowa and attended public school. After receiving his A.B. in 1912 from Upper Iowa University, he briefly served as the principal for a small high school in the German-speaking town of Menno, South Dakota....
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Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse (1840-1914), archaeologist, ethnologist, and historian
Madeleine Turrell Rodack
Bandelier, Adolph Francis Alphonse (06 August 1840–18 March 1914), archaeologist, ethnologist, and historian, was born in Bern, Switzerland, the son of Adolphe Eugene Bandelier, a jurist and banker, and Marianne Senn, widow of Colonel Adrian Ritter, a Swiss army officer who served as a tutor in Russia—possibly at the Russian court. In 1847 Bandelier’s father, disagreeing with the Swiss parties in power following the Sonderbund war, traveled to Brazil. Finding, however, that he disliked Brazil’s slave-based society, he moved to the Swiss community of Highland, Illinois, where his wife and son joined him in 1848. In Highland, Bandelier was tutored at home. His mother died in 1855. In 1861 he married Josephine Huegy, daughter of one of his father’s banking partners. The couple had no children. Bandelier referred to French as his “native language” and preferred to pronounce his name Bahn-duh-lee-ay, but he appears to have been even more fluent in German....
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Barton, George Aaron (1859-1942), Assyriologist and biblical scholar
Benjamin R. Foster
Barton, George Aaron (12 November 1859–28 June 1942), Assyriologist and biblical scholar, was born in East Farnham, Quebec, Canada, the son of Daniel Barton, a farmer and blacksmith, and Mary Stevens Bull. He attended the Oakwood Seminary, Poughkeepsie, New York, becoming a minister of the Society of Friends in 1879, and graduated from Haverford College with an A.B. in 1882 and an M.A. in 1885. Around 1883 he moved to Boston, where he worked in insurance for a year, then from 1884 to 1889 taught mathematics and classics at the Friends School in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1884 he married Caroline Brewer Danforth; they adopted one child. In 1889 he entered Harvard Graduate School (M.A. 1890), where he studied Assyriology with David G. Lyon and Semitics and the Bible with Crawford H. Toy and Joseph H. Thayer. In 1891 he received his Ph.D. for a study, “The Semitic Ishtar Cult,” later published in the ...
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Bieber, Margarete (1879-1978), archaeologist and art historian
Larissa Bonfante
Bieber, Margarete (31 July 1879–25 February 1978), archaeologist and art historian, was born in Schoenau, Kreis Schwetz, West Prussia (now Przechowo, Kreis Swiece, Poland), the daughter of Jacob Heinrich Bieber, an industrialist, and Valli Bukofzer. In 1899 she went to Berlin, prepared privately and passed her ...
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Blegen, Carl William (1887-1971), archaeologist and educator
Stella G. Miller
Blegen, Carl William (27 January 1887–23 August 1971), archaeologist and educator, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of John H. Blegen, a university professor, and Anna Bergine Olsen. Blegen earned bachelor’s degrees from three institutions: Augsburg Seminary (1904), the University of Minnesota (1907), and Yale University (1908). Following two years of graduate study at Yale, Blegen went to Greece in 1910 as a student at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He remained there until 1927, as student, secretary, assistant director, and acting director, with time out from 1918 to 1920 to work with the American Red Cross in Greece. During his years in Greece, Blegen formed close and enduring friendships with Bert Hodge Hill, director of the American school, A. J. B. Wace, director of the British school, and Elizabeth Denny Pierce, fellow archaeologist and professional collaborator, whom he married in 1924....
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Bowditch, Charles Pickering (1842-1921), benefactor and archaeologist
Julia A. Hendon
Bowditch, Charles Pickering (30 September 1842–01 June 1921), benefactor and archaeologist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Jonathan Ingersoll Bowditch, a merchant and trustee, and Lucy Orne Nichols. Bowditch was the grandson of mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch. Bowditch was graduated from Harvard College in 1863. In 1863–1864 he held commissions in the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and the Fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Cavalry, attaining the rank of captain. Bowditch received an A.M. from Harvard in 1866. That same year he married Cornelia Livingstone Rockwell, the daughter of a judge and former U.S. senator. The Bowditches had five children, one of whom died in infancy....
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Carpenter, Rhys (1889-1980), professor of classical archaeology
Mabel L. Lang
Carpenter, Rhys (05 August 1889–02 January 1980), professor of classical archaeology, was born in Cotuit, Massachusetts, the son of William Henry Carpenter, a provost of Columbia University, and Anna Morgan Douglass. Graduating from Columbia at the age of nineteen, Carpenter went as a Rhodes Scholar to Balliol College, Oxford University, where he took a second bachelor’s degree in Greats (1911) and subsequently an M.A. (1914). During those years at Balliol he published his first poem in the ...
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Cotter, John L. (1911-1999)
In
John L. Cotter At the dedication of the Mound City Group Visitor Center, Chillicothe, Ohio, 1961. Courtesy of the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service.
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Cotter, John L. (1911-1999), archaeologist
Edward B. Jelks
Cotter, John L. (06 December 1911–05 February 1999), archaeologist, was born John Lambert Cotter in Denver, Colorado, the son of John Aloysius Cotter, a technician who installed telephone exchanges, and Bertha Becker Cotter. John grew up as an only child, a brother having died in infancy before John's birth. Because his father's job required him to move from town to town in several western states, John attended public schools not only in Denver but also in Spokane, Washington, Longmont, Colorado, La Mesa, California, and Butte, Helena, and Livingston, Montana. After graduating from high school in Denver, Cotter began studying journalism at the University of Denver, but he soon switched to anthropology, specializing in archaeology. After receiving a B.A. in 1934 and an M.A. in 1935, he began work toward a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania but left in 1937, before completing all the degree requirements, to become director of the Archeological Survey of Kentucky under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)....
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Davis, Edwin Hamilton (1811-1888), physician and archaeologist
Douglas R. Givens
Davis, Edwin Hamilton (22 January 1811–15 May 1888), physician and archaeologist, was born in Hillsboro, Ohio, the son of Henry Davis and Avis Slocum. During his boyhood Davis became interested in numerous circular, square, and octagonal earthworks of the so-called Mound Builders culture in Ross County, Ohio. He continued his investigations of mounds while attending Kenyon College, graduating in 1833. His commencement address, “Antiquities of Ohio,” was heard by ...
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Emory, Kenneth Pike (1897-1992), archaeologist and anthropologist
Barbara Bennett Peterson
Emory, Kenneth Pike (23 November 1897–02 January 1992), archaeologist and anthropologist, was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, the son of Walter Emory, a construction superintendent for the Young Hotel and an architect, and Winifred Pike. His father moved the family to Hawaii in 1900, where he opened the architectural firm of Emory and Webb. Kenneth studied the Hawaiian language on his own initiative while attending Punahou School, graduating in 1916. Ever adventurous, he was invited to sail with ...
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Frothingham, Arthur Lincoln (1859-1923), archaeologist and historian of art and architecture
John Donahue
Frothingham, Arthur Lincoln (21 June 1859–28 July 1923), archaeologist and historian of art and architecture, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Arthur Lincoln Frothingham, an author and amateur art collector, and Jessie Peabody. The Frothinghams enjoyed a certain degree of prosperity, moving to Italy when Arthur was five years old in order to protect his delicate health. Living first in Florence, the family later moved to Rome, where Frothingham spoke and wrote Italian as his first language. He attended the Academy of the Christian Brothers from 1868 to 1873 and the Catholic seminary of St. Apollinare and the Royal University from 1875 to 1881. In 1883 he received a Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig in Germany. Having become a fellow in Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins University in 1882, Frothingham remained there as lecturer until 1887, when he accepted a position at Princeton University. He was appointed full professor at Princeton, first of archaeology and the history of art (1896–1898), and then, of ancient history and archaeology (1898–1905). He remained at Princeton until retiring in 1906. In January 1897 he married Helen Bulkley Post; the couple had no children....
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Giddings, James Louis (1909-1964), archaeologist
Robert W. Park
Giddings, James Louis (10 April 1909–09 December 1964), archaeologist, was born in Caldwell, Texas, the son of James Giddings and Maude Mathews. After spending three years in the mid-1920s studying English and biology at Rice University, Louis Giddings attended a summer school at the University of Colorado before moving to Alaska, where he obtained a bachelor of science degree from the University of Alaska in 1931. Giddings worked as a thawing engineer from 1932 to 1937 and became interested in the new science of dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) as a means of determining the age of spruce logs uncovered during mining operations. Following a year spent at the University of Arizona studying with ...
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Glueck, Nelson (04 June 1900–12 February 1971), archaeologist and president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
Alfred Gottschalk
Glueck, Nelson (04 June 1900–12 February 1971), archaeologist and president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, archaeologist and president of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Morris Glueck, a customer peddler (merchant), and Anna Rubin. Raised in Cincinnati, Glueck entered Hebrew Union College in 1914 to study for the rabbinate. He earned a bachelor of Hebrew letters degree in 1918. Glueck simultaneously attended the University of Cincinnati, earning a bachelor of arts degree in 1920. In 1923 he received his ordination....
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Goell, Theresa Bathsheba (1901-1985), archaeologist
Eva S. Moseley
Goell, Theresa Bathsheba (17 July 1901–18 December 1985), archaeologist, was born in New York City, the daughter of Jacob Goell, a builder, and Mary Samowitz. The family soon moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, spending summers at their house in Hunter, New York, in the Catskill Mountains. Theresa was a curious and active child, taking clocks and other mechanisms apart to see how they worked, ranging far afield in Hunter, always busy; she said later that the days were never long enough and implied that these early traits foreshadowed her “hands-on” approach to archaeology. Her family called her “the terrible Turk”—prophetically, as she is best known for her excavations at Nemrud Dagh in southeastern Turkey....
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Goodman, Joseph Thompson (1838-1917), writer, publisher, and archaeologist
Lawrence I. Berkove
Goodman, Joseph Thompson (18 September 1838–01 October 1917), writer, publisher, and archaeologist, was born in Masonville, Delaware County, New York, the son of Caleb Goodman. His mother’s name is unknown. Little is known of his early life. Sometime during the 1850s, Goodman moved west with his brother and father and began to work as a typesetter for the ...
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Gordon, George Byron (1870-1927), archaeologist and museum director
Elin Danien
Gordon, George Byron (04 August 1870–30 January 1927), archaeologist and museum director, was born in New Perth, Prince Edward Island, Canada, one of six children of James Gordon and Jane McLaren. Following a year at the University of South Carolina, he transferred to Harvard University. His archaeological career began in 1892 when he was appointed surveyor for the Harvard Peabody Museum’s second expedition to the Mayan site of Copán, Honduras. Upon his return he changed the focus of his education from engineering to archaeology....
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Hawes, Harriet Ann Boyd (1871-1945), archaeologist and nurse
D. J. I. Begg
Hawes, Harriet Ann Boyd (11 October 1871–31 March 1945), archaeologist and nurse, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Alexander Boyd, a manufacturer of fire-fighting equipment, and Harriet Fay Wheeler. She lost her mother before her first birthday and was raised by her father and four older brothers. She studied Latin, Greek, and economics at Smith College from 1888 to 1892. Not yet considered old enough to study nursing, an early and lifelong avocation, she taught classics at boarding and finishing schools until her father died in 1896....
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Heizer, Robert Fleming (1915-1979), archaeologist and anthropologist
J. Desmond Clark
Heizer, Robert Fleming (13 July 1915–18 July 1979), archaeologist and anthropologist, was born in Denver, Colorado, the son of Ott Fleming Heizer, a mining engineer, and Martha Madden. Much of his youth was spent in the countryside, in particular in the semiarid region around Lovelock, Nevada. There he learned how to live off the land, and he acquired a deep interest in and affection for the Nevadan and, later, the Californian Indians, observing their way of life, history, social organization, and technology....
