Photographs used to illustrate Alfred Louis Kroeber's "Handbook of the Indians of California," circa 1900-1919

Scope and Contents note

Images included in Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78 ("Handbook of the Indians of California") and photographs of spoons and acorn gruel stirrers, some of which were also published in the volume. Among the photographs included as plates are the interior of a Yurok sweat house (plate 10), a Chilula sweat house (plate 13), a Yurok boat (plate 13), a view of the Karok center of the world (plate 22), and a Wintun cradle (plate 35).

Biographical/Historical note

Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960) was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, but his family moved to New York City shortly afterward. He received his BA (1896) and MA (1897) from Columbia University and worked as a teaching assistant there from 1897-1898. During this time, he took courses from Franz Boas who introduced him to the university's newly established Department of Anthropology. Kroeber received his PhD in Anthropology in 1901 and then accepted a position at the University of California at Berkeley, where he founded the Department of Anthropology. Kroeber conducted extensive research into California tribes and collected artifacts for museums. His "Handbook of the Indians of California," submitted in 1919, was published in the Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin in 1925. In 1923, Kroeber published "Anthropology," considered among the first general textbooks on the subject.

Location of Other Archival Materials

Papers and notes by Kroeber can be found in National Anthropological Archives MS 2108, MS 2622, MS 2560, and MS 3134.

Location of Other Archival Materials

Correspondence from Kroeber held in the National Anthropological Archives in MS 7116, MS 4365-a, MS 1897-a, MS 4623, NAA MS 4372(4), American Ethnological Society records, Records of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Handbook of South American Indians Records, and collections of personal papers.