Esther Schiff Goldfrank facts for kids

Esther Schiff Goldfrank (born 1896, died 1997) was an American anthropologist. An anthropologist is someone who studies human societies and cultures. She was part of the famous German-American Schiff family. Esther studied with a well-known anthropologist named Franz Boas. She became an expert on the Pueblo Indians.

She also worked closely with other important anthropologists like Elsie Clews Parsons and Ruth Benedict. They studied the Blackfoot people together. Goldfrank wrote books about Pueblo religion, the Cochiti people, and drawings from the Isleta Pueblo. She earned her first degree from Barnard College in 1918. Later, she got another degree from Columbia University in 1937. Esther Schiff Goldfrank married Karl August Wittfogel, a historian, in 1940.

About Esther Schiff Goldfrank

Esther Schiff Goldfrank was born in 1896 in New York City. Her parents were Dr. Herman J. Schiff and Matilda Metzger Schiff. Sadly, by the time she was twenty, both her parents and her only brother had passed away.

She went to Ethical Culture High School. Later, she enrolled in Barnard College. She earned her degree in economics in 1918. After college, she worked as a secretary on Wall Street for a year. This was a common job for women college graduates back then.

In 1919, a friend suggested she apply for a secretarial job. This job was for Franz Boas, who led the Columbia Anthropology Department. She was hired right away.

How She Started in Anthropology

Esther didn't know much about anthropology at first. But when she heard Boas was going to Laguna Pueblo in 1920, she asked to join him. Boas was unsure because she wasn't trained. He also didn't have money to bring her.

After talking to Elsie Clews Parsons, they agreed Esther could go. This trip was the start of her career in anthropological fieldwork. It began almost by accident.

Esther married Walter S. Goldfrank in 1922. After Walter passed away in 1935, she married her second husband, Karl August Wittfogel, in 1940.

Her Fieldwork and Studies

Goldfrank studied the Pueblo Indians during her time with Boas. Fieldwork is when researchers go to live among the people they study. They learn about their culture firsthand.

She moved into the Pueblo after meeting a woman from Cochiti at a well. Her notes from this time became a book in 1927. It was called The Social and Ceremonial Organization on Conchiti. Most of her fieldwork happened between 1920 and 1922.

After her first husband died, Goldfrank took a trip to Alberta, Canada. Her discoveries there led to another book in 1945. This book was about the Changing Configurations in the Social Organization of a Blackfoot Tribe.

Goldfrank also wrote a book about her own life. It was called Notes on an Undirected Life and came out in 1978.