author
Clark Wissler
1870–1947
A leading American anthropologist, he helped shape the idea of "culture areas" and brought broad public attention to the study of Native American societies. Trained first in psychology, he became one of the early 20th century's key interpreters of culture, archaeology, and museum anthropology.
3 Audiobooks
The Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians
by Clark Wissler
Some Protective Designs of the Dakota
by Clark Wissler
The Social Life of the Blackfoot Indians
by Clark Wissler
About the author
Born in Indiana in 1870, Clark Wissler began his academic life in psychology and earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University. His career soon turned toward anthropology, influenced by Franz Boas, and he became an important figure at the American Museum of Natural History before later joining Yale.
Wissler is best known for developing and popularizing the concept of culture areas, especially in his work on the Indigenous peoples of North America. His writing helped organize a huge range of ethnographic and archaeological material into broad cultural patterns, making complex scholarship easier for students and general readers to grasp.
He also wrote widely used books, including The American Indian and Man and Culture. By the time of his death in New York City in 1947, he had become one of the best-known American anthropologists of his generation, remembered for linking field research, museum work, and big-picture ideas about how cultures develop and spread.