author
Frederick Webb Hodge
1864–1956
An influential early anthropologist and editor, he helped shape how Native American history and culture were documented for generations of readers. His best-known work, the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, became a landmark reference in the field.
1 Audiobook
The Jumano Indians
by Frederick Webb Hodge
About the author
Born in Plymouth, England, in 1864 and brought to Washington, D.C., as a child, Frederick Webb Hodge built a long career as an editor, anthropologist, archaeologist, and historian. He worked in the American Southwest early on and became closely associated with research on Indigenous history and cultures.
He is especially remembered for editing the two-volume Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, a major reference work first published in the early 1900s. Archival records also describe his work with the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology, his role as editor of American Anthropologist, and later leadership positions at the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, and the Southwest Museum.
Hodge died in 1956 after a career that produced a large body of scholarship and editorial work. Even now, he is often noted as one of the key figures in early American anthropology and in the study of Native North America.