author
Leslie Spier
1893–1961
A major early American anthropologist, he built his reputation through close, careful studies of Native communities and their histories. His work helped shape modern ethnography and left a strong mark on the study of culture change.
1 Audiobook
Notes on the Kiowa Sun Dance
by Leslie Spier
About the author
Born in New York City in 1893, Leslie Spier became an American anthropologist known especially for his ethnographic work on Indigenous peoples of North America. He studied at the City College of New York and later at Columbia, where he worked in the orbit of Franz Boas, one of the central figures in American anthropology.
Across his career, he taught at several universities and became widely respected as both a researcher and a teacher. His fieldwork ranged across Native communities in the American West and Southwest, and his writing was valued for its detail, clarity, and strong grounding in firsthand observation.
Spier retired in 1955 and died in 1961. Even decades later, he is remembered as an important figure in twentieth-century anthropology, especially for helping establish rigorous ethnographic description as a foundation for understanding cultural history and change.