Pliny Earle Goddard

Born in Lewiston, Maine, on November 24, 1869, he first studied classics at Earlham College and taught Latin before taking a missionary post among the Hupa in northwestern California. Learning Hupa for everyday communication drew him into language study, and that practical beginning led to a career in anthropology and linguistics.

He went on to graduate study at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1904 with a major study of Hupa. In California he documented Hupa and other Athabaskan languages with unusual care, often working from stories and longer texts rather than simple word lists, a method that gave his research lasting value.

After moving to New York in 1909 at the invitation of Franz Boas, he worked at the American Museum of Natural History and taught at Columbia University. He expanded his research to Athabaskan communities in the Southwest, Canada, and Alaska, helped build the early academic field of American Indian linguistics, and remained active in that work until his death on July 12, 1928.