Leo J. Frachtenberg | |
---|---|
Born |
Czernowtz, Austria |
February 24, 1883
Died | November 26, 1930 Waterloo, Iowa |
(aged 47)
Education | MA, PhD |
Alma mater | Columbia University |
Occupation | Anthropologist, linguist, Keren Hayesod executive |
Years active | 1910–30 |
Spouse(s) | Claudia E. (McDonald) |
Leo Joachim Frachtenberg (February 24, 1883 – November 26, 1930) was an anthropologist who studied Native American languages. Frachtenberg helped write the Handbook of American Indian Languages, BAE Bulletin 40, and also wrote "Alsea Texts and Myths", BAE Bulletin 67.
Frachtenberg was born to Abraham Frachtenberg and Jeanette (Rottenstreich) in Czernowtz, Austria, now a city in Ukraine, on February 24, 1883. He graduated from the Imperial Royal Gymnasium, Przemysl, Austria, now in Poland, in 1904.
After immigrating to the United States in 1904, Frachtenberg enrolled at Cornell University. He was awarded a Master of Arts from Columbia University in 1906 where his thesis was titled, Richard Wagner, his life and his works.
During his studies at Columbia, Frachtenberg became a student of Franz Boas, often called the father of American anthropology. Frachtenberg's research centered around some of the subdivisions of what later became the Penutian language group, and he received a PhD from Columbia in 1910 for his work on the Coosan languages.
Frachtenberg lectured in anthropology at Columbia until 1912, and in 1913 he became an ethnologist at the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE). While at BAE, he taught students at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon. From the school, he studied the ethnology of Alsea, Siletz, Quileute, Chimakum, and Shasta peoples with attention to art and religion.