Clark Wissler

Anthropologist, Academic

1870 – 1947

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Who was Clark Wissler?

Clark David Wissler was an American anthropologist.

Born in Cambridge City near Hagerstown, Indiana, Wissler graduated from Indiana University in 1897. He received his doctorate in psychology from Columbia University in 1901. After Columbia, Wissler left the field of psychology to focus on Anthropology. Clark Wissler worked at the American Museum of Natural History as a Curator in ethnology from 1902 to 1907. In 1907 Wissler was named Curator of Anthropology when the Archaeology and Ethnology departments were recombined under the Department of Anthropology. Clark Wissler was the first anthropologist to perceive the normative aspect of culture, to define it as learned behavior, and to describe it as a complex of ideas, all characteristics of culture that are today generally accepted. Wissler was a specialist in North American ethnography, focusing on the Indians of the Plains. He contributed to the culture area and age-area ideology of the diffusionist viewpoint that is no longer popular in anthropology. Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana holds the archives of Clark Wissler. Furthermore, one hall of Indiana University's Teter Living Center is known as "Clark Wissler Hall".

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Born
Sep 18, 1870
Hagerstown
Nationality
  • United States of America
Profession
Education
  • Columbia University
  • Indiana University Bloomington
Lived in
  • Indiana
Died
Aug 25, 1947
New York City

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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