Berthold Laufer

Berthold Laufer (October 11, 1874 – September 13, 1934) was a German-American anthropologist, orientalist. Born in Cologne to a Jewish family, Laufer attended the Friedrich Wilhelms Gymnasium from 1884-1893. He continued his studies in Berlin (1893-1895) and completed his doctorate degree at the University of Leipzig in 1897. The following year he emigrated to the United States where he remained until his death. He carried out ethnographic fieldw... more

Berthold Laufer (October 11, 1874 – September 13, 1934) was a German-American anthropologist, orientalist. Born in Cologne to a Jewish family, Laufer attended the Friedrich Wilhelms Gymnasium from 1884-1893. He continued his studies in Berlin (1893-1895) and completed his doctorate degree at the University of Leipzig in 1897. The following year he emigrated to the United States where he remained until his death. He carried out ethnographic fieldwork on the Amur River and Sakhalin Island during 1898-1899 as part of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. He worked as assistant in Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History (1904-1906), became a lecturer in Anthropology and East-Asiatic Languages at Columbia University (1905-1907). The rest of his career he spent at the Field Museum in Chicago. (cf. obituary JAOS 55.4 (1934): 349-362). He died upon leaping from the roof of the hotel in which he lived in Chicago. less