Erna Gunther
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Erna Gunther was an American anthropologist who taught for many years at the University of Washington in Seattle.
[edit] Biography
Gunther graduated in 1919 as a student of Franz Boas, and received her MA in anthropology from Columbia University in 1920. She formed part of the core of the newly formed anthropology program at the University of Washington in the 1920s, along with Melville Jacobs and Leslie Spier (then married to Gunther, though the pair separated in 1930). In 1930 the Washington State Museum named her Director. As head of the university anthropology department. she built the faculty from two in 1930 to over ten residents in 1955. In 1966 she moved to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, becoming chair in 1967.
An American Indian specialist, her research focused on the Salish and Makah peoples of western Washington State, with publications on ethnobotany, ethnohistory, and general ethnology.
Her students included anthropologists Wayne Suttles and Wilson Duff.
[edit] Works
- 'An Analysis of the First Salmon Ceremony', American Anthropologist, Vol 28 (1926)
- Ethnobotany of Western Washington
[edit] Bibliography
- Abbott, Donald N. (ed.) The World Is as Sharp as a Knife: An Anthology in Honour of Wilson Duff. Victoria: British Columbia Provincial Museum.
- Miller, Jay, and Carol M. Eastman (eds.) (1984) The Tsimshian and Their Neighbors of the North Pacific Coast. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
- Garfield, Viola E. and Pamela T. Amoss (1984) 'Erna Gunther (1896-1982)'. American Anthropologist 86(2):394-399.
