Clark David Wissler was an American anthropologist. Wissler was born in Wayne County, Indiana on September 18, 1870 and died in New York City on August 25, 1947. He was educated as a psychologist at Indiana University, receiving his Bachelors Degree in 1897 and his Masters Degree in 1899. After receiving his Masters Degree, Wissler was offered a position at Columbia University in New York. At Columbia, he decided to continue his education and received his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1901. During his time at Columbia, Wissler became interested in anthropology after taking a class that was co-taught by Franz Boas and James Cattell. Both men were great influences on Wissler.
Wissler started his career in anthropology when he became an Assistant in Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History in 1902. There he worked under the direction of Franz Boas and later took over for him as Curator of Ethnology. Wissler stayed on as Curator of Ethnology for the next 40 years. In 1903, Wissler started teaching anthropology at Columbia University and remained there until 1909. From 1909 until 1924 Wissler focused on his job as Curator and engaged in more in-depth studies of Native Americans.
He wrote numerous articles and books on the subject. In 1924, he began working at Yale University as a Psychological Researcher and in 1931 he switched over to be an Anthropology Professor, which he continued for ten years.
Wissler was often overshadowed by many of the great anthropologists of his time. People like Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict and Alfred Kroeber are the ones that often come to mind when we look back on this time in the history of anthropological research. Part of the reason that Wissler may be overlooked is because many of his theories on culture were quite different from those of Boas. Wissler believed in cultural diffusion and that culture was biologically innate in humans. Wissler also came up with the age-area hypothesis that is a theory that the age of cultural traits may be determined by examining the distribution of these traits throughout the larger area where these traits are present.
As mentioned earlier, Wissler did a lot of research on the Native Americans and along with numerous articles he wrote, he also wrote six books on the subject. Some books include The American Indian (1917), being his most famous one. Other works include North American Indians of the Plains (1912), Man and Culture (1923), The Relation of Nature to Man in Aboriginal America (1926), Indian Cavalcade (1938), and Indians of the United States (1940).
References:
Barbara Hewitt, Clark Wissler: Influences on the Development of Anthropology in the United States 1999.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umkushn3/umausa/papers/clarkwissler.html
Britannica.com, Wissler, Clark http://www.britannica.com
http://kids.infoplease.lycos.com/ce6/people/A0852534.html, Wissler, Clark
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/wissler.html Indiana University, Clark Wissler- Anthropologist (1870-1947).
Written by Jeffrey A. Hertaus
Edited by Marcy L. Voelker, 2007