Berthold Laufer

Berthold Laufer
Born (1874-10-11)October 11, 1874
Cologne, Germany
Died September 13, 1934(1934-09-13) (aged 59)
Chicago, Illinois
Fields Anthropology
Orientalism
Institutions American Museum of Natural History
Columbia University
Field Museum

Berthold Laufer (October 11, 1874 – September 13, 1934) was an anthropologist and historical geographer with an expertise in East Asian languages.

Life

Laufer was born in Cologne in Germany to Max and Eugenie Laufer (née Schlesinger). His paternal grandparents Salomon and Johanna Laufer were adherents of the Jewish faith. Laufer had a brother Heinrich (died 10 July 1935) who worked as a physician in Cairo.

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.[1] He served as the president of the History of Science Society in 1932.[2]

Laufer died on September 13, 1934 after falling from the 8th floor fire escape of the Chicago Beach Hotel in Chicago, where he lived. He had been recovering from the removal of a tumor at the time, but his widow claimed he was in good spirits, and the Coroner's jury returned an undetermined verdict.[3]

From "Lasting Impressions: Chinese Rubbings from the Field Museum" Brochure (The Field Museum of Chicago):

When Berhold Laufer came to The Field Museum in 1908, he was one of the few scholars in America who could speak and write the Chinese language fluently. He made the study of the Chinese language and culture his life's work. "I have come to love the land and the people," he once wrote. "I feel myself to be better and healthier as a Chinese than as a European." As Curator of Asian Ethnology in the Department of Anthropology at the Field, he made two major expeditions to China in 1908 and 1923, and his acquisitions form the core of the Museum's Chinese collections.

In addition to his studies in Chinese culture as such, Laufer used his knowledge of ancient Chinese writings to shed light on ancient Iran. Very little writings have survived from ancient Iran. Surviving ancient Chinese writings contain valuable information about ancient Iran, which Laufer was the first to study systematically, and which he published as Sino-Iranica: Chinese contributions to the history of civilization in ancient Iran, with special reference to the history of cultivated plants and products (1919).

List of works

Written in English

Written in French

Written in German

Collections

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ obituary Journal of the American Oriental Society 55.4 (1934): 349-362
  2. ↑ The History of Science Society "The Society: Past Presidents of the History of Science Society", accessed 4 December 2013
  3. ↑ Walravens, Hartmut (1976). Kleinere Schriften von Berthold Laufer: 1 Publikationen aus der Zeit von 1911 bis 1925. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. XVIII–XIX. ISBN 9783515026512.

External links

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