Clark Wissler

From New World Encyclopedia


Clark Wissler (born September 18, 1870 in Wayne County, Indiana – died August 25, 1947 in New York City) was a prominent American anthropologist, with a great authority of knowledge on the American Indians.

Life

The eldest child in the family of seven children, Clark Wissler was born on a farm in Wayne County, Indiana. He was a descendent of a long line of Pennsylvanian Dutch who had migrated from Swabia in Germany to Pennsylvania, and eventually settled down in Indiana. His early farm life, and the fact that his neighbor was an industrious collector of Indian artifacts, evoke interest in young Wissler for aboriginal life and culture.

Wissler graduated from Hagerstown High School in 1887, where he served as a principal from 1892-93. He meanwhile enrolled in the Perdue University and later transferred to Indiana University, where he received his B.A. in 1897, with the major in psychology. In Indiana University Wissler became interested in individual differences in mental abilities, the work that he will remain the most famous for.

From 1897 to 1899 Wissler though psychology in the Ohio State University, and received his M.A. degree in 1899 from Indian University. He continued to do research which led him to his PhD degree in psychology from Columbia University, which he received under the guidance of James Cattell. Wissler continued to work under Cattell next several years. At Columbia Wissler became increasingly interested in anthropology. He came in contact with Franz Boaz, whose courses he attended as part of his graduate work. Wissler joined staff at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and continued to teach anthropology at Columbia University. On June 14, 1899, Wissler married Etta Viola Gebhart. The couple had two children, a son, Stanley Gebhart Wissler, and a daughter, Mary Viola Wissler,

Wissler’s interest completely turned from psychology to anthropology. He soon became an Acting Curator of Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, in 1905, and succeeded Boaz as Curator in 1906. From 1907 until 1942 Wissler served as Curator of the Department of Anthropology. During this time Wissler initiated numerous projects in the fields of archeology and physical anthropology, sponsored several expeditions, started publishing few journals, and built up ethnological collection in the Museum.

In 1924 Wissler became a faculty member in the Yale University, where he continued to do research in both psychology and anthropology. In 1931 he became the first professor on the newly formed Department of Anthropology. He was a well-known lecturer, who managed to evoke interest in his students for the subject studied.

Wissler served as chairman on the Division of Anthropology and Psychology of the National Research Council from 1920-21, became a president of the American Anthropological Association in 1919, president of the American Association of Museums (from 1938 to 1943), president of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1930 and 1931. He died on August 25, 1947 in New York City at the age of 76 years.

Work

One of the first works that Wissler became famous for was his dissertation. Wissler was a graduate student at the Columbia University, where he did research under the guidance of James McKeen Cattell. However, in his dissertation Wissler opposed his mentor, taking an unusual step for a student who was just emerging on the academic scene. However, Wissler clearly presented his data and his dissertation soon became quite famous, yet rather controversial.

In his dissertation, Wissler strongly questioned then prevailing method of intelligence testing. Intelligence testing was based on psychophysical measurement, and had its roots in the eugenics movement, which had its peak at the time of the writing of dissertation. Major theories of intelligence were based on the work of Francis Galton and James Cattell. According to those theories, intelligence (or mental ability) can be measured through the reaction times, movement times, and other simple mental and sensory processes. Wissler showed, however, that the psychophysical methodology is not accurate, and that it has serious validity problems.

The impact of Wissler’s dissertation was great. Psychologists gradually lost interest in psychophysical measuring, and Cattell, although remaining in the field, slowly fell into oblivion. The rift between Cattell and Wissler, however, became too great, and Wissler decided to change the field of his career. He became an anthropologist.

After he became an assistant in Ethnology, and later a Curator, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Wissler became enthusiastically involved in anthropological fieldwork, especially focusing on the customs of Native American Indians. He took the old, Friedrich Ratzel’s concept of culture areas and applied it into the study of American Indians. According to Friedrich Ratzel, culture areas are regions of the world where people share common cultural traits. Faced with the diversity of customs, rituals, beliefs, and artifacts of various American Indian tribes, Wissler wanted to systematize and map separate areas where certain Indian tribes had major influences. The growing amount of data collected through numerous expeditions asked for such systematization as well. Wissler created a map of American Indian tribes based on similarities and differences in tribes’ artwork, religious practices, modes of transportation, and craftwork. He identified nine separate American Indian cultural areas, in which tribes shared common cultural traits. With this work Wissler set up the foundation for following research on American Indian cultural ecology.

Legacy

The legacy of Clark Wissler lies in both areas of psychology and anthropology.

As a psychologist, although with a relatively short career, Wissler left the mark on the field. His doctoral dissertation permanently changed the dominant research paradigm for intelligence testing.

As an anthropologist, although not as famous as Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber, or Robert H. Lowie, Wissler was a hard working scientist whose research in the American Museum of Natural History and later Yale, helped establish anthropology as important part of American academia. The number and variety of ethnographic publications demonstrate that Wissler, together with Boaz, established field-research as hallmark of American anthropology. With his work Man and Culture (1923) Wissler went deeper than others in investigation of the nature of culture, the relationship between culture and environment, and the way culture changes. With this and numerous related works, Wissler can be seen as the forerunner of cultural sociology. Although he turned away from psychology, Wissler has never fully forgotten it. He often used insights from psychological research and combined it with research in anthropology. He helped Margaret Maed in her work, and supported other researchers in the field of culture and personality.

Bibliography

Wissler, C.D. (1912). North American Indians of the Plains (Handbook Series). New York: American Museum of Natural History.

Wissler, C.D. (1917). The American Indian: An Introduction to the Anthropology of the New World. New York.

Wissler, C.D. (1920). Prehistoric Man. The Mentor, 8(2)

Wissler, C.D. (1923). Man and Culture. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company

Wissler, C.D. (1924). The Relation of Nature to Man as Illustrated by the North American Indian. Ecology, 5(4), 311-318

Wissler, C.D. (1926). The Relation of Nature to Man in Aboriginal America. Oxford, New York: University Press

Wissler, C.D. (1938). Indian Cavalcade or Life on the Old Time Indian Reservations. New York: Sheridan House,

Wissler, C.D. (1940). Indians of the United States: Four Centuries of their History and Culture. American Museum of Natural History Science Series, 1(16),

External links

http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/uvwxyz/wissler_clark.html

http://www.aaanet.org/gad/history/081WISSLERobit.pdf#search='clark%20wissler'

http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/wisslers.shtml

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