Clyde Kluckhohn

Clyde Kay Maben Kluckhohn (IPA klŭck'hōn) (11 January 1905, Le Mars, Iowa - 28 July 1960, near Santa Fe, New Mexico), was an American anthropologist and social theorist, best known for his long-term ethnographic work among the Navajo and his contributions to the development of theory of culture within American anthropology.

Kluckhohn matriculated at Princeton University, but was forced by ill health to take a break from study and went to convalesce on a ranch in New Mexico owned by his mother's cousin's husband, Evon Z. Vogt. During this period he first came into contact with neighboring Navajo and began a lifelong love of their language and culture. He wrote two popular books based on his experiences in Navajo country, To the Foot of the Rainbow (1927) and Beyond the Rainbow (1933).

He resumed study at the University of Wisconsin and received his AB in Greek 1928. He then studied classics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1928-1930 For the following two years, he studied anthropology the University of Vienna and was exposed to psychoanalysis. After teaching at the University of New Mexico from 1932-34, he continued graduate work in anthropology at Harvard University where he received his PhD in 1936. He remained at Harvard as a professor in Social Anthropology and later also Social Relations for the rest of his life.

In 1949, Kluckhohn began a long-term study of what he and his colleagues called "Values Orientations" among five adjacent communities in Texas: Zuni, Navajo, Mormon (LDS), Spanish-American (Mexican-American), and Texas Homesteaders A key methodological approach that he developed together with his wife Florence Rockwood Kluckhohn and colleagues Evon Z. Vogt and Ethel M. Vogt, among others, was the Values Orientation Theory. They believed that cross-cultural understanding and communication could be facilitated by analyzing a given culture's orientation to five key aspects of human life: Human Nature (people seen as intrinsically good, evil, or mixed); Man-Nature Relationship (the view that humans should be subordinate to nature, dominant over nature, or live in harmony with nature); Time (primary value placed on past/tradition, present/enjoyment, or future/posterity/delayed gratification); Activity (being, becoming/inner development, or doing/striving/industriousness); and Social Relations (hierarchical, collateral/collective-egalitarian, or individualistic). The Values Orientation Method was developed furthest by Florence Kluckhohn and her colleagues and students in later years.

Kluckhohn received many honors throughout his career. In 1947 he served as president of the American Anthropological Association and became first director of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. In the same year his book Mirror for Man won the McGraw Hill award for best popular writing on science.

Clyde Kluckhohn died of a heart attack in a cabin on the Upper Pecos River near Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was survived by his wife Florence Rockwood Kluckhohn. Most of his papers are held at Harvard University, but some early manuscripts are kept at the University of Iowa.

Selected Publications

• Kluckhohn, Clyde "Beyond the Rainbow," 1933 book about traveling in Hopi and Navaho land
• Kluckhohn, Clyde (1944) Mirror for Man, New York: Fawcett.
• Kluckhohn, Clyde Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions
• Kluckhohn, Clyde, Leonard McCombe, and Evon Z. Vogt (1951) Navajo means People. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Kluckhohn, Clyde (1951). "Values and value-orientations in the theory of action: An exploration in definition and classification." In T. Parsons & E. Shils (Eds.), Toward a general theory of action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Murray, Henry A. and Clyde Kluckhohn, (1953) Personality in Nature, Society, and Culture,

External Links

• Clyde Kae Maben Kluckhohn 1905-1960
• Clyde Kluckhohn brief bio at Minnesota State University Mankato
• Biographical note: Clyde Kluckhohn papers collection at the University of Iowa
• Values Orientation Method

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