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Philip Drucker
Philip Drucker (1911-1982) was one of the leading anthropologists in the United States, and an authority on the aboriginal cultures of the American Northwest. He also played an imp...view morePhilip Drucker (1911-1982) was one of the leading anthropologists in the United States, and an authority on the aboriginal cultures of the American Northwest. He also played an important part in the early excavations under Matthew Stirling of the Smithsonian of the Olmec culture in Mexico, especially the site of La Venta.
Born on January 13, 1911, in Chicago, Illinois, Drucker was educated at the University of California, where he received his doctorate in anthropology in 1936. He undertook fieldwork on the Northwest Coast from 1933 onwards, making an ethnographic study of the Nootka Indians in 1935 as a Social Science Research Council predoctoral fellow, and an ethnographic survey of the Northwest Coast for the UCLA program in “Culture Element Distribution” in 1936. As National Research Council postdoctoral fellow in 1938, he made an archaeological survey and a study of the cultural adaptation and acculturation among Indians of the Northwest Coast.
The main Olmec expeditions were in 1940-1942 when he worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology in Washington, D.C. as a staff anthropologist (1940-1955). His first Olmec period ended when he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1942, seeing active service until 1945. He then joined the Smithsonian, but in 1948 he was ordered to active duty by the U.S. Naval Reserve as anthropologist to the American occupation administration for Micronesia, with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, serving until 1952.
From 1955-1966, Dr. Drucker largely gave up academic work and farmed in Mexico, married, and had two children. From 1966 he returned to academic life at the University of Kentucky, and elsewhere as a visiting professor.
Dr. Drucker was the author of many anthropological studies, among them Rank, Wealth, and Kinship in Northwest Coast Society (1939), Archeological Survey of the Northern Northwest Coast (1943), and The Northern and Central Nootkan Tribes (1951).view less