Katherine Spencer Halpern

Katherine Spencer Halpern (August 7, 1913 – March 9, 2004) was an American anthropologist and educator.

Katherine Spencer Halpern
BornAugust 7, 1913
Reading, Massachusetts
DiedMarch 9, 2004

Early life

Katherine Spencer was born in Reading, Massachusetts. She earned a bachelor's degree at Vassar College in 1935, and a master's degree at the University of Chicago in 1944, and completed doctoral studies at the University of Chicago in 1952 with a dissertation titled Mythology and Values: An Analysis of Navaho Chantway Myths.[1]

Career

In 1937, Spencer and two friends spent a summer doing research in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.[2] "I was overwhelmed by the Southwest," she recalled later. "Things just opened up for me."[3] In 1940, she co-edited A Bibliography of Navaho Indians with Clyde Kluckhohn.[4]

During and after World War II, Spencer did fieldwork in Alaska and worked in Washington, D.C.[3] She was a social work professor at Boston University from 1954 to 1970. From 1970 to 1978, she was an anthropology professor at American University. She was a fellow of the American Anthropological Association. Halpern's research included studies of Navajo conceptions of disease and medicine,[3] and of Navajo health care workers.[5]

After retiring from American University, Halpern was a researcher at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico, resulting in Reflection of Social Life in the Navaho Origin Myth (1983).[6] She also contributed to the catalogue for catalogue for the Wheelwright's show, Woven Holy People: Navajo Sandpainting Textiles from the Permanent Collection (1982).[7] She wrote two biographies of anthropologists, Applied Anthropologist and Public Servant: The Life and Work of Philleo Nash (1983),[8] and Washington Matthews: Studies of Navajo Culture, 1880-1894 (1997, co-edited with Susan Brown McGreevy).[9]

Personal life

In 1968, Katherine Spencer married fellow anthropologist Abraham M. Halpern,[10][11] who was a widower with two sons.[12][13] He died in 1985.[14] She died in 2004, aged 90 years.

gollark: I think it's totally a valid interpretation. *mumble mumble death of the author or something*
gollark: What do you mean he has "no cows"?
gollark: Well, obviously he... needs help handling purple cows, this isn't very hard.
gollark: What are you even talking about ˙?!
gollark: So your timeframes are wrong, or it's not a (public-interweb) domain.

References
  1. Halpern, Katherine Spencer (1952). Mythology and Values: An Analysis of Navaho Chantway Myths. University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology.
  2. Toppo, Greg (1998-04-22). "`Desert Daughters' broke ground for women". Deseret News. Retrieved 2020-08-01.
  3. Zoretich, Frank (1987-10-06). "Daughters of the Desert (4)". Albuquerque Journal. p. 44. Retrieved 2020-08-02 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. Kluckhohn, Clyde; Halpern, Katherine Spencer (1940). A Bibliography of the Navaho Indians. J.J. Augustin.
  5. Halpern, Katherine Spencer (1971-03-01). "Navajo Health and Welfare Aides: A Field Study". Social Service Review. 45 (1): 37–52. doi:10.1086/642645. ISSN 0037-7961.
  6. Halpern, Katherine Spencer (1983). Reflection of Social Life in the Navaho Origin Myth. AMS Press. ISBN 978-0-404-15705-0.
  7. Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (1982). Woven Holy People: Navajo Sandpainting Textiles from the Permanent Collection, Forty-fifth Anniversary Exhibition, Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 14, 1982 - March 4, 1983.
  8. Halpern, Katherine Spencer (1991-01-08). Applied Anthropologist and Public Servant: The Life and Work of Philleo Nash. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-913167-28-1.
  9. Halpern, Katherine Spencer; Indian, Wheelwright Museum of the American (1997). Washington Matthews: Studies of Navajo Culture, 1880-1894. University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0-8263-1631-8.
  10. "MS 7507 Notes on the Potawatomi language · SOVA". Smithsonian Online Virtual Archive. Retrieved 2020-08-02.
  11. Saksena, Anuradha (1982-01-01). Topics in the Analysis of Causatives: With an Account of Hindi Paradigms. University of California Press. pp. xvi. ISBN 978-0-520-09659-2.
  12. Halpern, A. M.; Miller, Amy (2014-11-24). Stories from Quechan Oral Literature. Open Book Publishers. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-909254-85-5.
  13. "Mary Fujii Halpern Dies at 53". Oakland Tribune. 1967-06-18. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-08-02 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. "Abraham Meyer Halpern (death notice)". The Santa Fe New Mexican. 1985-10-22. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-08-02 – via Newspapers.com.
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