Background
Esther Goldfrank was born on May 5, 1896, in New York City, New York, United States.
anthropologist scientist writer
Esther Goldfrank was born on May 5, 1896, in New York City, New York, United States.
Goldfrank received her bachelor's degree from Barnard College in 1918 and graduated from Columbia University in 1937.
In 1919, Goldfrank accompanied an anthropologist Franz Boas to New Mexico. While there she interviewed and recorded members of the Pueblo, including Carolyn Quintana of the Conchiti tribe.
Esther later moved into the pueblo to continue her research and eventually wrote The Social and Ceremonial Organization of Conchiti. Later field research took her to Alberta, Canada, to study the Blackfoot, which resulted in Changing Configurations in the Social Organization of a Blackfoot Tribe During the Reserve Period: The Blood of Alberta, Canada. In 1943, Goldfrank joined the staff at the University of Washington for its Chinese history project.
Later, in 1978, Esther published her memoirs in Notes on an Undirected Life: As One Anthropologist Tells It. She contributed numerous articles to journals and also edited the monograph The Artist of Isleta Paintings in Pueblo Society (1962) by Elsie Clews Parsons.
Goldfrank was a fellow of New York Academy of Sciences and American Anthropological Association.
Esther Schiff Goldfrank married Karl August Wittfogel after the death in 1935 of her first husband, Walter Goldfrank.