Theodora Kroeber

  • Born: March 20, 1897
  • Birthplace: Denver, Colorado
  • Died: July 4, 1979
  • Place of death: Berkeley, California

Biography

Theodora Kroeber was born on March 20, 1897, in Denver, Colorado. She spent her childhood in Telluride, a mining camp in the Rocky Mountains. Kroeber moved to California to attend school. In 1919, she earned her master’s degree in clinical psychology from the University of California at Berkeley. Soon after, she married Clifton Spencer Brown. He died in 1923, and she was left with their two sons.

While continuing her graduate work at Berkeley, she met Alfred Kroeber, who is sometimes referred to as the father of American anthropology. The two married, and soon after, Theodora Kroeber took an interest in anthropology. In the years following, they had two more children.

Throughout most of Kroeber’s life, she was in the shadow of her husband’s success. After Alfred Kroeber’s death in 1960, Theodora took his notes and work about Ishi, an Indian that Alfred had interviewed, and wrote the book Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America, which recounts the world of Northern California before the Gold Rush. Despite only having secondhand sources, the book was praised for being accurate and well told. She also released a children’s version of the book, Ishi: The Last of His Tribe, in 1964. She went on to write several more books, including a biography of her late husband, Alfred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration. She died in 1979.