Clark David Wissler (September 18, 1870 – August 25, 1947) was an American anthropologist, ethnologist, and archaeologist.
Early life
Clark David Wissler was born in Cambridge City, Indiana on September 18, 1870 to Sylvania (née Needler) and Benjamin Franklin Wissler. After graduating from Hagerstown High School, he taught in local schools between 1887 and 1892, and studied at Purdue University after the six-month school term ended. The following year in 1893 he was the principal of Hagerstown High School, and then he resigned his post and enrolled in Indiana University.
Education
Wissler received a BA in Experimental Psychology from Indiana University in 1897 and a MA in 1899. He continued his psychology graduate work under James McKeen Cattell at Columbia University. He received his doctorate in psychology from Columbia in 1901. From 1901 to 1903 Wissler performed research on individual mental and physical differences. Wissler's doctoral dissertation used the new Pearson correlation coefficient formula to show that there was no correlation between scores on Cattell's IQ tests and academic achievement. Wissler's dissertation eventually led the psychology movement to lose interest in psychophysical testing of intelligence.
In 1929, he received a LLD from Indiana University.
Career
Early career
In 1897, he served as an instructor at Indiana University. From 1897 to 1899, he was an instructor at Ohio State University. In 1899 Wissler was appointed assistant in psychology at Columbia University. At Columbia, Wissler also served as an assistant professor of anthropology from 1903 to 1905 and as a lecturer from 1905 to 1909. Wissler was also an instructor at New York University from 1901 to 1902.
American Museum of Natural History
After Columbia, Wissler left the field of psychology to focus on anthropology. In 1902 he became an assistant in Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History under Franz Boas. In 1904, Wissler was named Assistant Curator of Ethnology and in 1905, when Boas resigned, Wissler was named Acting Curator of Ethnology. The following year of 1906, he was named curator of the Department of Ethnology and in 1907 he was named curator of Anthropology when the Archaeology and Ethnology departments were recombined under the Department of Anthropology.
Yale University
In 1924 Wissler began teaching at Yale University as a psychological researcher until 1931 when he switched to an anthropology professor, which he held until 1941. Wissler held the position of Curator of the Department of Anthropology until 1942 when he retired.
Other accomplishments
He was division chairman of the National Research Council in 1920 and 1921. He was appointed as a member of the National Park Service Board by President Herbert Hoover. Wissler was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1920, the American Philosophical Society in 1924, and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1929.
Research
Clark Wissler performed his field research from 1902 until 1905 on the Dakota, Gros Ventre, and the Blackfoot. Wissler's fieldwork provided comprehensive ethnographies of each Native American culture, especially the Blackfoot. While Curator, Wissler funded ethnological and archaeological fieldwork of the Northern Plains and the Southwest. Wissler also "encouraged physical anthropology, built up collections of worldwide scope, planned exhibitions, and oversaw the publication of about thirty-eight volumes of the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History."