Lowie, Robert (Harry) (1883–1957)

Austrian-born US cultural anthropologist. His research interests involved North American Indian societies, particularly the Crow. His most influential general works were Primitive Society (1920), Primitive Religion (1924), and Social Organization (1948). From 1907–21 he was on the staff of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1921–50.

The son of a merchant who emigrated with his family to the USA in 1893, Lowie was born in Vienna, Austria. He graduated from the City University of New York in 1901, taught in the public schools, and gained a PhD at Columbia University in 1908, having studied under Franz Boas. In later years he also applied his ethnological approach to studies of Germany in such works as Toward Understanding Germany (1954).