Archives West Finding Aid

Melville Jacobs (1902-1971) was an anthropologist who was known for his work on Northwest Coast languages and folklore. He did much to document the languages, cultures, oral traditions, and music of Pacific Northwest tribes. He studied under Franz Boas at Columbia, and, with funds from Boas, was able to pursue fieldwork for half the year from 1928-1936. He received his PhD. in anthropology in 1931, the same year he married Elizabeth "Bess" Derr Langdon (1903-1983). Elizabeth, who had no formal training in anthropology, was trained by her husband, and was particularly known for her work on the Nehalem Tillamook, whom she studied in the 1930s. She pursued a career as a psychotherapist, but returned to anthropology after her retirement in 1975. Melville's fieldwork lasted until 1939, and much of his research time after that was spent publishing his phonetically transcribed texts and translations. Melville was a member of the faculty at the University of Washington from 1928 until his death in 1971, one year shy of retirement. He was a member of the Communist Party from 1935-1945, which almost cost him his position at UW and slowed his advance to full professor. After his death, Bess began making small grants to scholars working on projects she believed her husband would have approved of, and was eventually able to form the Jacobs Research Fund, which supports anthropological research in the Pacific Northwest.