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Melville Jacobs, an author, anthropologist, folklorist, and professor of anthropology and linguistics, was born in New York City on July 3, 1902 to parents Alexander and Rose Blau Jacobs. After attending DeWitt Clinton High School, he received his undergraduate degree in history and philosophy from the College of the City of New York in 1922. He then earned both his master's degree (American history, 1923) and his doctorate (anthropology, 1931) from Columbia University. While at Columbia, he studied language structure and phonetics under the noted anthropologist Franz Boas.

Beginning in 1928, Jacobs was an anthropology professor at the University of Washington. With the exception of some visiting appointments, he taught at the University until his death in 1971. Also in 1928, and until 1936, Jacobs conducted field research for six months each year. This field research, which was made possible with funds from Boas, allowed Jacobs to document and preserve the languages, cultures, music, and oral traditions of Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest. In particular, he worked with the Clackamas Chinook, Tillamook Salish, Alsea, Hanis and Miluk Coos, Upper Umpqua and Galice Creek Athabaskan, Sahaptin, Molale, and Kalapuya (Tualatin, Santiam, and Yonkalla). He also studied Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa). The people with whom he worked were often the last speakers able to recall traditions in these languages.

In order to preserve these languages and traditions, Jacobs recorded words, grammatical paradigms, and traditional stories. He also made audio recordings of music using wax cylinders, acetate records, and a custom-built portable phonograph recorder. Furthermore, much of his work was devoted to publishing phonetically-transcribed texts and translations. He published many different works, including A Sketch of Northern Sahaptin Grammar (1931), Notes on the Structure of Chinook Jargon (1932), Northwest Sahaptin Texts, I (1934), Texts in Chinook Jargon (1936), Northwest Sahaptin Texts, II (1937), Coos Narrative and Ethnologic Texts (1939), Coos Myth Texts (1940), Historic Perspectives in Indian Languages of Oregon and Washington (1941), Kalapuya Texts (1945), Outline of Anthropology (1947), General Anthropology: A Brief Survey of Physical, Cultural, and Social Anthropology (1952), Clackamas Chinook Texts (1959), The People are Coming Soon: Analyses of Clackamas Chinook Myths and Tales (1960), Pattern in Cultural Anthropology (1964), and The Anthropologist Looks at Myth (1966).

Jacobs' wife, Elizabeth Louise Derr Jacobs, whom he married on January 3, 1931, also conducted anthropological field research from 1933 to 1935. Although she worked for most of her career as a psychiatric social worker, she also recorded materials from the Nehalem Tillamook, Upper Coquille, and the southwestern Oregon Athabaskan languages and cultures. Her book, Nehalem Tillamook Tales, was published in 1959.

Other aspects of Jacobs' professional career include his work as a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association, associate editor of the American Anthropologist (1939-1944), president of the American Folklore Society (1963-1964), and as a delegate from the American Folklore Society to the American Council of Learned Societies from 1966 to 1968. He was also interested in science, and hosted a weekly local "Science Headlines" radio broadcast from 1934 to 1951. Additionally, for many years he gave public lectures throughout the Pacific Northwest. Melville and Elizabeth Jacobs were also members of the Communist Party from 1935 to 1945, which threatened Melville's work as a professor at the University of Washington.

Melville Jacobs died of cancer on July 31, 1971.