E. Adamson Hoebel papers

E. Adamson Hoebel, B.A. (1928) University of Wisconsin, M.A. (1930) New York University, Ph.D. Columbia University. Was a widely recognized cultural anthropologist known for his ground-breaking studies of pre-literate societies and their legal systems.

E. Adamson Hoebel was born November 16, 1906 in Madison, Wisconsin to Edward Charles Gilbert Hoebel and Kathryn Arnold Hoebel. Edward Charles Hoebel served as the vice president of the Madison Saddlery Company while Kathryn Arnold worked as the State of Wisconsin's Civil Service Commissioner.

E. Adamson Hoebel attended the University of Wisconsin where he received an undergraduate degree in sociology and economics in 1928. Hoebel earned a M.A. at New York University in 1930. He then enrolled as a doctoral student in Columbia University's Anthropology Department, which was headed by cultural anthropologists Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. Both Boas and Benedict were well known for their work with Native Americans. Hoebel expressed interest in also working with Native Americans but his interest lay with legal systems of the Plains Indians. As neither Boas nor Benedict had experience with this subtopic, Hoebel was referred to Karl N. Llewellyn, a professor in Columbia's Law School. Llewellyn served as Hoebel's advisor and together the two men formulated the theory that how a society settles its disputes is the fundamental basis of its legal code.

Following his graduation from Columbia, Hoebel served as a professor of anthropology and sociology at New York University from 1929 until 1948 while continuing to collaborate with Llewellyn on projects. This juncture between law and anthropology helped establish a model of modern interdisciplinary studies. The two produced The Cheyenne Way: Conflict and Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence(1941).

In 1948 Hoebel became professor and head of the Anthropology Department at the University of Utah before heading to the University of Minnesota in 1954 where he served as chairman of the Department of Anthropology until 1968. In 1966 he was named Regent's Professor, the University of Minnesota's highest teaching honor. Hoebel retired in 1972 and was then named professor emeritus and adjunct professor of law. At the time of his retirement, Hoebel was nationally recognized authority on the development of law in preliterate societies. Hoebel wrote numerous articles on Native American jurisprudence as well as several important introductory textbooks including Man in the Primitive World: An Introduction to Anthropology(1949) and Anthropology: The Study of Men (1966).

Hoebel also served as president of the American Ethnological Society (1946-1947) and of the American Anthropological Association (1956-1957). In 1963 Hoebel became a member of the American Philosophical Society. E. Adamson Hoebel died on July 23, 1993.