Alfred Tozzer attended Harvard University and graduated with a degree in 1900. After college he traveled extensively in Europe and participated in field work concerning linguistics, ethnological and archeological areas. He first went to study the Maya in 1902 as a Traveling Fellow of the Archeological Institution of America and witnessed the dredging of the Cenote of Sacrifice in Chichen Itza. During the next three winters he worked as the first ethnological student among the Maya in the heavy jungles of Chiapas and Campeche. This experience gave him enough information upon which to base his Ph.D. thesis. In 1905 Tozzer began teaching Anthropology at Harvard.
In 1910, Tozzer led an expedition for the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University into Mexico and Central America. In 1914 he became Director of the International School of American Archeology in Mexico. Before and after these events he remained faithful and dedicated to teaching at Harvard.
In mid-career Tozzer married Margaret Castle and together they built a home in Cambridge. Alfred Tozzer held such positions as a member of the Academic Board at Radcliffe, Director of the Harvard Alumni Association, the National Research Council, President of the American Anthropological Association, Faculty Member and Librarian of the Peabody Museum and Member of the important Administrative Board of Harvard. His most successful work by far was Landa, a translation of the pagan life of the Maya first written by Landa, the Bishop of Yucatan in 1566.
This picture reprinted by permission of the American Anthropological Association from American Anthropologist vol. 57 1955
American Anthropologist vol. 57 1955 by the American Anthropological Association.
Written By Nikki Akins
Edited by Marcy L. Voelker, 2007