Reichard, Gladys Amanda

Reichard, Gladys Amanda (1893–1955) cultural anthropologist; born in Bangor, Pa. Daughter of a physician of Quaker background, she taught in public schools for six years before enrolling at Swarthmore, from which she graduated in the classics in 1919. She went on to Columbia University, where Franz Boas became her mentor, and received a Ph.D. in 1925. She made a lifelong study of the language and culture of the Navaho, presenting the results of her fieldwork in a series of studies, including Social Life of the Navaho Indians (1928), Spider Woman (1934), and Navaho Religion: A Study of Symbolism (1950). She taught at Barnard College from 1923 to the end of her life.