Slotkin, James Sydney, 1913-1958

As a scholar at several universities, Slotkin had a broad range of interests, working in numerous fields, including: social anthropology, ethnohistory, social psychology, the history and methodology of social science and the sociology of knowledge. He published articles on a variety of topics.

James Sydney Slotkin was born in New York City on July 12, 1913.

Slotkin studied at the Experimental College at the University of Wisconsin between 1930 and 1932. In 1932 he came to the University of Chicago and earned his BA in 1934, majoring in anthropology. In 1935 he received his MA from the University of Chicago, and on July 27 of that year he married Elizabeth Josephine Cole, a fellow student. In 1940 he received his PhD from the University of Chicago, with a major in anthropology and a minor in social psychology.

He was an Instructor at Washington University in St Louis in 1941, and a Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin from 1942 to 1944. Between 1944 and 1946 he was an Assistant Professor at Howard University, and in the summers from 1943 to 1945 he was an Associate Professor at the University of Texas. In 1946 he returned to the University of Chicago as an Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, which he remained until 1957.

As a scholar, Slotkin had a broad range of interests, working in numerous fields, including: social anthropology; ethnohistory; social psychology; the history and methodology of social science and the sociology of knowledge. He published articles on a variety of topics, but major works included: Social Anthropology (1950); Personality Development (1952); and From Field to Factory (1960). Between 1949 and 1951, and again in 1954, he conducted ethnographic field work with the Menomini Indians of Wisconsin. As a result of his research into Peyote religion, published in such works as The Peyote Religion (1956) and Menomini Peyotism (1957), he became Secretary of the Native American Church of North America.

Slotkin died in Chicago on August 6, 1958.