Scheffler Harold W.

Biography

Harold Walter Scheffler was born on October 24, 1932, in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Southeast Missouri State College in 1952 and transferred to the University of Missouri the following year. His studies were interrupted by military service with the United States Army, 1954-1955, after which he returned to the University of Missouri and received a B.A. degree in anthropology and sociology in 1956.

Scheffler then went on to the University of Chicago for graduate work in anthropology, receiving an M.A. in 1957. He continued in the doctoral program at Chicago and, with the assistance of a Carnegie Corporation Tri-Institutional Pacific Program grant (1958-1960) and a Fulbright grant (1960-1961), conducted eighteen months of fieldwork (1958-1961) on the island of Choiseul in what was then called the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1963, having submitted a dissertation entitled "Kindred and Kin Groups in Choiseul Island Social Structure" (later published in 1965 as Choiseul Island Social Structure ).

Scheffler studied social structure and kinship on Choiseul Island between November 1958 and April 1961. He spent most of his time in the village of Voza in the Tepazaka District, but also lived on the opposite side of the island in Ogo village in the Varisi District and made trips to Simbo Island. Scheffler learned and conducted this research in the Varisi language.

After returning from Choiseul, Scheffler taught at the University of Connecticut (1961-1962) and Bryn Mawr College (1962-1963). He joined the Yale University faculty in 1963, and has remained there throughout his career.

Post-doctoral fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation enabled him to return to the Solomon Islands. Between 1967 and 1968, Scheffler conducted research on the island of Rendova as the principal investigator in a study entitled "Revitalization Movements in the British Solomons," which compared religious movements in three locations. This project examined the separatist Christian Fellowship Church on New Georgia Island (fieldwork conducted by Frances Hine Harwood), the South Seas Evangelical Mission in the Langalanga Lagoon area of Malaita (fieldwork conducted by Matthew Cooper) and the participation of people on Rendova Island in revitalization movements (fieldwork conducted by Scheffler).

From the guide to the Harold Scheffler Papers, 1926 - 1981, (Mandeville Special Collections Library)