Robert Lowie

Robert H. Lowie trained under the famous anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University. Boas's anti-racist and historical particularist approach deeply influenced Lowie's research.

Lowie conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork among the Crow (Apsáalooke) people of the North American Plains. He published several detailed studies on their social organization, religion, and material culture throughout the early 20th century.

He spent most of his academic career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he helped build a major department of anthropology. He was active there during the early-to-mid 20th century until his retirement.

Unlike some of his contemporaries who believed all societies evolved through specific stages, Lowie argued against rigid evolutionary models. He viewed culture as a messy, opportunistic process he famously described as a "thing of shreds and patches."