Krader, Lawrence

Lawrence Krader was an American anthropologist and ethnologist. Born in New York City to parents who had emigrated from Russia and Austria, Krader attended CCNY studying a range of subjects, before graduating in 1941. He joined the merchant navy during the Second World War, and then returned to school at Columbia University (1945-47) and a PhD from Harvard in 1954.

Krader taught at a number of institutions including, the University of Syracuse, the American University in Washington DC, the University of Waterloo, and the Free University of Berlin. In addition to his teaching appointments and other commitments, Krader was named the Secretary-General of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences from 1964-78.

The last decade of his life, he spent writing manuscripts on a range of topics. He died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism in November 1998, leaving much of his work unpublished.