Gladwyn Murray Childs (29 December 1896 – July 1975) was an American minister, missionary and anthropologist.
Early life
editHe was born in Endeavor, Wisconsin on 29 December 1896. He received his bachelor's degree from Pomona College, a BD and MA from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York,[1] where he knew William Sloane Coffin. He obtained a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University.
Career
editChilds was a striking man, being 6' 4" tall. Together with his wife, Margaret, he worked as a missionary from 1925 to the early 1960s for the United Church Board for World Ministries and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Angola. He was the principal of a mission school, the Currie Institute in Dondi.[2] Childs spoke both Umbundu and Portuguese at the school, which was run by the Church of Christ.[1]
Later life
editAfter retirement, he worked for the World Council of Churches in Lisbon, but sought to return to Angola to work on a prehistoric project. Childs also worked with his uncle, Merlin Ennis, a researcher of folk tales, on Umbundu folktales;[3] Ennis went on to publish Umbundu: folk tales from Angola in 1962.[4][5]
Personal life
editHe married Margaret (born Marguerite) Pfaffli (5 November 1902 – January 1986) in her home town of Lausanne, Switzerland on 14 February 1925. Margaret was a biologist who studied and wrote about medicinal plants in Angola.[2] The couple had three daughters.[1]
Their daughter, Elaine Childs-Gowell (died 2006) was a therapist, anthropologist and author.[6][7]
Publications
edit- The Ovimbundu of Angola Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1934.
- Umbundu Kinship and Character: Being a Description of Social Structure and Individual Development of the Ovimbundu. ISBN 0-8357-3227-4. Published by: Oxford University Press, 1949[8]
- 'The Kingdom of Wambu (Huambo): A Tentative Chronology' in The Journal of African History, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1964), pp. 367–379, Published by: Cambridge University Press
His papers are held at the University of Washington Library in Seattle.[9]
References
edit- ^ a b c "Rev. Gladwyn Childs". The Capital Times. 1952-11-20. p. 9. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
- ^ a b "Gladwyn Murray Childs - AMSF". 2022-08-31. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
- ^ "Umbundu Kinship and Character". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
- ^ Martins, Vasco (2020-11-19). Colonialism, Ethnicity and War in Angola. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-22479-5.
- ^ Edwards, A. C. (April 1964). "Umbundu Folk Tales from Angola. Collected and translated by Merlin Ennis (with comparative analysis by Albert Lord). Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1962. Pp. xix, 316. $7.50". Africa. 34 (2): 186. doi:10.2307/1157919. ISSN 1750-0184. JSTOR 1157919.
- ^ Leong, Cheryl (2006-06-29). "Elaine Childs-Gowell". NATAA. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
- ^ "Stages of Ages Rechilding Your Inner Child by Gowell Phd, Elaine Childs: New PAP (2006) | PBShop.store UK". www.abebooks.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
- ^ "Childs Gladwyn Murray - AbeBooks". www.abebooks.com. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
- ^ "Gladwyn Murray Childs papers - Archives West". archiveswest.orbiscascade.org. Retrieved 2024-06-02.
External links
edit- Biography Archived 2010-07-05 at the Wayback Machine
- Daughter's obituary