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Margaret Altmann: A rugged pioneer in rugged fields
Author(s) -
Chiszar David,
Wertheimer Michael
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6696(198801)24:1<102::aid-jhbs2300240121>3.0.co;2-o
Subject(s) - ethology , wilderness , german , christian ministry , naturalism , environmental ethics , art history , psychology , art , history , ecology , archaeology , political science , philosophy , law , epistemology , biology
A pioneer in descriptive ethology and developmental psychobiology, Margaret Altmann almost singlehandedly initiated the modern naturalistic study of the behavior of large animals in their normal habitat. After obtaining a doctorate in agriculture in Germany, she worked for several years in the German Ministry of Agriculture before coming to the United States in the early 1930s. At Cornell University she did research on animal behavior and earned a second doctoral degree in psychobiology, then moved to Hampton Institute and thence to the University of Colorado in 1958. From 1948 to her death in 1984 she studied large animals in the wilderness.