Conrad M. Arensberg
Conrad Maynadier Arensberg was an American anthropologist and scholar.
He was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1931. He was exempted from his final exams by the College Dean who viewed them as "being completely unnecessary in Conrad's case". In 1937 his doctorate dissertation entitled The Irish Countryman became a college textbook.
Arensberg helped found The Society for Applied Anthropology and was elected its President as well as President of the American Anthropological Association. In 1957 he co-analyzed economies of ancient empires in Trade Markets in the Early Empires together with Karl Polanyi.
In 1984, Owen Lynch, a former student of Arensberg organised a festschrift for his mentor, titled Culture and Community in Europe. In 1991 he received the Society of Applied Anthropology's Malinowski Award.
He was married to Vivian E. Garrison.
He held the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professorship of Human Relations at Columbia University from 1970 until his retirement in 1980. Thereafter he joined the faculty of the Joint Applied Anthropology Program at Teachers' College.
