Gladwyn M. Childs

Gladwyn Murray Childs (29 December 1896 – July 1975) was an American minister, missionary and anthropologist.

Early life[]

He 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, where he knew William Sloane Coffin. He obtained a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University.

Career[]

Childs 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 and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Angola. He was the principal of a mission school, the .

Later life[]

After 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, , a researcher of folk tales, on Umbundu folktales.

Personal life[]

He married Margaret (born Marguerite) Pfaffli (5 November 1902 – January 1986) in her home town of Lausanne, Switzerland on 14 February 1925. Their daughter, (died 2006) was a noted therapist, anthropologist and author.

Publications[]

'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

'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

References[]

• Biography
• Daughter's obituary

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