William Wadden Turner
| Prof. William Wadden Turner | |||||||||
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| File:Turner, William Wadden.jpg | |||||||||
| Born | 1810 | ||||||||
| Died | 1859 | ||||||||
| Residence | American Ethnological Society | ||||||||
| Occupation | academic | ||||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
1852.01.07 Resolved that the following gentlemen be elected corresponding members of our society: Edward Robinson DD, LLD; H.R. Schoolcraft LLD; Hon. E.G. Squier MA; Prof. Turner - all office bearers of the American Ethnological Society
Notes From Elsewhere
Turner, William Wadden c. 1810-59 Born in England, W.W. Turner came to America when he was still a child. As a young man, he studied Oriental, Classical, and modern European languages with the assistance of Isaac Nordheimer. In return, Turner helped Nordheimer in the preparation of his Hebrew Grammar, Chrestomathy, and Concordance. Turner studied formally at Yale University and then assisted in the reorganization of the Columbia University library. In 1842, he was appointed to the chair of Oriental literature at Union Theological Seminary. While in New York, he was active with the American Oriental Society and the American Ethnological Society.
In 1852, Turner became the librarian at the United States Patent Office. Before this, he had worked for the Smithsonian as a linguistic consultant. In Washington, he continued this work and also reorganized and cataloged the Smithsonian's library, employing his sister Jane as an assistant.
Although Turner's early specialty was Hebrew and other Near Eastern languages, his linguistic interests were worldwide, and he became an authority on American languages. Little of his learning, however, was directed toward producing original works. Although he published articles in the Bibliotheca Sacra, Iconographic Encyclopedia, Journal of the American Oriental Society, and Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, his main vocation was as translator and editor. For the Smithsonian, as an example, he imposed form on the materials that went into Stephen Return Riggs's Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language (1851) and T.J. Bowen's Grammar and Dictionary of the Yoruba Language (1858).
Publications
External Publications
House Publications
Related Material Details
RAI Material
Other Material
National Anthropological Archives
Smithsonian Institution [papers]