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Hetty Goldman (1881-1972)
- University of Michigan Press
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298 Hetty Goldman (1881–1972) Machteld J. Mellink and Kathleen M. Quinn hetty goldman’s career in archaeology was conducted against the backdrop of a series of world upheavals, yet throughout, she persevered not only in her desire to engage in ‹eld archaeology, but also in her philanthropic devotion to those people in the Mediterranean touched by turbulent times. Goldman was part of the ‹rst generation of American archaeologists to work in the Mediterranean, and she became the ‹rst American woman to direct an archaeological excavation on mainland Greece. Remembered as a woman of exceptional wit and humor and a scholar of unshakable principles and determination, Goldman left behind a legacy worthy of her pioneering spirit. Throughout her long career, Goldman made signi‹cant contributions to the development of archaeology as a scholarly discipline in terms of techniques employed and questions asked. She supported regional archaeological surveys, discouraged looters from pillaging artifacts from sites, and penned comprehensive ‹nal publications that served as models for other scholars in the ‹eld. Although she played many roles during her career— relief worker, archaeologist, and mentor—Goldman is best remembered for her contributions to the study of trade contacts between Greece and the Near East during the prehistoric period. R Let me make the humiliating confession at once. I have never raised a pick-axe, I have never wielded a shovel. Cherish no fond regard for the female excavator as a subtle compound of brain and brawn, who at will can raise a boulder or decipher the inscription upon its face. Here you shall have her true portrait and the chronicle of her days, and if they are poor in deeds of prowess, you still may ‹nd them full of varied experiences, half poetic, half practical, and of precious human contacts. —Hetty Goldman, “With the Spade in Greece,” 1918 Family Background and Education Hetty Goldman was born on December 19, 1881, in New York City.1 She was the daughter of Sarah Adler and Julius Goldman, both of whose families were actively involved in the social and intellectual movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her maternal grandfather, Samuel Adler, was a university-educated man who, in 1856, had been called as a Reform rabbi from Germany to Temple Emanu-El in New York City. Isaac Adler, Samuel Adler’s son and one of Goldman’s maternal uncles, became a doctor, while Felix Adler, another of Goldman’s uncles, founded the New York Society for Ethical Culture, out of which sprang the New York Ethical Culture schools and the national and international Ethical Culture movements.2 He later served as professor of social and political ethics at Columbia University from 1902 until 1933. Goldman’s paternal grandparents, Bertha and Marcus Goldman, had emigrated from Germany to Baltimore, Maryland, during the 1850s. After living brie›y in Baltimore, they moved to New York City, where Marcus Goldman founded the investment banking house of Goldman, Sachs, and Company with two brothers, Julius and Samuel Sachs. Bertha and Marcus Goldman had four children: Julius, Rebecca, Rosa, and Louisa. They eventually found themselves linked to the Sachs family through both business and personal ties. Rosa Goldman married Julius Sachs, and Louisa married Samuel Sachs. Julius Sachs, like Felix Adler, was committed to improving secondary hetty goldman 299 and university education in New York City. He founded the Sachs School for Boys in 1871 and the companion Sachs School for Girls in 1891. Julius Sachs’s academic interests were in classics and archaeology. He had studied classics in Germany with Hermann Sauppe at the University of Göttingen and had assembled an extensive library of books on these subjects, which his niece, Hetty Goldman, eventually inherited. Julius delivered a lecture entitled “Echoes of Greek Epic Poetry in Vase Painting” to the newly formed Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) in May 1893 and served as president of the AIA’s New York Society from 1900 to 1903. Julius Sachs was also a member of the Auxiliary Fund board of directors for the American School of Classical Studies in Athens from 1912 to 1922, during the early years of Goldman’s archaeological career.3 Julius Goldman married Sarah Adler in 1878. He worked as a lawyer, and Sarah devoted her time to her friends and family. The Goldmans had four children: Bertha, Marcus, Hetty, and Agnes. All four attended the Sachs School for Boys and Girls, where they learned, among other subjects, Greek and Latin. It was this training...