Theodora Kracaw Kroeber (1897-1979) was a writer and anthropologist best known for her interpretations of the oral traditions of several native Californian cultures.
Kroeber was born in Colorado and later moved to California, where she studied at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1919 she earned her masters degree in clinical psychology. After she was left a widow with two children, she studied anthropology, met and married Alfred Kroeber, himself a widower. She is best known for her book on Ishi, the last member of the Yahi tribe of California. Writer Ursula K. Le Guin is their daughter, and English professor Karl Kroeber their son. Historian Clifton Kroeber is one of her sons by her first marriage.
Books by Theodora Kroeber
- The Inland Whale (1959)
- Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America (1961)
- Ishi: The Last of His Tribe (1964)
- Almost Ancestors: The First Californians (1968)
- Alfred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration (1970)
- Ishi, the Last Yahi: A Documentary History (1979)
