Albert Samuel Gatschet

Albert Samuel Gatschet (October 3, 1832, Beatenberg, Canton of Bern – March 16, 1907, Washington, D.C.) was a Swiss-American ethnologist who trained as a linguist in the universities of Bern and Berlin. He later moved to the United States and settled there in order to study Native American languages, a field in which he was a pioneer.

In 1877 he became an ethnologist with the US Geological Survey. In 1879 he became a member of the Bureau of American Ethnology, which was part of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1884, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.

Gatschet published his observations of the Karankawa people of Texas. His study of the Klamath people located in present-day Oregon, published in 1890, is recognized as outstanding. In 1902 Gatschet was elected as a member of the American Antiquarian Society, whose members were studying ancient and historic peoples.