Jean Briggs

Jean L. Briggs (May 28, 1929 – July 27, 2016) was an American-born anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and professor emerita at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her best known works included the 1970 landmark book Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family, based on 18 months of research and field work in Inuit communities on the Arctic coast during the 1960s.

Biography Briggs was born in Washington, D.C., on May 28, 1929, the eldest of four children of Margaret (née Worcester) and Horace W. Briggs, member of the clergy of The New Church, also known as Swedenborgianism.

In 1967, Briggs moved to the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador and joined the Department of Anthropology at Memorial University in St. John's, where she taught for 47 years. as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Bergen in Norway. She was also a Royal Society of Canada fellow.