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CURRENT BIOGRAPHY
SEPTEMBER 1955
[[line]]

ABDULLAH, SEIF-UL-ISLAM, PRINCE
See Seif-ul-Islam Abdullah, Prince

ALBRIGHT, WILLIAM F(OXWELL)
May 24, 1891-  University professor; orientalist; archaeologist

Address: b. c/o Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.; h. 4 W. 39th St., Baltimore 18, Md.

[[image - black & white photograph of William Albright seated at desk]]
[[photo credit]] Johns Hopkins Univ. [[/photo credit]]
[[caption]] WILLIAM F. ALBRIGHT [[/caption]]

In the opinion of Professor William F. Albright, who is recognized as "one of the greatest living Biblical archaeologists," the ancient manuscripts, mosaics and religious relics which have been unearthed during the past two decades have "revolutionized our understanding of the Bible." Dr. Albright is chairman of the Oriental Seminary at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and professor of Semitic languages there. For twelve years he headed the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem and directed or advised numerous archaeological expeditions in Palestine and other parts of Southwestern Asia.

He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books including From the Stone Age to Christianity, and The Archaeology of Palestine, which have appeared in several American and Continental editions. His analysis and interpretation of the Biblical scrolls discovered by a Bedouin boy in a cave near the Dead Sea in 1947 have provoked much interest among scholars and laymen. "All handbooks on the Bible," he wrote in American Scholar (Winter 1952-53), "early Christianity and the history of Judaism will be in need of drastic revision." Albright is the second scientist--after the late James Henry Breasted--in the field of archaeology and ancient history of the Near East--to be elected to membership (in 1955) in the National Academy of Sciences since its establishment by Abraham Lincoln in 1863.

William Foxwell Albright was born in Coquimbo, Chile on May 24, 1891, the son of the Reverend Wilbur Finley and Zephine Viola (Foxwell) Albright. His father was a Methodist missionary, the son of an Iowa farmer of German-French-Northern Irish ancestry. His mother's father was a Cornishman who emigrated to the United States and settled on an Iowa farm close to the Albrights.

A self-portrait included in American Spiritual Autobiographies, edited by Louis Finkelstein (Harper, 1948), told of Albright's early childhood in the small Chilean town of La Serena, where Protestants and foreigners were in the minority, thus beginning his keen interest in minority groups. When the family moved to Antofagasta, a larger town, he felt safer. From the age of six he constructed imaginary worlds which covered centuries of time and thousands of miles of space, while he attended a small private school run by British subjects and later a school run by his mother. He read history and theology at home and at the age of eight became interested in archaeology and Biblical antiquities.

The family returned to Iowa when young Albright was in his early teens. His father had six children to support on an income of $400 yearly, and they moved from one drab parsonage to another. The bright spots during these years for William were visits with his grandparents, who owned many books which he read avidly.

When he was sixteen years old he entered the preparatory school attached to Upper Iowa University at Fayette and began studying Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Assyrian, ancient history and related subjects. He worked his way through five years of preparatory school and college, and received the A.B. degree from Upper Iowa in 1912. For a year he taught in the High School of Menno, South Dakota; a fight with one of the huskiest students brought about Albright's resignation, although the school board defended him. He spent a summer as a "tramp farm laborer, riding on top