Leighton, Dorothea (1908–1989)
Leighton, Dorothea (1908–1989)
American medical anthropologist. Name variations: Dorothea Cross Leighton. Born Dorothea Cross on Sept 2, 1908, in Lunenburg, MA; died 1989; dau. of Frederick Cushing Cross and Dorothea Farquhar Cross (graduate of Bryn Mawr); graduate of Bryn Mawr, 1930; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, MD, 1936; also attended Columbia University; m. Alexander H. Leighton (psychiatrist).
Known particularly for studies of the Navajo, conducted research focused on psychiatric problems among Native American Groups, including Navajo of New Mexico and Inuit of Alaska; became Special Physician for US Office of Indian Affairs (1942); with husband, commissioned by Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to write The Navaho Door (published 1944); participated in important psychiatric epidemiological study of rural population in Stirling Country, Nova Scotia, and coauthored final report on study entitled The Character of Danger (1963); taught at institutions including Cornell University, University of North Carolina, University of California at San Francisco, and University of California at Berkeley; served as 1st president of Society for Medical Anthropology. Major publications include The Navaho (with Clyde Kluckhohn, 1946), Children of the People (with Kluckhohn, 1948), and People of the Middle Place (with John Adair, 1966).