Donald Pitkin Papers

Donald Stevenson Pitkin was born in Boston, MA on January 6, 1922 to Donald Stevenson Pitkin of Scituate, MA and Dorothy Alice Bacon of Chicago, IL. He attended the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, MA from 1937-1940, after which he attended Harvard College. During WWII, Pitkin interrupted his studies to enlist in the 10th Mountain Division and served in the Division's engagement against the Japanese in the Aleutian Islands. As a Second Lieutenant in the field artillery, he trained as a forward observer for the projected invasion of Japan. After the war, Pitkin returned to Harvard where he received his BA (1947) and in 1954 received his doctorate in anthropology, based on his fieldwork in cultural anthropology he conducted in Sermoneta, Italy from 1951-1953. In 1948, Pitkin married Emily Perkins Knapp (1928-1964) and they had two children. In 1958, he became a professor of anthropology at Northeastern University and later became chair of the Sociology Department. In 1959, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship with affiliation to the Institute of Agrarian Economics in Portici, Naples. In 1964, following the death of his wife, Pitkin accepted a position at Amherst College and moved his family from Cambridge to Amherst. Donald Pitkin introduced anthropology to the Amherst College curriculum, became the first professor of anthropology and the founder of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. He remained at Amherst College for the duration of his teaching career, retiring in 1992.

One of the first American anthropologists to study European culture, Pitkin authored several books about the life and cultures of Sermoneta's people, including The House that Giacomo Built, Mamma casa posto fisso: Sermoneta rivisitata 1951-1986 (1990), and La Ruota Gira: Vita a Sermoneta 1951-1952 (1998).

The House that Giacomo Built was published by Oxford University Press in 1985, was made into a film of the same title, and won two prestigious Italian awards: the Premio Guido Dorso and the Premio Internazionale di Studi.

In 1999, the village of Sermoneta held a "Donald Pitkin Day," celebrating the anthropological research and work Pitkin conducted in the village throughout his life.

Citations:
Donald Pitkin obituary. Daily Hampshire Gazette, May 15, 2012.