William Foxwell Albright

1891–1971

Born in Coquimbo, Chile, on May 24, 1891, William F. Albright was the eldest of six children of Methodist missionary parents. He took his A.B. at Upper Iowa University in 1912 and his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins in 1916. His unpublished dissertation is DAWFA A.1.

In 1922, Albright became director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and that year excavated at Tell el-Fûl (DAWFA A.2). He directed the School until 1929, and again from 1933 to 1936. Appointed professor at Johns Hopkins in 1927, he was W. W. Spence Professor of Semitic Languages from 1930 until he retired in 1958. He died in Baltimore on September 19, 1971. The year before, the Jerusalem school was renamed the William Foxwell Albright Institute of Archaeological Research.

Albright was married to Ruth Norton Albright. They had four sons: Paul, Hugh, Stephen, and David.

Tributes and biographical studies

Yadin, Yigael. 1969. “William Foxwell Albright.” Eretz-Israel 9: ix–xii.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr. 1970. “William Foxwell Albright, Orientalist.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 200: 7–11.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr. 1972. “William Foxwell Albright.” American Philosophical Society Year Book 1972: 110–15.
Freedman, David Noel. 1972. “William Foxwell Albright in Memoriam.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 205: 3–13.
Wiseman, D. J. 1972. “William Foxwell Albright.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 35: 346–48.
Campbell, Edward F., Jr. 1973. “William F. Albright.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 93: 1–2.
Bright, John. 1975. “W. F. Albright as an Historian and Biblical Scholar.” Pages 3–10 in Freedman 1975.
Running, Leona Glidden, and David Noel Freedman. 1975. William Foxwell Albright: A Twentieth-Century Genius. New York: Two Continents Publishing Group.
Van Beek, Gus W. 1989. “William Foxwell Albright: A Short Biography.” Pages 7–15 in Van Beek 1989.
Dever, William G. 1993. “What Remains of the House That Albright Built?” Biblical Archaeologist 56: 25–35.
Machinist, Peter. 1996. “William Foxwell Albright: The Man and His Work.” Pages 385–403 in Cooper and Schwartz 1996.
Long, Burke O. 1997. Planting and Reaping Albright: Politics, Ideology, and Interpreting the Bible. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Feinman, Peter D. 2004. William Foxwell Albright and the Origins of Biblical Archaeology. Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press.
Levy, Thomas E., and David Noel Freedman. 2009. “William Foxwell Albright.” Biographical Memoirs 91: 2–29. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences.

Publications in his honor

Speiser, E. A., ed. 1951. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 122. On his sixtieth birthday.
Wright, G. Ernest, ed. 1961. The Bible and the Ancient Near East. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.
Malamat, A., ed. 1969. Eretz-Israel 9. The W. F. Albright volume.
Goedicke, Hans, ed. 1971. Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William Foxwell Albright. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Van Beek, Gus W., ed. 1989. The Scholarship of William Foxwell Albright: An Appraisal. Harvard Semitic Studies 33. Atlanta: Scholars Press.
Cooper, Jerrold S., and Glenn M. Schwartz, eds. 1996. The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.

Bibliographies of his writings

Orlinsky, Harry M., ed. 1941. An Indexed Bibliography of the Writings of William Foxwell Albright. New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research. Covers 1911–41.
Wright, G. Ernest, ed. 1961. “Appendix II: Bibliography of W. F. Albright.” In Wright 1961. Covers 1911–58.
Freedman, David Noel, compiler. 1969. “Bibliography of W. F. Albright.” Eretz-Israel 9: 1–5. Covers 1958–68.
Freedman, David Noel. 1975. The Published Works of William Foxwell Albright: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Cambridge, Mass.: American Schools of Oriental Research.
Saunders, Matthew J., ed. 2026. Digital Archive of William Foxwell Albright.