[4] Kroeber provided detailed information about Ishi, the last surviving member of the Yahi people, whom he studied over a period of years.

[5] The family belonged to a German-American milieu that was upper middle-class, classical and rationalistic, and schooled in the German intellectual tradition.

The family was bilingual, speaking German at home, and Kroeber also began to study Latin and Greek in school, beginning a lifelong interest in languages.

[2] He attended Columbia College at the age of 16, joining the Philolexian Society and earning an BA in English in 1896 and an MA in Romantic drama in 1897.

The anthropology department's headquarters building at the University of California was named Kroeber Hall in his honor, before being un-named January 26, 2021, in order to "help Berkeley recognize a challenging part of our history, while better supporting the diversity of today's academic community.

In Peru he helped found the Institute for Andean Studies (IAS) with the Peruvian anthropologist Julio C. Tello and other major scholars.

[18] Kroeber's childhood friend Carl Alsberg described him as a "good listener" and able "to be objective, to see the other point of view, to penetrate behind another person's behavior to his underlying thought [...] These traits indicate a sincerity and simplicity of character that primitive peoples sense at once and to which they respond by giving their confidence.

[19] Kroeber served early on as the plaintiffs' director of research in Indians of California v. the United States, a land claim case.

Ralph Beals of the University of California, Los Angeles, served as director of research for the federal government in the case.

[21] Kroeber's impact on the Indian Claims Commission may well have established the way expert witnesses presented testimony before the tribunal.

[22] Several of his former students also served as expert witnesses; for instance, Stewart directed the plaintiff research for the Ute and for the Shoshone peoples.