George Gmelch

George Gmelch (born 1944 in New York) is an American anthropologist known for his research on Irish Travellers, return migration and the culture of sport.

[4] Political scientists Peter Dreier and Rob Elias note in their book Baseball Rebels, “...in the Carolina League towns Gmelch played in, he was shocked by the segregation and racism he observed... ... passing the general manager’s office before a game, he witnessed members of the Rocky Mount’s Chamber of Commerce reminding the ballclub’s General Manager that the town would not support the team if there were ‘too many colored boys in the starting lineup... Gmelch soon learned that the ball field itself was used by the local Ku Klux Klan for gatherings, and that the town’s police chief was a member of the Klan and his brother a Grand Dragon.

[13] In 1971-72, he and his anthropologist wife Sharon spent a year living in a horse-drawn wagon in a camp on the outskirts of Dublin for their PhD research.

With filmmaker Dennis Lanson, Gmelch has produced two films related to the remote Newfoundland fishing community of Bay de Verde where he conducted research between 2018 and 2020.

The first film, “A Year in the Field,”[19] looks at the research of a young Estonian anthropologist studying climate change in Newfoundland (2020) and is now distributed by Documentary Educational Resources (DER).