[1][4] Frachtenberg lectured in anthropology at Columbia until 1912, and in 1913 he became a "Special Ethnologist" at the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE).
From the school, he studied the ethnology of Alsea, Siletz, Quileute, Chimakum, and Shasta peoples with attention to art and religion.
[6] In late 1917, after returning from Salem to Washington, D.C., Frachtenberg was abruptly fired from his job at BAE for making comments derogatory to the government of the United States,[7] at a time of heightened nationalism and World War I. Franz Boas tried to defend him,[8] but the Secretary of the Smithsonian, Charles Walcott, dismissed him because he believed the comments were "inimical to the public welfare."
Ironically, after his termination from BAE, Frachtenberg joined the United States Army and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel by the time of his discharge in 1920.
[1] After military service, Frachtenberg became general secretary of the Young Men's Hebrew Association in Troy, New York.