Gifford became a curator in 1925 and a professor in 1945. Working in close association with the preeminent leader in California anthropology, Alfred L. Kroeber, Gifford produced more than 100 publications. His numerous contributions to salvage ethnography have left an invaluable record of the state's native cultures. He developed the museum into a major U.S. institution with its major field research and collections. Although Gifford was less widely known than his colleague and supervisor Kroeber, he maintained a positive relationship with many Berkeley graduate students - often writing them with advice and ideas while they were engaged in fieldwork.
Foster, George M. 1960. "Edward Winslow Gifford". American Anthropologist 62:327-329.
Kroeber, A. L., and E. W. Gifford. Karok Myths. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Hurtado, Albert L. 1990. "Introduction to the Bison Book Edition". In California Indian Nights, compiled by Edward W. Gifford and Gwendoline Harris Block, pp. 1–7. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
Redman, Samuel J. 2015. "Museum tours and the origins of museum studies: Edward W. Gifford, William R. Bascom, and the remaking of an anthropology museum." Museum Management and Curatorship. Vol. 30, No. 5.
Edward Winslow Gifford. 1917. "Miwok Myths". University of California Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology 12:283-338.]
Gifford, Edward W., and Robert H. Lowie. 1928. "Notes on the Akwa'ala Indians of Lower California". University of California Publications in American Archeology and Ethnology 23:338-352.