Full Description
This book is a study in depth of the work of Franz Boas and twenty of his students at Columbia University in the early years of the twentieth century. Collectively they laid the entire institutional as well as the intellectual foundations of American anthropology as it exists today. The book begins with a discussion of the historical context of Boasian anthropology, and an overview of its nature and limitations. The work of Boas and his leading students is then discussed in detail, including biographical data, a review and critique of their research, a review in detail of each of their major publications, and an overall assessment of their contribution to anthropology, as seen in their own time and today.
Contents
PHOTO CREDITS
PART ONE: BACKGROUND
IntroductionAntecedents and circumstancesThe founding grandfather: Franz Boas, 1858-1942PART TWO: THE FOUNDING FATHERS
Clark Wissler, 1870-1947A. L. Kroeber, 1876-1960Robert H. Lowie, 1883-1957Edward Sapir, 1884-1939Paul Radin, 1883-1959Melville J. Herskovits, 1895-1963The journeymenFrank G. Speck, 1881-1950
Alexander Goldenweiser, 1880-1940
Fay-Cooper Cole, 1881-1961
Leslie Spier, 1893-1961
Melville Jacobs, 1902-1971
Alexander Lesser, 1902-1982
PART THREE: THE FOUNDING MOTHERS
Elsie Clews Parsons, 1874-1941Ruth Benedict, 1887-1948Margaret Mead, 1901-1978The handmaidensGladys Reichard, 1893-1955
Erna Gunther, 1896-1982
Esther Goldfrank, 1896-1997
Ruth Bunzel, 1898-1990
Gene Weltfish, 1902-1980
Ruth Underhill, 1883-1984
Marian W. Smith, 1907-1961
Zora Neale Hurston, 1901(?)-1960
PART FOUR: RETROSPECTIVE
Achievements and failuresThe legaciesBIBLIOGRAPHY
