Franz Boas

Lore & Background

Studying in Germany, Boas was awarded a doctorate in 1881 in physics while also studying geography. He then participated in a geographical expedition to northern Canada, where he became fascinated with the culture and language of the Baffin Island Inuit. He went on to do field work with the indigenous cultures and languages of the Pacific Northwest. In 1887 he emigrated to the United States, where he first worked as a museum curator at the Smithsonian, and in 1899 became a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, where he remained for the rest of his career. Through his students, many of whom went on to found anthropology departments and research programmes inspired by their mentor, Boas profoundly influenced the development of American anthropology. Among his many significant students were A. L. Kroeber, Alexander Goldenweiser, Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gilberto Freyre. Boas was one of the most prominent opponents of the then-popular ideologies of scientific racism. In a series of groundbreaking studies of skeletal anatomy, he showed that cranial shape and size was highly malleable depending on environmental factors such as health and nutrition. Boas also worked to demonstrate that differences in human behavior are not primarily determined by innate biological dispositions but are largely the result of cultural differences acquired through social learning. Among Boas's main contributions to anthropological thought was his rejection of the then-popular evolutionary approaches to the study of culture. Boas argued that culture developed historically through the interactions of groups of people and the diffusion of ideas. Boas was a proponent of the idea of cultural relativism. By uniting the disciplines of archaeology, the study of material culture and history, and physical anthropology, with ethnology and descriptive linguistics, Boas created the four-field subdivision of anthropology which became prominent in American anthropology in the 20th century.

Reader's Guide

Boas was born on July 9, 1858, in Minden, Westphalia, the son of Sophie Meyer and Meier Boas. His grandparents were observant Jews, but his parents embraced Enlightenment values. An important early influence was Abraham Jacobi. Boas refused to convert to Christianity, but he did not identify himself as a religious Jew. He first attended Heidelberg University for a semester followed by four terms at Bonn University, studying physics, geography, and mathematics. In 1879, he transferred to the University of Kiel. At Kiel, he completed his dissertation entitled "Contributions to the Perception of the Color of Water" and was awarded a PhD in physics in 1881. While at Bonn, he attended geography classes taught by Theobald Fischer. Boas self-identified as a geographer by the time he completed his doctorate. In his dissertation research, Boas became intrigued by the problem of perception and its influence on quantitative measurements. Boas, due to tone deafness, would later encounter difficulties in studying tonal languages such as Laguna. He published six articles on psychophysics during his year of military service (1882–1883), but ultimately decided to focus on geography. In 1883, encouraged by Theobald Fischer, Boas went to Baffin Island to conduct geographic research. He culled his notes to write his first monograph titled "The Central Eskimo", published in 1888.

Did You Know?

• Boas was awarded a doctorate in physics in 1881 while also studying geography.
• He participated in a geographical expedition to northern Canada, where he became fascinated with the Baffin Island Inuit.
• Boas was one of the most prominent opponents of scientific racism.
• He showed that cranial shape and size was highly malleable depending on environmental factors.
• Boas argued that culture developed historically through interactions and diffusion of ideas, not through evolutionary stages.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 22, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology"." — Franz Boas "Eugenics, in The Scientific Monthly, J. McKeen Cattell, ed., Vol. 3, No. 5,(November, 1916)[1][2]." — Franz Boas "Boas (1928) in foreword to Margaret Mead (1928) Coming of Age in Samoa." — Franz Boas "Franz Boas (1975) Facial paintings of the Indians of northern British Columbia. p. 4." — Franz Boas