Papa Boas and His Crew

Franz Boas (1858-1942): a German-American physicist turned geologist turned anthropologist

Lasting Influence

• Committed to demonstrating the power of culture over biology to explain variations in human behavior
• Efforts to end racism and ethnocentrism
• Distinguished between professional and amateur anthropology
• Students: Robert Lowie, A. L. Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Zora Neale Hurston, Edward Sapir

Ruth Benedict (1887-1948): an American anthropologist and folklorist

Work and Influence

• Patterns of Culture, 1934
• Cultural relativism: Morality is relative to the values of the culture in which one operated

Margaret Mead (1901-1978): an American cultural anthropologist and public speaker

Work and Influence

• Conducted fieldwork in Samoa in the 1920s
• Coming of Age in Samoa, 1928
• Asserted that culture, not race, shapes personality so children grow up exhibiting the personality traits their culture rewards
• Was criticized 5 years after her death by anthropologist Derek Freeman