Because of parents, he received a very strong early education. This resulted in Boas did not identifying as Jewish, and left him with a dislike of religion. His parents were rich, well educated, and sought to expose him to the values of the enlightenment. Early life īoas was born in Germany to Jewish parents. ![]() He is considered by many to have been the 'Father of American Anthropology.' While today archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, and Biological anthropology are often considered somewhat separate discipline, Boas had a holistic approach, meaning to him they were a unified discipline. Kroeber and Lewie went to the University of California, Berkeley, Sapir to the University of Chicago, and Mead and Benedict stayed at Columbia University.Franz Boas (J– December 21, 1942) was a German born American anthropologist. They were all part of a movement to spread anthropology across the North American continent. Some of his most famous disciples were Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lewie, and Edward Sapir, among others. In fact, they were able to establish ethnographic field research as the most important part of anthropological professionalization. Franz Boas educated a generation of anthropologistsĪnother important contribution Boas made to anthropology were his disciples. Boas and his students built the foundations of professional, university anthropology by getting rid of the amateurs and hobbyists. That encouraged anthropologists to focus more on the particularities of each society instead of comparing cultures and making speculative generalizations. Instead, he proposed a relativist view of cultural differences. ![]() His theory rejected the prevailing idea at the time about lineal social evolution. One of Franz Boas’ most important theoretical contributions to anthropology was a new perspective on the study of culture. He was the director of the institution between 19. In 1910, he played an active role in establishing the International School of American Archeology and Ethnology in Mexico. He also helped found the American Folklore Society in 1888 and participated in the revitalization of the American Ethnological Society in 1900. He was involved in the modernization of the American Anthropologist journal (1889) and he helped start the American Anthropologist Association in 1900. Boas discussed linguistics, ethnological theory, anthropometry, folklore, racial problems, and civil rights… The list goes on.īoas was at the center of important events that marked a before and after in the world of North American anthropology. He wrote many different scientific books and articles, covering the entire range of anthropological subjects. However, you could say that he made major contributions to the establishment of anthropology as a science, acting as a professor, researcher, administrator, and institution founder. Boas was also a conservationist at the American Museum of Natural History in the Ethnology section.įranz Boas’ most important contributions to anthropologyįranz Boas made many contributions to the field of anthropology. By 1889, he was a professor at Columbia University, where he worked for the rest of his life. A few years later, however, he returned to North America to give classes at Clark University. When he finished his expedition, he returned to Berlin. He understood very early on that language and culture play a more important role in societies than natural conditions. He decided to focus primarily on fieldwork but he wanted to study every aspect of anthropology, including linguistics and the social and cultural sphere. His close relationship with the Arctic Inuits sparked his interest in anthropology. He also discovered the importance of understanding the context of the study subject. ![]() It was there that he discovered ethnography and direct observation as a method to study social phenomena. ![]() He stayed there for an entire year, living among Inuits and whalers. In 1883, he went on an expedition to the Arctic Ocean to study the color of its waters. His dissertation was titled: “Contributions to the Understanding of the Color of Water”. He got his doctorate in geography in 1881. When he was 20, he began studying physics and math. Like many anthropologists of his day, Boas was born and educated in Germany. We’ll also talk about the personal and social circumstances that inspired Boas to study this particular field of social science. In today’s article, you’ll learn more about the circumstances that led Franz Boas to create this new and meticulous scientific discipline. He was also responsible for establishing a more scientific method of studying anthropology by requiring more extensive fieldwork. In 1888, he founded the first university department of anthropology in North America at Clark University. Franz Boas (1858-1942) was a German anthropologist.
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