Franz Boas

Born and brought up Jewish in Germany during a very antisemitic time, Franz Boas was a successful student, earning his doctorate at a fairly young age and holding an academic position in Berlin. However, in 1886 Boas found himself in New York after having participated in several ethnographic studies in Canada. He decided to remain in New York for several reasons, the main one being that it kept him close to the North American Indians and Inuit who were the peoples most fascinating to him. In 1899

findings and thoughts, was anthropologist Franz Boas. Boas was a white, Jewish male. He was known as the Father of American Anthropology. Franz Boas has demonstrated major work in physical anthropology, linguistics, Cultural anthropology, and the famous four field approach. Additionally, through learning about Boas’ findings and thoughts, I was able to engage with his work, evaluate it, think about the works limitations, ramifications, and its lasting import. Boas’ has made a difference in many peoples

Father Franz Boas--Father of American Anthropology Franz Boas is often referred to as the father of American anthropology because of the great influence he had in the lives and the careers of the next great generation of anthropologists in America. He came at a time when anthropology was not considered a true science or even a meaningful discipline and brought an air of respectability to the profession, giving those who followed a passion and an example of how to approach anthropology.

Recently, anthropology has not been seen in the highest of regards nor the brightest of lights, but it is still a very crucial and important science that helps us better understand different cultures and societies. When Franz Boas travelled to the far Northwest of North America in the 1880’s to study the ritual on the potlatches, he noted an ongoing conflict between the Canadian government and the Inuit people. The potlatch ceremony was an ancient ritual that displayed one’s wealth and power by giving

” – Franz Boas Franz Boas has been called the “Father of American Anthropology.” Dr. Boas did not obtain his degree in anthropology, but went on to help create the four fields of anthropology and teach many of the most well-known anthropologists of today. His contributions to the field of cultural anthropology alone are magnificent, Dr. Boas and his students had managed to completely alter how we as a society viewed race and culture. On July 9, 1859 in Minden, Westphalia, Germany Franz Boas was

dominant politics. In specifics, I would like to examine Franz Boas himself, but most notably Ruth Benedict, and the paradoxes that have occurred within the period after her publications. Franz Boas (1858-1942) was a famous anthropologist credited with the founding of the cultural relativist approach, which is a major theory within the discipline of anthropology. What is important for many involved in the study of anthropology is that Franz Boas cultivated a foundation that many other thinkers and theorist

particular, Lewis Henry Morgan’s evolutionary approach takes a shortcut that makes his methods sufficient to define all of culture. Using a more in-depth analysis study that reflects cultural relativism, the highlighted population, and apperception, Franz Boas would better conduct a study of UVM student culture and its relation with cell phones. Lewis Henry Morgan’s evolutionary approach is inadequate at studying cell phones as a component and indicator of UVM culture. Morgan follows a unilineal evolution

He provides no biological basis for casting Bushmen, Negroes, and Papuans people into Negroid and Americans, East Asiatics, and Malays into Mongoloid. Instead, Boas’ reasoning is similarities within the groups of pigmentation and facial features, a fault of the time he was in. He was deriving from the dated 17th century concept of race, based only off of people looking different, and classifications derived from

Cultural Anthropology was not something I ever thought I would be interested in. During this class I have learned many new things about other people and how they live. This is by far my favorite class this semester and I just love hearing about other people’s way of life. So, with my newfound love for cultural anthropology I decided to write about one of the most influential female anthropologists. I decided to write about Margaret Mead. I want to discuss her early life. Then, move on to her life

spoke. As we move into the 1920s and the 1930s we learn that anthropology assumed the current form with its subfields. Franz Boas was an anthropologist who wanted the field to be seen as a well-respected science. He studied all subfields of anthropology and did a lot of research regarding them. Boas also was allowed to do field work in all of the subfields except archeology. Boas helped make anthropology what it is today by defining the discipline and trained many of the well- known anthropologists’