1. FRANZ BOAS
Boas en route to Baffin Island 1883 and Central Inuit; to study reflectivity of sea-water

2. Anthropologists playing golf
Anthropologists playing golf
Odyssey Series on Boas

3. Personal Life Born: July 9, 1858 Minden, Westphalia, Germany
Parents: Meier Boas & Sophie Meyer Boas
Married to Marie Krackowizer

4. Education
Studied geography & physics at Universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, and Kiel
Earned B.A. degree: University of Heidelberg in 1881
Same year, earned Ph.D. from University of Kiel

5. Early Research Expedition to Baffin Land, Canada in 1883-1884
Fieldwork among Eskimo
Interest in anthropology
Immigrated to U.S. (1885)

6. Early Career
Worked for journal Science
Editorial position
Fieldwork:
North Pacific Coast of North America for museums

7. Career Dioramas Project: World's Fair in Chicago (1892-1893)
Native American cultures to general public
Pioneered life group displays
Dioramas

8. Chicago World’s Fair Diorama

9. Career Moved to New York (1896)
Assistant Curator: Ethnology & Somatology (physiology & anatomy)
American Museum of Natural History
Lectured: Columbia University
Professor of Anthropology,1899

10. Research
Best known: Kwakiutl Indians Northern Vancouver & adjacent mainland of British Columbia, Canada
Established new concept of culture & race

11. Research Everything important to study of culture
Collecting data on all facets of a culture was necessary to understand culture

12. Kwakiutl Indians

13. Kwakiutl Indians
Bear Totem Pole
Wearing a Mask

14. CENTRAL ESKIMO STUDY
Inuit perceive & name hundreds of colors & qualities of sea-water
Earliest anthropological attempt to employ phenomenology
Development of human consciousness and self-awareness

15. Analyst seeks to understand phenomena by grasping how they make sense within the framework of subject’s thought-world
Hamats'a coming out of secret room," and "Kwakiutl Indian ceremony for expelling cannibals."

16. 1885: First expedition to Northwest Coast (Bella Coola)
1886: First collecting trip for American Museum of Natural History (New York City) to Nootka and Kwakiutl — massive documentation of Northwest Coast culture

17. The Practice of Museum Exhibits
No storage rooms or cases
No natural lighting
Life groups most demanding
Time
Materials
Skill

18. The Practice of Museum Exhibits
Labels – “ultimate limitation to the possibility of a museum anthropology”
Boas believed artifact secondary to monographic interpretation of scientist

19. Boas at American Museum, 1900

20. Typological vs. Life Group
U.S. National Museum
Typological, 1890
U.S. National Museum
Life group, 1896

21. Museums: Entertainment, Instruction, Research
Boas curator at American Museum
Over 90% of visitors “do not want anything beyond entertainment”

22. Museums: Entertainment, Instruction, Research
Visitor groups:
Children
School teachers
Researchers
Researchers justify large museums “for the advancement of science”

23. Franz Boas and his students changed American anthropology forever
Cultural Relativism
Countered early evolutionist views of Louis Henry Morgan & Edward Tylor
Stages each culture went through during development
Franz Boas and his students changed American anthropology forever

24. Differences in peoples result of: Historical Social
Cultural relativism
Differences in peoples result of:
Historical
Social
Geographic conditions
All populations have complete and equally developed culture

25. Historical Particularism
Each culture has a unique history
Not assume universal laws govern how cultures operate

26. Assumptions of Historical Particularism:
Rejects general laws, rankings, concept of “progress”
No simple or complex societies -- only different societies
“Unilineal evolution” is ethnocentric

27. Assumptions of Historical Particularism:
6. Not Culture, but cultures
7. Culture, not race, determines behavior
8. Methodological rigor

28. BOASIAN CONCEPT OF CULTURE
Superorganic: Product of collective or group life
Individual has an influence
Unconscious: Filter through which reality is perceived
Not the object of attention
Adaptive: Culture helps individuals adapt to their environment

29. Images of Native Americans
//thesocietypages.org/socimages

30. Four Field Approach SOCIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND CULTURAL PHYSICAL
LINGUISTICS
ARCHAEOLOGY
PHYSICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY

31. Generation of anthropologists established Boasian doctrines in North American universities:
Alfred A. Kroeber
Ruth Benedict
Margaret Mead
Rhoda Métraux
Robert Lowie
Edward Sapir
Paul Radin
Alexander A. Goldenweiser
Clark Wissler

32. FRANZ BOAS Cultural Relativism Historical Particularism
“Race, language, and culture” as independent variables
Superorganic
Cultural Determinism
Data Collection “without” theory
Emphasis on Fieldwork
4-field approach

33. Contributions to Anthropology
1937--Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Columbia Un.
Made anthropology a distinguished and recognized science

34. Contributions to Anthropology
Authored many books: Examples
Growth of Children (1896 – 1904)
The Mind of Primitive Man, 1938
Primitive Art, 1927
Anthropology and Modern Life, 1938
Race, Language, and Culture, 1940
Dakota Grammar, 1941

35. Contributions to Anthropology
Boas was entertaining Professor Paul Rivet and other colleagues at a luncheon in the Faculty Club (Columbia Un).
He collapsed into the arms of Claude Levi-Strauss and died on December 21, 1942.