Boas, Franz 1858-1942

BOAS, FRANZ 1858-1942

Anthropologist

The Science of Anthropology

Whereas Ruth Benedict offered new directions in anthropology, Franz Boas is probably the figure that made anthropology a scientific endeavor. Born in northern Germany in 1858, he studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, and Kiel, earning a doctorate in physics with a minor in geography. Following his first study expedition, to the Arctic, he visited the United States in 1884 and two years later emigrated from Germany because he perceived greater freedom in the United States to develop his own path of study. Following a brief stint as assistant editor for the journal Science, he taught and researched at Clark University, the University of Chicago, the American Museum of Natural History, and Columbia University, During his career he published about ten thousand pages on northwestern Native American societies. He also published general and specialized scientific books.

The Engaged Scientist

Boas's effort to teach anthropology at the turn of the century met with various difficulties. Such posts were few, and anthropology was rarely considered a science in its own right, alternately treated as part of psychology or natural history. His justification for studying foreign cultures—that closer political and economic relations with such nations as Japan required a better understanding of the culture to be successful—predated such a common-sense approach by half a century in some cases. He also led the mapping and study of North American and Asian aboriginal societies, using data gathered by the Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Such endeavors confirmed the need for on-site investigations, as opposed to the armchair comparative research that had been the preferred method for decades. However, Boas did not go so far as to consider analyzing common societal problems within different societies. This particular field of cultural anthropology, or ethnology, still lacked the tools necessary to understand truly and compare different societies in their cultural contexts and would require the contributions of some of Boas's students, including Benedict, before coming to fruition. Nonetheless, his concerns with human inequality established the bases necessary to further ethnological studies.

Fighting Racism through Science

Throughout his studies Boas was interested in the issues surrounding the classification of human types and the conclusions derived from it, which included claims of racial superiority and inferiority. He attacked the issue by elaborating on specific concepts, thus slowly chipping away at the greater issues. For example, he showed how variations among individuals within one race were greater than those among races; thus, to emphasize "racial" difference was to ignore the basic unity of human form. It followed that the difference between "primitive" and "civilized" ways of life could not be determined based on how and where a people lived and that there was a need to study definitions of "progress" more closely. Thanks perhaps to the open scientific mind he had cultivated and to the work he had done on race, he became an involved citizen, treating questions of nationalism and eugenics. When Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Boas tirelessly criticized him and his actions, warning of the dangers of fascist thought. He further combated racism through his work, including The Mind of Primitive Man, which, although first published in 1911, underwent a third edition in 1938 and involved issues of practical humanitarian consequences for future public policy.

Boas's Anthropology

Some of Boas's pioneering efforts remained in the vanguard of anthropology well after his death. In particular, his effort at applying anthropological methods to everyday problems signaled a marked difference between the traditional field, limited to museums and university training, and the wider sphere of public pedagogy. While some scholars have referred to a "Boas school" of anthropology to designate his approach to teaching and research, this phrase is likely a misnomer since many of the students he trained, including Benedict, became significant scholars in their own right. What Boas communicated was an openmindedness necessary to consider the different ways humans can behave, the tools to distinguish behavior from other traits, and a sense of responsibility for what one wrote or said based on the research conducted. His legacy included uncovering the complexities of African culture and dispelling many myths of inferiority that provided the basis for segregation in the United States, as well as advocating as early as 1906 equal levels of education. Such efforts demonstrated the duties of the scientist as an engaged citizen.

Sources:

Franz Boas, The Shaping of American Anthropology 1883–1911: A Franz Boas Reader, edited by George W. Stocking Jr. (New York: Basic Books, 1974);

June Helm, ed., Pioneers of American Anthropology: The Uses of Biography (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966).