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Franz Uri Boas was a German-American anthropologist and ethnomusicologist. He was a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical particularism and cultural relativism.
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science · German-born American anthropologist (1858–1942) · anthropologist · linguist · university teacher · geographer · philosopher · curator · art historian · ethnographer · ethnologist · physicist · also Franz Boas, Franz Uri Boas, Father of American Anthropology, Boas
Born 9 July 1858 · Died 21 December 1942 · Q76857
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“the activities of the individual are determined to a great extent by his social environment, but in turn, his own activities influence the society in which he lives and may bring about modifications in a form”
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“Contrary to some misleading statements on the subject, there have been no responsible opponents of evolution as”
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Moviefone: Franz Boas (1858-1942)
insider.si.edu: The Franz Boas papers / edited by Regna Darnell, Michele Hamilton, Robert L.A. Hancock, and Joshua Smith, Regna Darnell, general editor
Boas's student Alfred Kroeber summed up the three principles of empiricism that define Boasian anthropology as a science:
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Reminded anthropologists of the importance of this idiographic stance by quoting literary critic A
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Died 1942-12-21.
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“Como em todas as outras questões étnicas, devemos evitar tratar as tribos como unidades padronizadas. As variações individuais, tanto em termos de aparência física como de vida mental, são tão importantes na sociedade primitiva como na nossa sociedade.”
Appointed Helen Codere to edit and publish his manuscripts about the culture of the Kwakiutl people
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“Dois princípios, em nossa opinião, deveriam orientar todas as investigações das manifestações de vida entre povos primitivos: o primeiro consiste na uniformidade dos processos mentais em todas as raças e em todas as formas culturais da atualidade; o segundo, na consideração de qualquer fenômeno cultural como o resultado de acontecimentos históricos.”
To emphatically state that there is no genetic difference between Jew and non-Jew nor any superior race
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Although she did not officially graduate until 1950 when Columbia reduced the expenses required to graduate), E
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And who studied African American and Afro-Caribbean folklore, and Ella Cara Deloria, who worked closely with Boas on the linguistics of Native American languages
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Career landmark: president of the Linguistic Society of America (1928–1929).
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And was later promoted to the rank of professor, Elizabeth Kilgore Steen (1926 and first white woman to enter the remote Matto Grosso area in interior Brazil), Ruth Bunzel (1929), Alexander Lesser (1929), Lucy Kramer Coh
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“the systematic enumeration of standardized beliefs and customs of a tribe”
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In which he revisited his earlier research on Kwakiutl kinship
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"The Methods of Ethnology", Boas argued that instead of "the systematic enumeration of standardized beliefs and customs of a tribe", anthropology needs to document "the way in which the individual reacts to his whole soc
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When he discovered that four anthropologists, in the course of their research in other countries, were serving as spies for the American government, he wrote an angry letter to The Nation
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“Why German-Americans Blame America”
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Boas wrote a letter to The New York Times which was published under the headline, "Why German-Americans Blame America"
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As a means by which scientists could assist the United States government to prepare for entry into the war in Europe, competition between the two groups intensified
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Boas argued that at best such statistics could only raise biological questions, and not answer them
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Regularly wrote and published articles on folklore (often in the Journal of American Folklore)
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But proceeded to study anthropology with Boas before turning to research Native Americans; Esther Schiff, later Goldfrank, worked with Boas in the summers of 1920 to 1922 to conduct research among the Cochiti and Laguna
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And the development of the modern synthesis, Virchow felt that Darwin's theories were weak because they lacked a theory of cellular mutability
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But then studied ethnology with Boas), started the anthropology program at the New School for Social Research; Leslie Spier (1920) who started the anthropology program at the University of Washington together with his wi
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Organized the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, a five-year-long field-study of the nations of the Pacific Northwest, whose ancestors had migrated across the Bering Strait from Siberia
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However, he repudiated himself, and argued that the Kwakiutl were changing from a prior patrilineal organization to a matrilineal one, as they learned about matrilineal principles from their northern neighbors
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Who lived in the basement of the American Museum of Natural History
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Boas was appointed Assistant Curator of Ethnology and Somatology of the American Museum of Natural History under Putnam
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And promoted to professor of anthropology in 1899
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Chose Boas as his first assistant at Chicago to prepare for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition or Chicago World's Fair, the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas
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Boas, along with another member of the Clark faculty, resigned in protest of the alleged infringement on academic freedom by Hall
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Was appointed as the head of a newly created department of anthropology at the university
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Boas secured an appointment as docent in anthropology at Clark University in Massachusetts
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“the development of ethnology is largely due to the general recognition of the principle of biological evolution”
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In the 6th Annual Report from the Bureau of American Ethnology
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Declared that "the development of ethnology is largely due to the general recognition of the principle of biological evolution"
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By Daniel Garrison Brinton, at the time a professor of American linguistics and archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania
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Emigrated to the United States, where he first worked as a museum curator at the Smithsonian, and in 1899 became a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, where he remained for the rest of his career
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After his Baffin Island expedition, Boas wrote "The Principles of Ethnological Classification", in which he developed this argument in application to anthropology:
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“The Principles of Ethnological Classification”
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Boas defended (with Helmholtz's support) his habilitation thesis, Baffin Land, and was named Privatdozent in geography
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Went to work with physical anthropologist Rudolf Virchow and ethnologist Adolf Bastian at the Royal Ethnological Museum in Berlin
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Kantian philosopher Wilhelm Windelband coined the terms nomothetic and idiographic to describe these two divergent approaches
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Encouraged by Theobald Fischer, Boas went to Baffin Island to conduct geographic research on the impact of the physical environment on native Inuit migrations
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"After long years of infidelity, my brother was re-conquered by geography, the first love of his boyhood
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Studied at Kiel University, Doctor of Philosophy (1881).
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In physics while also studying geography
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Hoped to transfer to Berlin University to study physics under Hermann von Helmholtz, but ended up transferring to the University of Kiel instead due to family reasons
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Born 1858-07-09.
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In Minden, Westphalia, the son of Sophie Meyer and Meier Boas
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And his work in geography, history, and psychology provided the milieu in which Boas's intellectual orientation matured
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