“a reversal of the usual pattern, according to which the girl is only a female version of the true human being, the boy.”
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Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker, who appeared frequently in the mass media during the mid-twentieth century.
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entertainment · American cultural anthropologist (1901–1978) · anthropologist · writer · film director · curator · poet · ethnologist · also Margaret Mead, Margaret Mead Fortune, Margaret Mead Bateson, Margaret Bateson, Margaret Fortune, Mead
Born 16 December 1901 · Died 15 November 1978 · Q180099
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Trance and Dance in Bali
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2026· 3 entries
“Shorn of all the things in which I can”
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“What is new is not bisexuality, but rather the widening of our awareness and acceptance of human capacities for sexual love.”
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2025· 2 entries
insider.si.edu: An anthropologist at work writings of Ruth Benedict by Margaret Mead
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Yahoo: Margaret Mead Film Festival Offers New Yorkers a Chance to See Acclaimed Docs Without Distribution
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2024· 1 entry
NPR: How Margaret Mead's research into utopias helped usher in the psychedelic era
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2023· 2 entries
Snopes.com rated the claim “Anthropologist Margaret Mead said the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture is a femur that had been broken and then healed. She theorized that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die because you are unable to run from danger, hunt, and survive. But a healed thigh bone is…” Unproven (retired).
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Yahoo: Fact Check: Did Anthropologist Margaret Mead Say the 'First Sign of Civilization' Is a Healed Femur?
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2022· 1 entry
insider.si.edu: Cooperation and competition among primitive peoples, edited by Margaret Mead ..
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2006· 2 entries
With the permission of Mead's daughter clearly express a romantic relationship
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Letters between the two published in 2006 with the permission of Mead's daughter clearly express a romantic relationship.
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2003· 1 entry
IndieWire: Margaret Mead Doc Fest To Present 27 Films In New York
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1998· 1 entry
Including Mead as part of 1920s in the Celebrate the Century stamp sheet series
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1991· 1 entry
“Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics”
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1979· 2 entries
Won Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by Jimmy Carter (1979).
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The Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Mead's name and picture
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1978· 4 entries
Died 1978-11-15.
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And is buried at Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery, Buckingham, Pennsylvania
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Awarded honorary doctor of the University of Miami (1978).
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“Human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions.”
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1976· 4 entries
Awarded National Women's Hall of Fame (1976).
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Was a key participant at UN Habitat I, the first UN forum on human settlements
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In celebration of Mead's 75th birthday
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Mead was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame
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1975· 1 entry
And chair of the executive committee of the board of directors in 1976
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1974· 2 entries
Speaking at a public conference in 1974, Mead suggested that youthful homosexuality, followed by heterosexuality in middle adulthood, and then by late life homosexuality would be ideal for society.
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Mead suggested that youthful homosexuality, followed by heterosexuality in middle adulthood, and then by late life homosexuality would be ideal for society
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1972· 1 entry
Mead was one of the two rapporteurs from NGOs to the UN Conference on the Human Environment
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1971· 1 entry
Was included in a compilation of talks by prominent women, But the Women Rose, Vol
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1970· 4 entries
Awarded Kalinga Prize (1970).
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Mead stood by the utility of these studies, "In 1953, I could explain somatotype photography within the range of a medical understanding, and the study of change in general as 'United Nations business' where records of h
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National Educational Television produced a documentary in commemoration of the 40th anniversary Mead's first expedition to New Guinea
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Joined the faculty of the University of Rhode Island as a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Anthropology
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1969· 1 entry
Awarded William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement (1969).
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1965· 1 entry
Began fieldwork in Samoa, motivated in part by skepticism of Mead's research
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1964· 1 entry
Awarded Elizabeth Blackwell Award (1964).
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1962· 1 entry
Which Peter Worsley describes as much more perceptive than Mead's
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1959· 1 entry
An Interview With Margaret Mead, explored the topics of morals and anthropology
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1954· 2 entries
Awarded Kurt Lewin Award (1954).
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And of Schwartz, and Barbara Heath in 1968
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1953· 1 entry
For unity among villages and ethnic groups, working for village development rather than for Europeans, and eventual independence for Papua New Guinea
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1950· 1 entry
And of the American Anthropological Association in 1960
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1948· 3 entries
Mead was quoted in News Chronicle as supporting the deployment of Iban mercenaries to the Malayan Emergency, arguing that using Ibans (Dyaks) who enjoyed headhunting was no worse than deploying white troops who had been
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The United States National Academy of Sciences in 1975, and the American Philosophical Society in 1977
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The Columbia University project Research in Contemporary Culture
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1942· 1 entry
Won Gold Medal of the Society of Woman Geographers (1942).
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1941· 1 entry
Published an essay in Applied Anthropology, which offered strategies to help produce propaganda with the intent of raising national morale
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1940· 1 entry
Mead joined the non-governmental Committee for National Morale
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1936· 1 entry
Mead's third and longest-lasting marriage (1936–1950) was to the British anthropologist Gregory Bateson with whom she had a daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, who would also become an anthropologist.
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1934· 1 entry
“Kinship in the Admiralty Islands”
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1932· 1 entry
“An Investigation into the Thought of Primitive Children with Special Reference to Animism”
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1929· 1 entry
Studied at Columbia University, Doctor of Philosophy (1929).
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1928· 3 entries
In correspondence, Mead described her self as a "mixed type" with attractions to both men and women, and in a 1928 letter to Benedict described seeking a "perfect balance" between her "two loves" to Benedict and her husband Fortune.
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They were married in New Zealand in 1928, after Mead's divorce from Cressman.
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After Mead's divorce from Cressman
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1926· 6 entries
As quoted by Sapir, Mead stated, "It would be an insult to both me and my husband to expect marital fidelity on the part of either of us." In 1926, Mead described her "belief that one can love several people and that demonstrative affection has its place in different types of relationship." Her marriage to Bateson was likewise an open one.
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Mead described her "belief that one can love several people and that demonstrative affection has its place in different types of relationship
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There was much debate about race and intelligence
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On her 1926 return voyage from fieldwork in Samoa, Mead met Reo Fortune, a New Zealander headed to Cambridge, England, to study psychology.
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Joined the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, as assistant curator
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“It would be an insult to both me and my husband to expect marital fidelity on the part of either of us.”
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1925· 1 entry
Mead had a short affair with the linguist Edward Sapir
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1923· 1 entry
Began studying with professors Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict at Columbia University, and earned her master's degree in 1924
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1901· 1 entry
Born 1901-12-16.
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