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American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker
- Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker, who appeared frequently in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.
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Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker, who appeared frequently in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s. [ 1 ] She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard College of Columbia University and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia.
- Overview
- Early life and education
- Work and impact
- Personal life
Margaret Mead was born on December 16, 1901.
When did Margaret Mead die?
Margaret Mead died on November 15, 1978.
Where did Margaret Mead attend school?
Margaret Mead entered DePauw University in 1919, transferred to Barnard College a year later, and graduated from there in 1923. She then entered the graduate school of Columbia University, where she received an M.A. in 1924 and a Ph.D. in 1929.
Why is Margaret Mead famous?
Margaret Mead was the first of five children born to Edward Sherwood Mead, a professor of economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Emily Fogg, a former schoolteacher and sociology graduate student. Mead and her siblings were largely homeschooled by their paternal grandmother, who lived with the family. The Meads moved frequently to accommodate the parents’ academic careers.
Mead entered DePauw University in 1919 and transferred to Barnard College a year later. She graduated from Barnard in 1923 and then entered graduate school at Columbia University. She studied with and was greatly influenced by Franz Boas, the father of American anthropology, and Ruth Benedict, Boaz’s student-turned-colleague. Mead received an M.A. in 1924 and a Ph.D. in 1929.
While still a graduate student, Mead began working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. During her time there she successively served as assistant curator (1926–42), associate curator (1942–64), curator of ethnology (1964–69), and curator emerita (1969–78). She taught at a number of colleges and universities, including Vassar College (1939–40, 1940–41), New York University (1940, 1965–67), Wellesley College (1944), and Columbia University (1947–51, 1952–53, 1954–78), among others. She also served as president of the Society for Applied Anthropology (1949), the American Anthropological Association (1960), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1975).
As an anthropologist, Mead is best known for her studies of the nonliterate peoples of Oceania, especially with regard to various aspects of psychology and culture, including the cultural conditioning of sexual behavior, natural character, and culture change. In her public work, she was most notable for her forays into such far-ranging topics as women’s rights, child rearing, sexual morality, nuclear proliferation, race relations, drug addiction, population control, environmental pollution, and world hunger.
Mead conducted her first of many field seasons in Oceania in 1925. While there she gathered material for the first of her 23 books, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), a perennial best seller and a characteristic example of her reliance on qualitative rather than quantitative methods. The book clearly indicates her belief in cultural determinism, the theory that human behavior is determined by culture rather than biology. This position led to some of the harshest critiques of her work, most notably those of New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman, who cast doubt on the accuracy of her observations and interpretations in a volume published several years after Mead’s death. Based on the findings of his own fieldwork, Freeman thought Mead had discounted the impact of biological variables and that she was too willing to believe informants whose accounts confirmed her preconceptions.
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Mead’s other works include Growing Up in New Guinea (1930); Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935); Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis (1942, with then husband Gregory Bateson); Continuities in Cultural Evolution (1964); A Rap on Race (1971, with James Baldwin); Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World (1949 ); Anthropology: A Human Science (1964); Culture and Commitment (1970); Ruth Benedict (1974), a biography of that anthropologist; and Blackberry Winter (1972), an autobiography of her own early years. Letters from the Field (1977) is a selection of Mead’s correspondence written during the Samoa expedition.
Mead’s romantic entanglements were largely with other influential anthropologists. She married three times in her life. Her first husband, Luther Cressman (married 1923–28) was an Episcopal priest–turned-archaeologist. Her second and third husbands, Reo Fortune (married 1928–35) and Gregory Bateson (married 1936–1950), respectively, were both anthr...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
May 5, 2010 · Cultural anthropologist and writer Margaret Meade (1901-1978) was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Barnard College in 1923. Appointed assistant curator of ethnology at the American...
Apr 2, 2014 · Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist and writer. Mead did her undergraduate work at Barnard College, where she met Franz Boas, who she went on to do her anthropology...
May 4, 2023 · Margaret Mead was a pioneering anthropologist whose work had a profound impact on the field and beyond. Her research in Samoa challenged traditional assumptions about gender roles and helped to shape our understanding of the complex relationship between culture and individual personality.
Margaret Mead was born in Philadelphia on December 16, 1901, and grew up in a household that included three generations. She was the first of five children born to Edward Sherwood Mead and Emily Fogg Mead, social scientists who had met while attending the University of Chicago.
Oct 17, 2017 · Margaret Mead, who originally studied English, then psychology, and changed her focus to anthropology after a course at Barnard in her senior year. She studied with both Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. Margaret Mead was a graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University's graduate school.
