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“Monkeys, babies, idiots” and “primitives”: Nature–nurture debates and philanthropic foundation support for American anthropology in the 1920s and 1930s
Author(s) -
Biehn Kersten Jacobson
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/jhbs.20379
Subject(s) - nature versus nurture , foundation (evidence) , craft , hegemony , sociology , negotiation , environmental ethics , intervention (counseling) , social science , anthropology , political science , politics , law , psychology , philosophy , history , archaeology , psychiatry
Abstract There has been a long discussion among historians about the impact that foundation policies had on the development of the social sciences during the interwar era. This discussion has centered on the degree to which foundation officers, particularly from the Rockefeller boards, exercised a hegemonic influence on research. In this essay, I argue that the field of American cultural anthropology has been neglected and must be reconsidered as a window into foundation intervention in nature–nurture debates. Despite foundation efforts to craft an anthropology policy that privileged hereditarian explanations, I contend that cultural anthropologists were committed to proving the primacy of “nurture,” even when that commitment cost them valuable research dollars. It was this commitment that provided an essential bulwark for the discipline. Ironically, it was the need to negotiate with foundations about the purpose of their research that helped cultural anthropologists to articulate their unique, and thus intrinsically valuable, approach to nature–nurture debates. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.