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The First Boasian: Alfred Kroeber and Franz Boas, 1896‐1905
Author(s) -
Jacknis Ira
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.2002.104.2.520
Subject(s) - ethnography , folklore , anthropology , history of anthropology , sociology , history
This article reviews the interplay of the personal, institutional, and intellectual factors in the relationship between Franz Boas and Alfred Kroeber, his first important student. It focuses on their first decade, 1896‐1905, a critical transitional period in the formation of American anthropology. After a consideration of their personal and familial contexts, it reviews Boas's role as a graduate professor to Kroeber, the beginning of an academic anthropology program at the University of California, Boas and Kroeber's collaborative and competitive relationship as museum curators, their diverging ethnographic strategies, Boas's editing of Kroeber's professional writings, and their disagreements over the organization of national professional societies (primarily the American Anthropological Association and the American Folklore Society). This article is a case study of the construction of anthropological traditions. [Keywords: Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber, history of anthropology]