Boas, Franz (1858–1942)

German-born US anthropologist. He stressed the need to study ‘four fields’ – ethnology, linguistics, physical anthropology, and archaeology – before generalizations might be made about any one culture or comparisons about any number of cultures.

Boas began his career in geography but switched to ethnology when he joined a German scientific expedition to Baffin Island 1883. The following year he became assistant curator of the Royal Ethnological Museum, Berlin. In 1886 he travelled to the Pacific Northwest to study the culture of the Kwakiutl Indian people, including their language. Joining the faculty of Clark University 1888, Boas became one of America's first academic anthropologists. In 1896 he was appointed professor at Columbia University, where he trained the first generation of US anthropologists, including Alfred Kroeber and Margaret Mead. From 1901 to 1905 he was also curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. His books include The Mind of Primitive Man 1911, Primitive Art 1927, and Race, Language and Culture 1940.

Boas spent much of his later career battling against unscientific theories of racial inequality, especially Nazi racial theories.