Mead, Margaret (1901-1978)

US anthropologist who popularized cultural relativity and challenged the conventions of Western society with Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) and subsequent works. Her fieldwork was later criticized. She was a popular speaker on civil liberties, ecological sanity, feminism, and population control.

She wrote columns for magazines and scholarly papers for journals, appeared on television talk shows, was curator of Pacific Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History from 1926, and was adjunct professor of anthropology at Columbia University from 1954.

Mead studied at Barnard College 1923 and Columbia University 1929 under Franz Boas. Coming of Age in Samoa was a study of differences in temperament between males and females in Samoan and Western societies caused by child-rearing practices. She expanded on this same subject in Growing Up in New Guinea 1930 and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies 1935. She also wrote And Keep Your Powder Dry 1942, about the US national character, and Soviet Attitudes Toward Authority 1951. Her autobiographical works include Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years 1972 and Letters from the Field, 1925-1975 1977.