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Who was Franz Boas and why should we read him today?
Posted on: January 29, 2021
Franz Boas (1858-1942) is remembered today primarily as an ethnographer of Indigenous Americans and as the ‘Father of American Anthropology’. His enduring legacy, however, is that he turned anthropology to confront the question of race and, through his writing and activism, to combat racism itself. Fundamental to Boas was that anthropology should bring about social change and his arguments on race featured in the landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954 that rejected the “separate but equal” doctrine. An inspirational teacher and mentor, his students included celebrated anthropologists such as Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and the novelist Zora Neale Hurston.