Hailed as the “Father of American Anthropology”, Franz Boas was well ahead of his time in challenging prevailing racial theories and promoting an understanding of diverse human cultures. He influenced a generation of younger scholars who followed his way of thinking, greatly contributing to the study of culture, race, and language and laying the groundwork of modern anthropological theory and practice. Although his reputation as a scientist declined somewhat in the decades after his death, his reputation as a champion of human rights and an opponent of racism has remained intact.¹

Born in Minden in western Germany, ten years after the unsuccessful revolution that shook Europe in 1848, he grew up in an intellectually stimulating home environment with parents who were both artists. His early interest in the natural sciences led him to study at the Universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, and Kiel, and in 1881 he earned a PhD in psychophysics. Despite the rigid regime of chancellor Otto von Bismark, he matured valuing freethinking and knowledge in the tradition of Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Von Humboldt.¹ He greatly admired the politically active pathologist Rudolph Virchow, and he took a course with him in anthropometry before embarking on field trip in 1883 to Baffin Island, looking on him as a figure to emulate.¹ His doctoral thesis on the color perception of the Inuit (Eskimos) marked one of the earliest studies in cognitive anthropology and was followed later by fieldwork among indigenous communities in North America, including the Kwakiutl of Vancouver Island.

In 1884, Boas returned to Germany, where he accepted a position at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin as docent in geography but, finding the environment stultifying, emigrated in 1886 to America. He worked as editor of Science, as lecturer at the Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and as a staff member of the Field Museum in Chicago (1893). From 1896–1905 he was curator of the Natural History Museum in New York, which enabled him to gather and study a vast array of anthropological artifacts and data. He became a lecturer in anthropology at Columbia University in 1896 and a professor in 1899, and he spent the rest of his career at that university.

His bibliography for the years 1886–96 contains 170 items ranging from physical and cultural anthropology to linguistics, psychology, geography, and meteorology. Establishing a vibrant anthropological department, he nurtured a generation of influential scholars, such as Margaret Mead, who followed in his footsteps. He furthered research in scientific societies, founded research in American Indian languages, and published several classic articles and books. His holistic approach to anthropology integrated physical and cultural anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics, an approach that has become the cornerstone of modern anthropological research and education. He advocated for the holistic study of cultures, examining their language, art, music, and social institutions as interconnected aspects of a complex whole.

Boas argued that differences in cultures were due to acquired rather than inherited differences. He opposed scientific racism and challenged the prevailing notions of race, arguing that it was a social construct rather than a biological concept. He supported his theories with studies on cranial shape and size, demonstrating that these traits were highly malleable and influenced by factors such as health and nutrition. He used his anthropological knowledge to expose the harmful consequences of racial stereotypes and prejudices. He is particularly remembered for his theory of “cultural relativism”, meaning that all cultures are equal and should be judged on their own merits, and that in order to understand a people, one would have to live with them for a long time as well as learn their language. He also espoused the related theory of “cultural particularism” in which each culture should be understood and analyzed by its own unique characteristics rather than by fitting it into a universal framework or comparing it directly to other cultures. He promoted equal rights for all and equal possibilities for the poor and rich alike to learn and work. His pioneering work transformed the field of anthropology and had a lasting impact on our understanding of human cultures.

Further reading

Herbert S. Lewis. “The Passion of Franz Boas.” American Anthropologist June 2001 Vol. 103, No. 2, 447-67.