Margaret MeadDecember 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978

Background

-Margaret Mead was born on December 16 1901 in Philadelphia to a household of Social Scientists

-She entered DePauw University but after a year she transferred to Bernard College where she majored in psychology

-During her senior year she had a course with Franz Boas who she said was very influential and due to this experience she decided to become an anthropologist

-In 1923 she graduated from Bernard College and entered the anthropology department at Columbia University

Background Continued

-Margaret is a very famous anthropologist who has traveled to many places to learn and teach others about how society works in different areas and the behaviour 0f the humans species

-Mead has written many books and has done many lectures, she is known for her popular column in Redbook magazine.

-She has provided American woman with a role model encouraging them to not only be a mother but also to have professional careers

-She died November 15, 1978 (aged 76)

Coming of Age in Samoa-After finishing her studies in 1925 she set out to do fieldwork on the island of Ta’u in the Samoa Islands

-She went to study adolescent girls in Samoa and their everyday life

She noticed that the values were different, the girls of Samoa were surrounded by a single cultural society and surrounded by positive role models

- Samoa girls were not pressured to be a certain way like how girls in America are

-She lived in a Samoan household and did what they did, she tried to learn more about the culture by becoming one of the girls.

Coming of Age in Samoa Continued

-In her study she revealed that young ladies in Samoa did not suffer from the same qualities that American girls would be faced with

-She concluded that this kind of social environment made it easier for the transition into adulthood

Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies

-The book sex and temperament in three primitive societies mainly focuses on the feminist movement.

-Mead decided to head to Sepik in Papua New Guinea for two years to study the Tchambuli (now Chambri) The Aprapesh and the Mundugmor (now Biwat) where she studied the differences between genders

-She found out that in the Tchambuli, woman were dominant women were the ones who worked and males were less responsible and were more emotionally dependent

Continued

-The Arapesh people both males and females behaviour were different then that of an urban area she saw that both males and females were gentle, responsive and worked well together

-Among the Mudugumor people both males and females were not peaceful they were violent, aggressive and everyone wanted power

-The inspiration from her journey encouraged her to explore the subject more deeply in her next book male and female which was published in 1949

Growing Up in New Guinea

-Margaret Mead traveled to a small village in the small island of Manus in New Guinea.

Margret went to study how children thought.

-On her trip she asked young children for some artwork she managed to collect 35,000.

-There was a difference between drawings made from girls and boys females often tend to have drawn designs and colours

Growing Up in New Guinea Continued-Males focused on real scenes and objects such as ships humans and animals and avoided using colour

-She found out that the children did not focus on the make believe but on realistic things.

-Growing up on a village over water the children learn at a very young age basic survival skills such as how to swim how to paddle and maintain balance on a canoe.

- The adults put very little restrictions on the kids

-Margret felt like the easy going life the children lived did not prepare the kids for the harsh lifestyle that is adulthood.

Margret Mead Books

-Margret mead has written many books before she died

-Many focusing on human behaviour

And Keep Your Powder Dry (1942) · Male and Female (1949)

New Lives for Old (1956)

People and Places (1959)·

Other Work

-During world war 2 Margret worked for the national research council committee on food

-She was a curator of ethnology from 1946 to 1969 at the American museum of natural history.

-She was a professor at Columbia University from 1954 to 1978. In 1968 to 1970 she was a professor at Fordham University Lincoln center teaching anthropology and being apart of there division of social science and founding their anthropology department.

-She was president of the American Anthropological Association in 1960.

She mentored people such as Jean Houston and other young people inspiring to become anthropologists

Famous Quote

“Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world, Indeed it is the only thing that ever has”.

References

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretme100502.html#ixzz1oUuypXRP

http://www.essayforum.com/writing-feedback-3/essay-margaret-mead-979/

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/field-manus.html