Franz Uri Boas (1858–1942) was a German-born American anthropologist. A dominant figure in establishing modern anthropology in the U.S., he developed the linguistic and cultural components of ethnology.
Born in Minden, Westphalia, Prussia, Boas studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, and Kiel. His expeditions to the Arctic and British Columbia shifted his interest in the tribes and, consequently, to ethnology and anthropology.
Boas immigrated to the U.S. in 1886, where he made his career, ultimately as a professor of anthropology at Columbia, 1899–1942. A specialist in studies of Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest, he was also Curator of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History 1901–05.
Boas sought to bring together ethnology, physical anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics. He rejected the pure determinism and eugenic theories of the time. His pupils included A.L. Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Melville Herskovits, and Edward Sapir. Together they established new and less simple concepts of culture and race, which Boas outlined in his collection of papers, Race, Language, and Culture (1940.)
Boas’s other books include The Mind of Primitive Man (1911) and Anthropology and Modern Life (1928.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Franz Boas
If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative, energetic, and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be present.
—Franz Boas
The behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment.
—Franz Boas
Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways,
—Franz Boas
The passion for seeking the truth for truth’s sake…can be kept alive only if we continue to seek the truth for truth’s sake.
—Franz Boas
I believe the present state of our knowledge justifies us in saying that, while individuals differ, biological differences are small. There is no reason to believe that one race is by nature so much more intelligent, endowed with great will power, or emotionally more stable than another that the difference would materially influence its culture.
—Franz Boas
No one has ever proved that a human being, through his descent from a certain group of people, must of necessity have certain mental characteristics.
—Franz Boas
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