Jules Henry (1904–69) was an American anthropologist and sociologist known for his pioneering work in cultural anthropology and education. His research blended psychoanalytic theory with ethnographic observation, offering deep insights into human behavior and societal structures.
Born in New York City, Henry studied at City College of New York before earning a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University (1935.) He trained under Franz Boas and Margaret Mead, two of the era’s most influential anthropologists. His early fieldwork included studying language, child-rearing, and social structures among Brazil’s Kaingang and Argentina’s Pilagá people. From 1947 until his death, he was a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, continuing research on cultural transmission and psychological development.
His notable publications include Jungle People (1941,) examining Kaingang culture, and Culture Against Man (1963,) a critical analysis of American education and social conditioning. He co-authored Doll Play with Pilagá Indian Children (1944,) exploring childhood development through play. Essays like American Schoolrooms: Learning the Nightmare (1963) and Public Education and Public Anxiety (1967) challenged conventional educational practices.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jules Henry
Human beings have the capacity to learn to want almost any conceivable material object. Given, then, the emergence of a modern industrial culture capable of producing almost anything, the time is ripe for opening the storehouse of infinite need!… It is the modern Pandora’s box, and its plagues are loose upon the world.
—Jules Henry
Topics: World, Learn, Time, Give
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