Franz Boas Out of the Ivory Tower
Abstract
Although the idea that Franz Boas was a public intellectual is widely embraced, there is nothing written that specifically addresses the way he initially got pushed, pulled, or better yet, dragged into the public debates on race, racism, nationalism, and war – the issues for which he used anthropology in public arenas. In this article, I seek to accomplish three tasks: first, to highlight how Franz Boas and his work got pulled into the public arena; second, to assess the impact of Boas’ work as a public intellectual; and finally, to discuss the ways Boas’ writing and research a century ago is being deployed, appropriated, and used in today’s public arenas.
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1 The article was released early on the association’s website in the wake of media attention generated by Sparks and Jantz.
2 The journalist for The New York Times who described Corey Sparks’ and Richard Jantz’s recent reanalysis of Boas’ work concluded his article by noting Alan H. Goodman’s view ‘that the authors were setting up a straw man by “purporting to show that Boas was a rampant environmentalist, when in fact he wasn’t” ’ (Wade, 2002: p. F3).
3 Two macrocosmic questions I am concerned with ask why Franz Boas and early anthropology both gain a reputation for being a public ‘friend of the Negro’ and why Boas’ research was often understood in strictly environmentalist terms? Neither is historically accurate. Both questions, however, turn on the consumption of Boas’ work within public arenas, making Boas one of the most public of scholars within anthropology. The microcosmic analysis that could frame this question could be approached from a number of different directions. For example, one could explore why Carter G. Woodson in an early Afrocentric treatise, The Mis-education of the Negro, advocated the study of ‘the African background from the point of view of anthropology and history’ (Woodson, 1933: 150). It is also worthwhile considering why famed civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall declined to put any Boasians on the stand to testify in the cases that led up to Brownv. Board of Education (1954), instead relying on Robert Redfield from the University of Chicago to instruct judges about the role of the environment and racial equality, not the particularity of cultures (Baker, 1998: 201). Woodson and Marshall were each engaged in very different political projects. Woodson (the historian who promoted Negro history week in 1926) was on a mission to educate African Americans about their rich cultural heritage and illustrious history. Marshall (known as Mr Civil Rights) was on a crusade to tear down the walls of segregation and tout the virtues of assimilation. Each leader used anthropology’s reputation outside of the academy to articulate their respective agendas.
4 For an interesting discussion of Boas’ rhetoric as public scholarship, see Droge, 2001. Anthropology, of course, has its share of public intellectuals who are doing the work to ensure the discipline’s survival. For example, Micaela di Leonardo writes for the Village Voice and The Nation to reveal how gender, class, and race paralyse democracy; Leo Chavez produces documentaries that reveal the inhumanity experienced by undocumented immigrants, Brett Williams gets federal funds to share the joys and pains, the pride and prejudice experienced by the residents in our nation’s capital; Leith Mullings works tirelessly in the diverse communities of Harlem to insure the health of women and babies; and Michael Blakey halted the construction of a skyscraper near Wall Street to excavate a burial ground of enslaved Africans – the list goes on (Baker, 2000: 22).
5 See John Higham’s 1957 classic, ‘Anti-Semitism in the Gilded Age: Reinterpretation’, especially pages 564–78, for an interesting discussion of the various and ambivalent forms anti-Semitism took on during the Gilded Age.
6 (FB to Parents 4/19/1891, Quoted in Cole, 1999: 143) Although Boas’ Professional Correspondence is somewhat incomplete during this period of his life, there is no evidence that the so-called caliper question had any impact on his research, writing, and his day-to-day activities. There is no mention in his professional correspondence during this affair of anything related to his public school research or the issues raised by the paper. Quite to the contrary, during the weeks of this local scandal he corresponded with many people and neither he nor the people who wrote to him mentioned the attention he received in the press.
7 See Baker (2000) and Williams (1996) for longer discussions about the impact of this article.
8 Charles Ellwood notes the high sales volume as well as comments on the publisher’s marketing practices (Ellwood, 1906: 570).
9 Mss. Coll. 30. William S. Willis Papers, American Philosophical Society, Folder: ‘Research Notes’ Franz Boas – Boas Goes to Atlanta.
10 Professional Correspondence of Franz Boas, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA.
11 It is important to note that this is a theoretical, tempered, and relatively staid criticism of Boas’ theories and approaches. University professors advanced these critiques (I include Sparks and Jantz here too) within academic or scientific venues, and I do not want to confuse it with the vitriolic attacks on Boas launched by self-proclaimed conservatives within the media, which I discuss in the concluding sections. In many ways these scholars are diametrically opposed to those conservative pundits.
12 For an overview of these debates see Bender, 1993; Gieryn, 1999; Haas, 2000; Rosen, 1996; Smyth and Hattam, 2000.
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