Boasians

William Y. Adams was a student of Robert H. Lowie at the University of California, and is thus a second-generation Boasian. As a professor of anthropology he taught 33 different courses, and has published 22 books. He has done ethnological fieldwork in the U.S. Southwest, where he grew up, and archaeological fieldwork in both the Southwest and the Nile Valley.

William Adams has...produced a valuable work by marshalling so much information about the men and women who created the distinctive discipline that is (or was) American anthropology.

• PHOTO CREDITSPART ONE: BACKGROUNDIntroductionAntecedents and circumstancesThe founding grandfather: Franz Boas, 1858–1942PART TWO: THE FOUNDING FATHERSClark Wissler, 1870–1947A. L. Kroeber, 1876–1960Robert H. Lowie, 1883–1957Edward Sapir, 1884–1939Paul Radin, 1883–1959Melville J. Herskovits, 1895–1963The journeymenFrank G. Speck, 1881–1950Alexander Goldenweiser, 1880–1940Fay-Cooper Cole, 1881–1961Leslie Spier, 1893–1961Melville Jacobs, 1902–1971Alexander Lesser, 1902–1982PART THREE: THE FOUNDING MOTHERSElsie Clews Parsons, 1874–1941Ruth Benedict, 1887–1948Margaret Mead, 1901–1978The handmaidensGladys Reichard, 1893–1955Erna Gunther, 1896–1982Esther Goldfrank, 1896–1997Ruth Bunzel, 1898–1990Gene Weltfish, 1902–1980Ruth Underhill, 1883–1984Marian W. Smith, 1907–1961Zora Neale Hurston, 1901(?)–1960PART FOUR: RETROSPECTIVEAchievements and failuresThe legaciesBIBLIOGRAPHY