Margaret Mead

Introduction

Margaret Mead was a famous American anthropologist, and her fame was a result of her thriving personality, outspokenness, and the quality of her scientific work. She is very well known for her work on non-literate people, especially in different regards of psychology and culture-the influence of their surroundings on their sexual behaviour, social standings, and natural character. She was also recognized for her work on the rights of women, sexual ethnicity, pollution, child-rearing, drug abuse, interracial relations, and world hunger.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, CIRCA 1998: a postage stamp printed in USA showing an image of anthropologist Margaret Mead, circa 1998.

Birth, Early Family Life, and Education

Margaret Mead was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA on 16th December 1901, and raised in the town of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, USA. She was the eldest child among her family of five children. Her father, Edward Sherwood Mead, was a professor of finance at Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), and her mother, Emily Mead, was a sociologist by profession.

Mead was first admitted to DePauw university to earn her bachelor’s degree, but she was transferred to Barnard College (Columbia University) after one year and therefore graduated there in the year of 1923. After that, she completed her master's degree in 1924 and received her doctorate in 1929 at Columbia University. She has done her fieldwork in Samoa.

Personal Life

Mead has gone through some ups and downs in her personal life. She had her first affair with Edward Sapir, but it did not end well due to their conservative views of Sapir on women. Mead married three times in her life, in which her first marriage was with Luther Cressman after a six-year engagement, who was a student of American theology and pursued anthropology by profession in later years. After Mead had divorced Cressman, she married Reo Fortune in the year of 1928, who was a psychologist by profession. After that Mead had her third marriage with British Anthropologist Gregory Bateson, which lasted the longest from 1936 to 1950, and she had one daughter Mary Catherine Bateson from this marriage, and she also pursued anthropology as her career.

Career and Later Life

Mead was appointed to the post of executive secretary of the committee at the National Research Council (now known as the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine) on Food Habits. She has also served as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1948), the UN’s National Academy of Sciences (1975), and the American Philosophical Society (1977). Mead worked with The New School, Columbia University (as an adjunct Professor during 1954-1978), and Fordham University (as a professor of anthropology and chair of the division of social sciences during 1968-1970). She joined as a distinguished professor at the University of Rhode Island in the year 1970 of Sociology and Anthropology.

Mead also supported as a mentor for many younger sociologists and anthropologists, which includes Susan C. Scrimshaw (an anthropologist, recipient of the Margaret Mead Award), Gail Sheehy and Jean Housten (authors), John Langston Gwaltney and Roger Sandall (Anthropologists and Writers). She was a key participant in the first forum on human settlements (UN-Habitat I) by the United Nations in 1976.

Work

She started her fieldwork in Samoa in the year of 1925, just after completing her master’s in 1924. In her work in Samoa, she did a milestone job and suggested that the community does not give importance to children up to fifteen or sixteen years old despite their gender, and therefore they do not have any social standing. In this community, marriage was merely considered an arrangement of social and economic standards. Her first expedition to New Guinea was presented by the National Educational Television in 1970 on its 40th anniversary.

Mead applied certain theories and techniques of modern psychology to understand the culture. Margaret Mead gave her famous theory of imprinting, where she stated that children's learning is influenced by the behaviour of adults around them. In her other theory, she investigated the role of motherhood playing the key factor in the reinforcement of male and female roles in all societies. She was a feminist, and her work clearly distinguished between the sex and gender in each community she had worked with.

Apart from her research work, she has also worked with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where she served as assistant curator (1926-1942), associate curator (1942-1964), curator of ethnology (1964-1969), curator emeritus (1969-1978). She was chosen as the president of the American association for the advancement of Science.

Mead’s important works are growing up in New Guinea (1930), Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis (1942), A study of the Sexes in a changing world (1949), Anthropology: A Human Science (1964), Continuities in Cultural Evolution (1964), Culture and Commitment (1970) and A Rap on Race (1971).

Death and Remains

Mead died on 15^th November 1978 at the age of 76 years in New York, USA due to pancreatic cancer, and her remains were buried at the Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery, Buckingham, Pennsylvania.

Legacy

Mead was included in the National Women’s Hall of fame in the year of 1976. She was awarded the US highest civilian award (Presidential Medal of Freedom) posthumously, which was announced by US President Jimmy Carter, and later received by her daughter and presented by the UN Ambassador Andrew Young. In honour of Mead, the US Postal Services issued a stamp of the face value 32 ${₡}$ on May 1998. She was awarded by the American Anthropological Association and Society for Applied Anthropology jointly. In the United States, there are various schools, which are named in honour of Margaret Mead.

Conclusion

Margaret Mead was a very well-known cultural anthropologist and very well known for her work on non-literate people, especially in different regards of psychology and culture-the influence of their surroundings on their sexual behaviour, social standings, and natural character. She was also recognized for her work on the rights of women, sexual ethnicity, pollution, child-rearing, drug abuse, interracial relations, and world hunger.

FAQs

Q1. What is the contribution of Margaret Mead to anthropology?

Ans. Mead’s important contributions to anthropology include her theories and experiments, which were very much practical in the context of understanding society for its cultural and general overview, that is how children evolve, think and socialise and the fundamentals of interracial relations.

Q2. What are the significant key points of Mead's theory?

Ans. Mead developed his theory of socialism after her research in different societies, which was compiled by Herbert Blumer and the three basic principles include, Meaning, Language, and Thought. These three principles lead to conclusions about the creation of a person's self and socialisation into a larger community.

Q3. What were the significant outcomes of Mead’s theory?

Ans. The significant outcomes of Mead’s theory highlight the difference between the social, and living patterns between males and females. Her research always focused on the important aspects of key factors which influence the development of males and females, as well as adults and children of particular community.