Bio: (1901–1978) American anthropologist. Margaret Mead received both her Master’s degree in psychology and Ph.D. in anthropology in 1925, from Columbia University, where she worked with Dr. Franz Boas and Dr. Ruth Benedict. Her library research dissertation, An Inquiry into the Question of Cultural Stability in Polynesia, was published in 1928. Her first position was as an assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Soon after that, she went off to American Samoa, where she stayed for 9 months, to do her first field study.  The result of that study was the book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). In 1928 she married Reo Fortune, a famous New Zealand anthropologist, and after that they did their first joint field trip, to study the Manus people of the Admiralty Islands in the Pacific. The result of this trip was the book, Growing Up in New Guinea (1930), which focuses on the processes of socialization and education of Manus children. They did two additional field trips together, one in the American West, and other in the New Guinea, which resulted in the books,  The Changing Culture of an Indian Tribe (1932), which focused on the assimilation of the Omaha Indians, and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935).

After divorcing Fortune Mead married another famous anthropologist – British author Gregory Bateson. They went on their first field trip to Bali, which resulted in their co-authored book, Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis (1942). During World War II Mead served as Executive Secretary of the National Research Council’s Committee on Food Habits which researched the relationship between culture and nutrition in the US, to help people get better nutrition, for example, by helping them to use wheat flour instead of rice.  During the war, Mead also researched British and American culture, to better explain American culture to British civilians and help American soldiers to better understand British culture. After the war, Mead studied American society, the Soviet Union, and the problems of newly independent nations. Her book, And Keep Your Powder Dry (1942), was the first research that used anthropological methods to study the US and its culture.

Mead and Ruth Benedict started working on a project studying non-native cultures of the world titled Research in Contemporary  Cultures, also known as National Character studies. Mead took over as director of the project when Benedict died in 1948, and concluded the project in 1952. Using the information gathered from the eight cultures where she had done fieldwork, Mead published Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World In 1949. Mead and Gregory Bateson conducted 2 years long fieldwork in Bali, where they collected more than 25,000 photographs, with a focus on Balinese ritual trances, that were fundamental to the Balinese culture. In the 1950s Mead revisited the Manus after 25 years and the result was New Lives for Old: Cultural Transformation—Manus, 1928–1953.

Mead lectured anthropology at several universities - Columbia University (1954–1978), Fordham University (1968), Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine (1957–1958), and the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas (1959).  She retired as a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in 1969. Mead was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 1975 and was the president of several associations: the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Society for Applied Anthropology, the World Federation of Mental Health, and the American Anthropological Association. She received UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize. Mead's books, awards, leadership of scientific organizations, journal columns for Redbook  Magazine, many appearances on television  talk shows and radio, and lectures throughout  the world, all contributed to her becoming a celebrity; so much so that Time Magazine’s obituary of Mead was titled “Grandmother to the Global Village.”   

                         Theory, Activism, and Methodology

Influenced by the culture and personality approach of her mentor Ruth Benedict, and by neo-Freudian theory, Mead wanted to apply psychoanalytic concepts, especially those related to child development, to build an interdisciplinary approach that could be applied to study socialization in primitive societies. Today’s subfield of psychological anthropology is highly influenced by this approach. Mead stated that individuals mature and are socialized in their cultural context. The ideological system has special importance as the expectations it produces condition the responses to different situations. In her studies, she discovered the relativity of sexual mores, childrearing practices, and types of families, between different cultures. These differences influenced the cultural construction of gender and forms of masculinity and femininity present in some cultures. After World War II she wanted to apply her theory, which was developed to study primitive society, to improve the US and other Western societies, and with that cause in mind, she founded the Society for Applied Anthropology. 

Mead championed numerous social causes, including advocating trial marriage, the decriminalization of marijuana, better educational standards, greater autonomy for students, and women’s rights. Feminism was a constant theme in her writings and criticized the passive cultural role of women in the US, and fought for women’s liberation.  Books Culture and Commitment  (1969) and A Way of Seeing  (1970), address problems of overpopulation and famine, pollution, racism, and war.

Mead pioneered the use of audio-visual techniques in the field, as a method for gathering data. She developed field techniques and training for use in the field. Mead, also, used psychological tests to study native populations.

                                    Coming of Age in Samoa

Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) is one of Mead's most famous and influential books. Based on her field study on the island of American Samoa this book highlighted topics of adolescence, gender, child development, sexuality, and especially the sexual behavior of adolescent girls. Her research looked at the influence of cultural conditions on adolescent life and the psychosexual development of Samoan girls. Her research was conducted in a small village. Both sexes were involved in child rearing, both boys and girls were taught different skills, while physical punishment was given for bad behavior. Girls were encouraged to learn practical skills like weaving, in order to find good husbands. Boys were encouraged to learn fishing and to display both bravery and aggressive behavior, as well as being humble. Men and women formed separate social groups, first were formed to do work outside the home, while the latter formed groups to do child rearing and domestic work. Mead found out that Samoan girls were tacitly allowed to explore their sexuality in secrecy through sexual encounters. This research showed the existence of the different systems of morality that allowed premarital sex, and where adolescence wasn’t necessarily a stressful time of the life cycle. Adolescent girls in Samoa didn’t experience psychological tensions and had an easy transition to adulthood.

              Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies

Mead's book Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies  (1935) studied people and their culture in three societies in New Guinea - the Arapesh, Mundugumor, and Tchambuli. Mead resided with each tribe for six months to immerse herself in the cultural practices of each society. In Arapesh society all members (of both sex) had feminine traits – sensitivity, nurture, and harmony; while masculine traits like aggression and violence were discouraged for all members. Arapesch mothers and their children had a prolonged relationship and men helped with childrearing duties. Mundugumor society had more masculine traits and all members were encouraged to display them, while pregnancies were associated with strong taboos. Tchambuli society exhibits duality of gender roles, but they were reversed to traditional gender roles in the US – men were nominally in charge of each collective, but were passive, gentle, and submissive, while women were truly in charge, breadwinners, aggressive and violent.  

This research uncovered the constructed nature of gender and gender systems. Gender, gender roles, and gender systems are not a product of innate biological nature, but a product of culture and its practices.  

                                           Other works

Mead also studied education in primitive cultures in the book Growing Up in New Guinea (1930), and she found that the difference between the “civilized mind” and the “primitive mind” wasn’t that great and that human nature was malleable. She published Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap in 1970, and a year later published A Rap on Race, which contained her conversation with African–American writer James Baldwin. In the book Male and Female: A  Study of the Sexes in a Changing World (1949), Mead compared gender as it is constructed in the Pacific societies versus in the US, and argued that prudishness and hypocrisy in America prevent individuals from fully developing adult sexuality and its potential.

Main works

An Inquiry into the Question of Cultural  Stability in Polynesia (1928);

Coming of Age in Samoa (1928);

Growing Up in New Guinea (1930);

Social Organization of Manu’a (1930);

The Changing Culture of an Indian Tribe (1932);

Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935);

And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America (1942);

American Troops in a British  Community (1945);

Male and Female: A  Study of the Sexes in a Changing World (1949);

Soviet Attitudes Toward Authority (1951);

The Study of Culture at a Distance (1953);

Cultural Patterns and Technical Change (1953);

Primitive Heritage: An Anthropological Anthology (1953);

Themes in French Culture (1954);

New Lives for Old: Cultural Transformation in Manus, 1928–1953 (1956);

People and Places (1959);

An Anthropologist at Work (1959);

Continuities in Cultural Evolution (1964);

Anthropologists and What They Do (1965);

The Wagon and the Star: A Study of American Community Initiative (1966);

Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap (1969);

A Way of Seeing (1970);

The Mountain Arapesh: Stream of events in Alitoa (1971);

A Rap on Race (1971);

Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years (1972).