And Along Came Boas: Continuity and Revolution in Americanist Anthropology

351 Pages·1998·17.53 MB·English

by  Regna Darnell

AND ALONG CAME BOAS
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E. F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series III - STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGE SCIENCES
Advisory Editorial Board
Sylvain Auroux (Paris); Ranko Bugarski (Belgrade)
Lia Formigari (Rome); John E. Joseph (Edinburgh)
Hans-Josef Niederehe (Trier); Emilio Ridruejo (Valladolid)
Rosane Rocher (Philadelphia); Vivian Salmon (London)
Kees Versteegh (Nijmegen)
Volume 86
Regna Darnell
And along came Boas
Continuity and revolution in Americanist anthropology
AND ALONG
CAME BOAS
CONTINUITY AND REVOLUTION
IN AMERICANIST ANTHROPOLOGY
REGNA DARNELL
University of Western Ontario
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-I984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Darnell, Regna.
And along came Boas : continuity and revolution in Americanist anthropology / Regna Darnell.
p. cm. - (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series III, Studies
in the history of the language sciences, ISSN 0304-0720; v. 86)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
I. Anthropology-United States--History--2oth century. 2. Boas, Franz, I858-I942. 3. Smithsonian
Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology.--History. I. Title. II. Series.
GNI7.3.U6D37 I998 98-28940
30I'o973--dc2I CIP
ISBN 90 272 4574 6 (Eur.) / I 556I9 623 7 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
ISBN 90 272 4584 3 (Eur.) / I 556I9 899 X (US) (Pb; alk. paper)
© 2000 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other
means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O.Box 75577 · I070 AN Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O.Box 275I9 · Philadelphia PA I9II8-05I9 · USA
Franz Boas (1858-1942) in 1901
American Philosophical Society. Reprinted with permission

Contents
Frontispiece v
Preface xi
Introduction: Continuities Across Scientific Revolutions 1
I. The Bureau of American Ethnology 9
1 The Development of Professional Anthropology
in America 11
2 Government-Sponsored Science 19
2.1 Joseph Henry and the Smithsonian Institution 19
2.2 Spencer Baird and the Collection of Specimens 22
2.3 The Geological Surveys 24
2.4 The Curtailment of Government Science 25
2.5 From Geology to Ethnology 27
3 Constraints of Government Anthropology 31
3.1 Bureau Archaeology 32
3.2 Finances of the Bureau 34
3.3 Applied Anthropology 36
3.4 The Limitation to the American Indian 40
4 The Mapping of North America 45
4.1 The Myth Concordance 47
4.2 Linguistic Manuscripts 47
4.3 Bibliographies 48
4.4 'Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages' 50
4.5 The Definition of Linguistic Families 51
4.6 Brinton's Linguistic Classification 57
4.7 The Authorship of the Powell Classification 60
viii Contents
5 Organizing Anthropological Research in America 69
5.1 Problems in Professional Standards 70
5.2 Bureau Fieldwork 73
5.3 Collaboration 79
5.4 The Missisonary Question 85
5.5 Powell's Evolutionary Synthesis 87
5.6 The End of an Era in the Bureau 93
Π. The Development of Institutional Alternatives 97
6 Early Attempts at University Anthropology 99
6.1 Graduate Education in America 100
6.2 False Starts in Academic Anthropology 104
6.3 The University of Pennsylvania 105
6.4 Clark University 107
6.5 The University of Chicago 110
6.6 The Temporary Insufficiency of Academic Anthropology 114
7 The Tradition of Museum Research 117
7.1 The Peabody Museum 118
7.2 The Bureau and the National Museum 123
7.3 Changing Times in the Bureau 125
8 Uneasy Institutional Cooperation 133
8.1 The Field Columbian Museum 133
8.2 The American Museum of Natural History 139
8.3 The University of California, Berkeley 148
9 Boasian University Programs 157
9.1 Boas's Teaching at Columbia 157
9.2 The University of Pennsylvania 161
9.3 Boasian Anthropology at Chicago 166
9.4 The Geological Survey of Canada 167
9.5 The Autonomy of Academic Anthropology 168