ry (Williams, 1996, p. 11).
During his tenure at Columbia University in New York City (1899-1942), he developed one of the foremost departments of anthropology in the United States. His own work while he was there was as a specialist in North American Indian cultures and languages, but he was, in addition, the organizer of a profession and the great teacher of a number of scientists who developed
anthropology in the United States, including Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Melville Herskovits, and Edward Sapir.
Before looking more carefully at the content of his research on race, a very brief summary of his career may be useful. BoasÆs own training and education was had within the structures and philosophies of the German university system. He was educated at the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, and Kiel. In 1883-1884 he made a scientific exploration of the Baffin Island region of the Arctic. Two years later he immigrated to the United States and made the first of many trips to study the Kwakiutl and other tribes in British Columbia. From 1888 to 1892 he was instructor of anthropology at Clark University (before becoming the first professor of anthropology at Columbia University in 1899; he would teach there until 1937).
He was also curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, from 1901 to 1905. Boas organized and took part in the Jesup North Pacific expedition of 1902, which suggested the possibility of a strong relationship between northern Asian and northwestern Native American cultures. He was president of the American Anthropological Association in 1907 and 1908 and of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1910.
Boas's anthropological studies have become classics in the field. He pioneered in the use of a scientific approach to anthropology. He also demonstrated the necessity of studying a culture in all its aspects, including its religion, art, history, and language, as well as the p...