www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~alroy/lefa/Boas.

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Franz Boas and Exhibits

“In ethnography, all is individuality”
The Limitations of the Museum
Method in Anthropology and the
End of the “Museum Era”
 Boas 1895, U.S. National Museum

Franz Boas (1848-1942) father of American Anthropology

Active during Anthropology’s “Museum Age” 1880-1920
Established the concept of cultures as diverse historical
developments. Holistic and historic philosophies tied to
training in geography and the German romantic tradition
 Deduction vs. Induction
Classification is not explanation
1887 debate
Deduction Induction
From the general to the specific From the specific to the general
Like causes produce like effects Unlike causes produce like
effects
Otis T. Mason Franz Boas
U.S. National Museum American
Museum
Typological Tribal
Evolutionary Contextual
Classification Life group
Form Meaning
Universalism Individuality
 Typological vs. Life Group

U.S. National Museum, U.S. National Museum

Typological, 1890 Life group, 1896
 Entertainment, Instruction,
Research
• Boas curator at the American Museum 1896-
1905
• Over 90% of visitors “do not want anything
beyond entertainment”
• Visitor groups - children, school teachers,
researchers
• Researcher’s justify large museums “for the
advancement of science”
 The Practice of Museum Exhibits

Boas at American Museum, 1900

No storage rooms, natural lighting, cases, life groups the most demanding
(time, materials, skill), attempted realism. Labels – “the ultimate limitation to
the possibility of a museum anthropology”. Boas believe the exhibited artifact
secondary to the monographic interpretation of a scientist
 Cultural Relativism
Contextual
• The human mind has been creative
everywhere - Boas
Evolution
• Advance of mankind from primitive to
complex – American Museum President
Jesup
 Cultural Determinism
Anthropology
Behavior of all men determined by enculturation
Culture as primary determinant of behavior not race
Learned behavior paramount
Pre-anthropological culture singular,
anthropological culture plural
Evolutionary theory (E.B.Tylor and Herbert Spencer)
Culture in its evolutionary sense, progressive
accumulation of human creativity. Customs then
viewed negatively as lower evolutionary status. See
Stocking p. 870, 872.
Phenomenon of World’s Fairs as exemplary of
Arguments for and against evolutionary theses – ex. World’s Columbia Exposition
racial assumptions tied to (also called The Chicago World’s Fair) 1893, to
material culture studies. celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s
discovery of the “New World.”
 Web sources

Fabulous Imperialism! - The 1893 Columbian Exposition

http://www.pinkyshow.org/archives/episodes/060330/060330_1893_columbianexpo.html

The Smithsonian Institution at 50

http://www.150.si.edu/siarch/guide/start.htm