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ANNCR:
Welcome to People in America from VOA Special English. Today,Sarah Long and Rich Kleinfeldt tell about one of the mostinfluential social scientists of the last century — theanthropologist, Margaret Mead.
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VOICE ONE:
People around the world mourned when Margaret Mead died inNineteen-Seventy-Eight. The president of the United States at thetime, Jimmy Carter, honored the social scientist with America’shighest award for civilians. Another honor came from a village inNew Guinea. The people there planted a coconut tree in her memory.Margaret Mead would have liked that. As a young woman, she hadstudied the life and traditions of the village.
Mizz Mead received such honors because she added greatly topublic knowledge of cultures and traditions in developing areas.Many people consider her the most famous social-science researcherof the Twentieth Century. Yet some experts say her research was notscientific. They say she depended too much on observation and localstories. They say she did not spend enough time on comparativestudies. They believe her fame resulted as much from her colorfulpersonality as from her research.
VOICE TWO:
Margaret Mead was often the object of heated dispute. She sharedher strong opinions about social issues. She denounced the spread ofnuclear bombs. She spoke against racial injustice. She stronglysupported women’s rights. Throughout her life she enjoyed taking arisk. Mizz Mead began her studies of cultures in an unusual way fora woman of her time. She chose to perform her research in thedeveloping world.
She went to an island village in the Pacific Ocean. She wentalone. The year was Nineteen-Twenty-Five. At that time, youngAmerican women did not travel far away from home by themselves. Theydid not ask personal questions of strangers. They did not observebirths and deaths unless they were involved in medical work.Margaret Mead did all those things.
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VOICE ONE:
Margaret Mead was born in December, Nineteen-Oh-One, in the cityof Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her parents were educators. Few womenattended college in those days. However, Mizz Mead began her studiesin Nineteen-Nineteen at De Pauw University in the middle westerntown of Greencastle, Indiana. She soon decided that living in asmall town did not improve one’s mind. So she moved to New York Cityto study at Barnard College. There she studied English andpsychology. She graduated in Nineteen-Twenty-Three.
VOICE TWO:
Margaret next decided to study anthropology at ColumbiaUniversity in New York. She wanted to examine the activities andtraditions of different societies. She sought to add to knowledge ofhuman civilization. At the same time, she got married. Her husband,Luther Cressman, planned to be a clergyman. Together, they began thelife of graduate students.
VOICE ONE:
Mizz Mead studied with two famous anthropologists: Franz Boas andRuth Benedict. Mister Boas believed that the environment people growup in — not family genes — was the cause of most culturaldifferences among people. This belief also influenced his youngstudent. Mister Boas was not pleased when Margaret Mead asked to doresearch in Samoa. He was concerned for her safety. Still, he lether go. Franz Boas told her to learn about the ways in which theyoung women of Samoa were raised.
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Margaret’s husband went to Europe to continue his studies. Shewent — alone — to Samoa, in the Pacific Ocean. She worked amongthe people of Tau Island. The people spoke a difficult language.Their language had never been written. Luckily, she learnedlanguages easily.
VOICE ONE:
Mizz Mead investigated the life of Samoan girls. She was not mucholder than the girls she questioned. She said their life was free ofthe anger and rebellion found among young people in other societies.She also said Samoan girls had sexual relations with anyone theywanted. She said their society did not urge them to love just oneman. And she said their society did not condemn sex before marriage.
Margaret Mead said she reached these beliefs after nine months ofobservation on Samoa. They helped make her book about Samoa one ofthe best-selling books of the time. Mizz Mead was just twenty-fiveyears old when this happened.
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Several social scientists later disputed her findings. In arecent book, Derek Freeman says Mizz Mead made her observations fromjust a few talks with two friendly young women. He says they wantedto tell interesting stories to a foreign visitor. However, he saystheir stories were not necessarily true. Mister Freeman says Samoansociety valued a young woman who had not had sexual relations. Hesays Tau Island men refused to marry women who had had sex.
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VOICE ONE:
After nine months among the Samoans, Mizz Mead returned to theUnited States. She met a psychology student from New Zealand, ReoFortune, on the long trip home. Her marriage to Luther Cressmanended. She married Mister Fortune in Nineteen-Twenty-Seven. MizzMead and her second husband went to New Guinea to work together. Itwould be the first of seven trips that she would make to the area inthe next forty-seven years.
The two observed the people of Manus Island, one of the AdmiraltyIslands, near mainland New Guinea. They thought the people werepleasant. After a while, though, she and her husband had no moretobacco to trade. Then the people of Manus Island stopped givingthem fish.
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Later the two studied the Mundugumor people of New Guinea. MizzMead reported that both the men and women were expected to beaggressive. Only a few years before, tribe members had given uphead-hunting. Traditionally they had cut off the heads of theirenemies. Mundugumor parents also seemed to be cruel to theirchildren. They carried their babies in stiff baskets. They did notanswer the needs of the babies when they cried. Instead, they hitthe baskets with sticks until the babies stopped crying.
VOICE ONE:
Not long after the New Guinea trip ended, Margaret Mead’smarriage to Reo Fortune also ended. In Nineteen-Thirty-Six, shemarried for the third time. Her new husband was Gregory Bateson, aBritish biologist. Mister Bateson and Mizz Mead decided to worktogether on the island of Bali, near Java in Indonesia. The peopleof Bali proudly shared their rich culture and traditions with thevisitors. Mizz Mead observed and recorded their activities. MisterBateson took photographs. The Batesons had a daughter. They seemedlike a fine team. Yet their marriage ended in the lateNineteen-Forties.
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VOICE TWO:
As time went on, Margaret Mead’s fame continued to grow. Herbooks sold very well. She also wrote for popular magazines. Sheappeared on radio and television programs. She spoke before manygroups. Americans loved to hear about her work in faraway places.Mizz Mead continued to go to those places and report about thepeople who lived there.
VOICE ONE:
After her trips, Margaret Mead always returned to the AmericanMuseum of Natural History in New York City. She worked there morethan fifty years. She examined the research of others. She guidedand advised a number of anthropology students. Mizz Mead worked inan office filled with ceremonial baskets and other objects from herstudies and travels. People said she ruled the museum like a queen.They said Margaret Mead knew what she wanted from the work of othersand knew how to get it.
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Other scientists paid her a high honor when she was seventy-twoyears old. They elected her president of the American Associationfor the Advancement of Science. A few years later, she developedcancer. But she continued to travel, speak and study almost to theend of her life. One friend said, “Margaret Mead was not going tolet a little thing like death stop her.” Margaret Mead died morethan twenty years ago. Yet people continue to discuss and debate herstudies of people and cultures around the world.
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ANNCR:
This program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by PaulThompson. The announcers were Sarah Long and Rich Kleinfeldt. I’mFaith Lapidus. Listen again next week for People in America, fromVOA Special English.