Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead began her long career in anthropology as an undergraduate at Barnard College under the tutelage of Franz Boas, recognized as the father of American anthropology.

At the age of 25, she spent a year as a National Research Council fellow in Pago Pago where she studied cultural concepts of adolescence. In doing do, Mead was the first anthropologist to look at human development in a cross- cultural perspective. The result was her widely acclaimed first book, “Coming of Age in Samoa.”

She earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University and joined the American Museum of Natural History as an assistant curator of ethnology in 1926. She rose through the ranks at the museum and was appointed curator emerita in 1969.

In addition to her duties at the museum, Mead served at the National Research Council and as a professor at several universities, including Columbia, New York University and Yale. In 1965, she founded the Urban Anthropology Department at NYU, and in 1968, she founded an anthropology department at Fordham University. She was named “Mother of the World” by Time magazine in 1969.

Mead spent many years living with various South Seas peoples, during which time she learned seven indigenous languages. When not abroad, she wrote numerous monographs, narrated several films, and wrote a myriad of books. She was well- known for her clear writing style, allowing laypeople to both comprehend and enjoy the information she learned from her research. She authored more than 20 books including “Growing Up in New Guinea,” “Soviet Attitudes Toward Authority,” “An Anthropologist at Work” and “Peoples and Places.”

She died in 1978 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.

BLACKWELL RECIPIENTS

• May 16, 2021
  Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden

• February 3, 2021
  Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

• January 22, 2015
  Dr. Janet L. Yellen

• November 10, 2013
  The Most Reverend Doctor Katharine Jefferts Schori

• October 27, 2011
  Eunice Kennedy Shriver

• April 23, 2009
  Rabbi Sally J. Priesand

• April 24, 2008
  Dr. Wangari Maathai Sc.D.'94, P '94, P '96

• April 27, 2007
  Dr. Priscilla A. Schaffer '64, Sc.D. '94

• September 7, 2004
  Bishop Barbara Clementine Harris

• September 9, 2003
  Loretta C. Ford

• September 4, 2001
  Madeleine K. Albright

• May 15, 1998
  Billie Jean King

• February 10, 1996
  Wilma Mankiller

• September 23, 1993
  Barbara Jordan

• September 27, 1991
  Margaret Chase Smith

• February 22, 1991
  Dr. Antonia C. Novello

• February 19, 1988
  Barbara Aronstein Black

• October 9, 1985
  Cicely Saunders

• March 8, 1985
  Sandra Day O’Connor

• February 11, 1984
  Hannah Holborn Gray

• February 26, 1982
  Agnes George de Mille

• February 15, 1980
  Mary Douglas Leakey

• September 30, 1977
  Mary S. Calderone

• October 3, 1975
  Antonia Brico

• Janurary 23, 1974
  Frances Keller Harding

• May 28, 1973
  Judith Graham Pool

• June 8, 1972
  Marian Anderson

• April 10, 1972
  Mary Lasker

• June 13, 1971
  Mina Rees

• June 14, 1970
  Helen Brooke Taussig

• June 15, 1969
  Georgiana Sibley

• June 16, 1968
  Constance Baker Motley

• September 8, 1967
  Catharine Macfarlane

• July 10, 1966
  Fe del Mundo

• June 13, 1965
  Annette LeMeitour-Kaplun

• June 14, 1964
  Margaret Mead

• June 9, 1963
  Marty Mann

• June 10, 1962
  Frances Perkins

• June 18,1961
  Leona Baumgartner

• June 12, 1960
  Miki Sawada

• June 14, 1959
  Elisabeth Luce Moore

• September 27, 1958
  Gwendolyn Grant Mellon