
Margaret Mead
anthropologist | environmentalist
With her pioneering field work in the South Pacific beginning in the late 1920s, Margaret Mead put anthropology on the map. Along the way, we learned as much about our own culture as we did about the tribal societies she studied.
Over the next 4 decades, Margaret upended long-held beliefs about personality, sexuality, parenting and mental health with an eye toward improving life for all. A vocal + untiring social critic, she weighed in on issues ranging from atomic energy to the effects of media on children. Margaret's expert opinions ~ recorded in her 44 books + more than 1,000 articles ~ still resonate today.
researching primitive societies | Samoan, Manua, Arapesh, Mundugumor, Tchambuli, Iatmul + Balinese.
challenging assumptions about gender roles | "human nature is malleable"
advocating for more relaxed sexual mores | sexuality can evolve
pioneering new field study methods | more reliance on psychology, living with subjects + photography {25,000 photos in Bali alone}
1923 | changed her major to anthropology after taking first class with Franz Boaz
1925 | went to Samoa to research teenage girls | concluded that a more relaxed culture made for a less stressful coming-of-age experience and that environment {not genes} is the basis of cultural differences| published her findings 3 years later in her first book Coming of Age in Samoa
1974 | elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences ~ only the 2nd woman to head the organization of science elite ~ at 72
from | to
budding psychologist | the most famous anthropologist of all time + mother of cultural anthropology
born on
December 16, 1901
born in
Philadelphia, PA
birth name
Margaret Mead
also known as
mother to the world
~ dubbed by Time Magazine ~
punk + the original punk
~ her father's nickname for her~
citizen of
The United States of America
daughter of
Edward Sherwood Mead
~ finance professor at Wharton~
Emily Fogg Mead
~ sociologist | studied Italian immigrants ~
sister of
3 younger sisters | Katherine {died young} + Elizabeth + Priscilla
1 younger brother | Richard
~ a professor ~
grew up in
Hammonton, New Jersey
educated at | studied with
Barnard College
~ New York, NY | BA | 1923 ~
Columbia University
~New York, NY | MA | 1924~
~ PhD | 1929 ~
loved studying
cultures in natural habitat | living with subjects ~ wall-less house
ecology | spoke at first "Earth Day"
parenting + family
nutrition
divorced from
Luther S. Cressman
~ married 1923-1928 ~
Reo F. Fortune
~ married 1928-1935 ~
Gregory Bateman
~ married 1936-1950 ~
mother of
1 daughter | Mary Catheron Bateson
influenced by
grandmother Mary Ramsay Mead
~ psychologist who taught her to observe people to understand behavior ~
worked alongside
Ruth Benedict + Franz Boaz
~ noted anthropologists ~
in her spare time
shared | her personal experience and research with daughter's first pediatrician ~ Dr. Benjamin Spock ~ who used it in his famous parenting book
learned | 7 languages
worked for | American Museum of Natural History {1926 till death} | added more than 300 exhibits to collection
died on
November 15, 1978
~ from pancreatic cancer ~
image credits
Smithsonian Institution Research Information System | public domain
New York World Telegram & Sun | Library of Congress | public domain
collapse bio bits"I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in this world."
{as quoted by The New York Times} | 1927
"As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own."
Coming of Age in Samoa | january 1928
"Education in the home, even more than at school, instead of being a special pleading for one regime, a desperate attempt to form one particular habit of mind which will withstand all outside influences, must be a preparation for those very influences."
Coming of Age in Samoa | 1928
"Human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions."
Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies | 1935
"Many, if not all, of the personality traits which we have called masculine or feminine are as lightly linked to sex as are the clothing, the manners, and the form of headdress that a society at a given period assigns to either sex."
Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies | 1931
"It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age."
Teacher's Treasury of Stories for Every Occasion | 1958
"Moral training used to come from the parents. Now it comes in the standards that are being spread—and they're not very high, either—directly to the children by TV and radio."
What's Happening to the American Family: An Interview with Dr. Margaret Mead | may 1963
"Children that are born now think the world was made the way it is today—complete with transistors. They need someone who gives them some kind of perspective—someone who can convince them that you could be born in one world, grow up in another, and grow old in a third."
What's Happening to the American Family: An Interview with Dr. Margaret Mead | may 1963
"Every time we liberate a woman, we liberate a man."
International Federation of Women Lawyers La Abogada newsletter Vol. 3 | 1967
"No society has ever yet been able to handle the temptations of technology."
Margaret Mead Speaks at First Earth Day | april 1970
"We have to learn to cherish this earth and cherish it as something fragile that's only one—it's all we have."
Margaret Mead Speaks at First Earth Day | april 1970
"Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful."
Twentieth Century Faith: Hope and Survival | 1972
"'Trick or treat' has become an empty formula without any hidden threat for those who refuse to treat."
Halloween: Where Has All the Mischief Gone? | october 1975
"Halloween...was the one night in the year when the child's world and the adult's world confronted each other, and the children were granted license to take mild revenge on adults."
Halloween: Where Has All the Mischief Gone? | october 1975
"The mild mischief children work out for themselves is the best of all."
Halloween: Where Has All the Mischief Gone? | october 1975
"If one cannot state a matter clearly enough so that even an intelligent twelve-year-old can understand it, one should remain within the cloistered walls of the university and laboratory until one gets a better grasp of one's subject matter."
Margaret Mead: Some Personal Views | 1979
curated with care by Kathleen Murray {september 2014}
Margaret Mead and Luther Sheeleigh Cressman, ca. 1917–18
Margaret married Luther Cressman {the younger brother of one of her high school teachers} in 1923. The 2 split early in their careers, but both went on to prominent positions in their respective fields ~ anthropology + archeology.
US Library of Congress
Margaret Mead sitting between two Samoan girls, ca. 1926
Margaret's initial anthropological work involved field work with the women of Samoa. Here, she sits with some of her subjects, wearing a traditional woven wedding dress. She wrote of this photo to her friend Ruth Benedict ~ "I look very prim and proper and unpolynesian."
US Library of Congress
Margaret Mead Stamp
Margaret's work was spotlighted on a 2008 USPS special edition stamp.
John Curran | CC BY 2.0
Margaret Mead home
One of Margaret's childhood homes in Doylestown, PA. The Mead's primary residence was in Hammonton, NJ, but the family would move here during the winter when Margaret's father would lecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
otfrom | CC BY-SA 2.0