Franz Boas and Exhibits“In ethnography, all is individuality”

The Limitations of the Museum Method in Anthropology and the

End of the “Museum Era”

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

Franz Boas (1848-1942) father of American AnthropologyActive during Anthropology’s “Museum Age” 1880-1920Established the concept of cultures as diverse historical developments. Holistic and historic philosophies tied to

training in geography and the German romantic tradition

Boas 1895, U.S. National Museum

Deduction vs. InductionClassification is not explanation

1887 debate

Deduction InductionFrom 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 BoasU.S. National Museum American MuseumTypological TribalEvolutionary ContextualClassification Life groupForm MeaningUniversalism Individuality

Typological vs. Life Group

U.S. National Museum Life group, 1896

U.S. National Museum, Typological, 1890

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 DeterminismAnthropology

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 evolutionary theses – ex. World’s Columbia Exposition (also called The Chicago World’s Fair) 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the “New World.”

Arguments for and against racial assumptions tied to material culture studies.

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