The rise of academic physical anthropology in the United States (1880–1980): A historical overview

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 56:353-364(1981)

The Rise of Academic Physical Anthropology in the United States (1880-1980): A Historical Overview

FRANK SPENCER Department o f Anthropology, Queens College CUNI: Flushing, New York 11367

KEY WORDS History, Physical anthropology, Professionalism, Alee HrdliEka, Franz Boas, Earnest A. Hooton

ABSTRACT This paper surveys the development of physical anthropology in the period from 1880 to 1980, beginning with the founding of the U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology and the advent of professionalism in anthropology. The growth of physical anthropology within academic anthropology and the effect of the bias toward ethnology and archaeology is considered. Three historical phases are suggested: pre-1900, the pre-academic period of physical anthropology; 1900-1930, the initial development of academic physical anthropology, which witnessed the founding of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists by HrdliEka, and of Hooton's program at Harvard University; 1930-present, which has seen the full development of physical anthropology in an academic context.

In 1930 when the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA) held its inaugural meeting in Charlottesville, Virginia, only a handful of the charter members were full-time professional physical anthropologists. The vast majority were anatomists. Further- more, in spite of the fact that anthropology was by this time established in several major American universities, there was only one that offered a program leading to the Ph.D. degree in physical anthropology. At this juncture most of the existing academic departments of anthropology were staffed by ethnologists who, by and large, placed a low priority on the development of physical anthropology. As a consequence, in 1930, there appeared to be very little prospect for the development of the discipline in this context. However, in the five decades that have elapsed since the Charlottes- ville meeting this situation has been greatly changed. Today the AAPAs membership is composed largely of individuals who not only consciously identify themselves as professional physical anthropologists but also func- tion primarily in an academic context. The aim of this paper is to examine the genesis of this implied bias toward ethnology in early academic anthropology and trace the effect it had on the institutional development of physical anthropology.

Although there is a long tradition of anthropology in the United States, extending back to early colonial times (Hodgen, 1964; Jordan, 1968; Shapiro, 1959; Spencer, 1976, 1977; Stanton, 1960 et. al.), it was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that anthropology made the gradual transition from being an avocation to a profession. Simplistically this trend toward professionalism (which incidentally involved the entire scientific community) may be regarded as a response to a series of complex changes that occurred in American society following the War between the States (Franklin, 1961; Kirkland, 1961), and involved the following developments: (1) the creation of employment opportunities capable of sus- taining lifetime careers, (2) the development of certificated-training programs, and (3) the founding of organizations devoted exclusively to the promotion of the professional needs of the certificated membership (see Table 1).

These changes, however, did not occur simul- taneously, but developed gradually over a period spanning the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of this century. Hence, while the establishment of university departments of anthropol-

Delivered at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. December 11-12, 1980.

0002-948318115604-0353$03.50 0 1981 ALAN R. LISS, INC.

354 F. SPENCER

ogy may now be viewed as a critical breakthrough that subsequently shaped the modern professional contours of American anthropology, this particular development was both gradual and not nearly as certain at the time as in retrospect (Darnell, 1970a; Hinsley and Holm, 1974; Stewart and Spencer, 1978; Stock- ing, 1968, 1974). In fact, it was not until the outbreak of the First World War that academic anthropology finally began to exert an authori- tative influence. In the meantime the professional aspirations of American anthropology were served largely by museums (Table 2) and a few research-oriented institutions such as the Bureau of American Ethnology.

Actually, the founding of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE)' by John Wesley Powell in 1879 (Judd, 1967) represents the first major breakthrough in the professionalization of American anthropology by offering for the

TABLE 1. A chronology of major institutional developments relevant to the professionalization of

American anthronoloav

Institution Date

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)' 1848

Anthropological Society of Washington' 1879 Bureau of American Ethnology 1879

American Anthropological Association 1902 American Association of Physical

Anthropologists3 1930 Wenner-Gren Foundation (formerly Viking

Fund, Inc.) 1941

National Science Foundation 1950

'Science, the official organ of the AAAS was established in 1883. 2Publicatious of the ASW included Abstracts of Transactions

(1881-18851, and the American Anthropologist, which first appeared in 1888. This latter journal was subsequently taken over by th; AAA.

The AJPA founded in 1918 was formally adopted as the official organ of the AAPA at the inaugural meeting in Charlottesville.

first time support for a lifetime career in anthropology. Essentially, the BAEs existence had been justified by the pragmatic need to provide reliable information on the American Indians to guide Indian legislation (Darnell, 1970b). After 1890, the question of Indian policy was no longer a major political issue and, as a result, the Bureau's work became the target of increasing criticism from Congress. Thus, although it continued to contribute to anthropology (until abolished in 1965), the professional assumptions that had dominated the BAE during its early years slowly diminished. But besides these political considerations, there are several other reasons why the BAE became an historical reject. The most obvious and probably the most important stems from the fact that this institution failed to develop a formal mechanism for training its recruits.

By contrast the university offered not only a means for training but also for advancing scientific research. Recognizing the unique institutional possibilities of academe, several attempts were made during the latter half of the nineteenth century to affiliate anthropology with the university. There were, however, several factors impeding its early advancement. One was that it had no prior claim to a place in the university curriculum (see Darnell, 1970a). Another was that its content overlapped (in varying degrees) with a number of well-established academic disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, history, and geography. Thus, more often than not, anthropology was introduced to the university curriculum as an adjunct to one of these disciplines (see Mac- Curdy, 1899, 1902; Mason, 1906), where it in- variably languished and perished. In fact, with the notable exception of Harvard, attempts to establish autonomous programs in anthropology prior to 1900 were abortive (Table 3).

'The term "American" was not officially incorporated into the Bureau's title until 1897.

TABLE 2. The founding of museums in the United States significant to the development of professional anthropology

Museum Founding Anthropology

Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology 1866 1866

American Museum of Natural History 1869 1889 United States National Museum of Natural

History 1881 1881 University of Pennsylvania Museum 1889 1889 Field Columbian Museum (Chicago) 1893 1893 Berkeley (Lowie) Museum 1901 1901

RISE OF ACADEMIC PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN U.S. 355

TABLE 3. The status of graduate programs in anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century

Founding of

Universitv Institution Anthropology Affiliation

Berkeley 1873 1901 Independent

Clark 1889 1889 Psychology’

Chicago 1892 1892 Sociology2

Columbia 1754 1895 Psychology3

Harvard 1636 1887 Independent

Pennsylvania 1740 1886 Philosophy4

Wisconsin 1848 c. 1898 Economics’

‘This program produced the first Ph.D. in America in 1892: Alexander F. Chamberlain. The program did not survive into the twentieth

’In 1897 this department produced two Ph.D.s in anthropology (i.e., David P. Barrows and Merton M. Leland). After this anthropology

31nitially this department was linked with psychology. The actual date of independence is uncertain, hut probably dates from when Boas

”rechnically speaking this is the oldest department in the country, for it was here that the first chair in “American Archaeology and Lin-

century.

was linked with sociology until 1924. Following independence it produced its first Ph.D.. Leslie White in 1927.

received a full professorship in 1899.

guistics” was established in 1886 for Daniel Garrison Brinton. But, as pointed out by Darnell (1970a), Brinton received no salary and produced no students. The department was not formally organized until 1903 when G.B. Gordon was hired from Harvard to develop the academic program. During the interim anthropology was offered in conjunction with philosophy and history.

only one doctorate in anthropology was produced, namely Albert Earnest Jents in 1899 (see footnote to Table 7). From c.1930 through to 1958 anthropology was associated with the Department of Sociology. During this period only one Ph.D. in anthropology was produced. namely Earle Reynolds (1944).

’During the late 1890s and early 1900s anthropology at Wisconsin was linked with the Department of Economics. Throughout this period

The Harvard program in anthropology had been organized by Frederic Ward Putnam. Like so many workers from this period Putnam had become interested in anthropology (and more specifically archaeology) through his other activities. In Putnam’s case he had been trained as a zoologist and had intended a career in icthyology. However, after 1875, when he succeeded Jeffries Wyman as curator of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard, his work progress- ed mainly along anthropological lines. The reason for the success of Putnam’s program was due largely to an endowment given by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 to found a “Museum and Professorship of American Archaeology and Ethnology in con- nection with Harvard University” (Tozzer, 1936:127). As a consequence of this Putnam was able to develop with relative ease at Har- vard a productive relationship between the museum (research) and the university (instruction). Later he was instrumental in organizing a similar institutional arrangement at Chicago (1892), Columbia (18951, and Berkeley (1901), though in each case he was not responsible for the subsequent development of these centers.

Closely associated with these early attempts to established anthropology in the university was a concern for defining the boundaries and content of the discipline. In Europe during the second half of the ninetheeth century, prin-

cipally under the influence of the French anatomist Paul Broca, the term anthropology had become synonymous with physical anthropology, while archaeology and ethnology were slowly being merged to form what was later to become known as social or cultural anthropology. By contrast, in the United States the term ethnology was in vogue, which at this time had a much more inclusive meaning than it does today, embracing the subdisciplines ethnology, linguistics, physical anthropology, and archaeology. However, during the last decades of the nineteenth century the term slowly began to ac- quire a more exclusive meaning as the researches of the BAE and other institutions focussed in- creasingly on the collection of ethnolinguistic data on the American Indians (see Judd, 1967: 3-21; Darnell, 1970b). As it happened this trend was resisted by those workers seeking to affiliate anthropology with the university. These workers tended to favor the integration of the discipline’s various branches under the inclusive term “mthropology” (Brinton, 1892a,b; Cham- berlain, 1894; Dorsey, 1894). But while most American workers and institutions by the turn of the century had seemingly adopted the term “anthropology” and were tending to use the term “ethnology” in a more restricted sense, this change in nomenclature actually did little to correct the established inclination of Amer- ican anthropology toward ethnology and archeology. Physical anthropology -or somatology,

356 F. SPENCER

as it was then generally called -received only limited attention (Table 4). Indeed, this intellectual assymetry continued, particularly in academic departments of anthropology, until well into the third decade of this century (Table 5).

Although to a large extent this emphasis on ethnology and archaeology unquestionably re- flects the research priorities of American anthropology during this period, it is also evident that the specialized and multidisciplinary re- quirements of a training program in physical anthopology had been an important factor impeding its early advancement in the university. But while Table 5 clearly summarizes the general state of academic anthropology between 1900 and 1925, these statistics are some- what misleading with regard to the representation of physical anthropology in the university curriculum.

From its inception the program at Harvard had included courses in physical anthropology at both the graduate and undergraduate level (Russell, 1901; Mason, 1906). In fact, Harvard was responsible for producing the first doctor-

ate in physical anthropology in America, which was awarded to Frank Russell in 1898 for a dissertation on Eskimo crania. Russell re- mained with the department until his prema- ture death in 1903. Thereafter physical anthropology was placed in the hands of William C. Farabee, who specialized in genetics and is probably best remembered for being the first to demonstrate Mendelian heredity in man. Like Russell, Farabee was also a Harvard doctorate in physical anthropology, which he received in 1903. After this date, however, there is a twelve-year hiatus before the next doctorate in physical anthropology was awarded to Robert Gorham Fuller for a dissertation on Tennessee crania.

Unfortunately it is no longer clear whether this slump in physical anthropology at Har- vard was due simply to Farabee’s inability to attract students, or whether there were other forces at work in the department. From all indi- cations Farabee was much more interested in research than teaching, which probably ac- counts for his subsequent departure from Har-

TABLE 4. The representation of the three major subdisciplines of anthropology at Section H meetings of M A S , 1849-1901 (based on MacCurdy, 1902)

No. papers presented Subdiscipline 1849-1881 1882-1901 Total

Archaeology Ethnology

Physical anthropology

Miscellaneous

48

22 14

2

261 309 211 233

80 94

37 39

Totals 86 589 675

TABLE 5. A comparison of subdisciplinary specializaiton of Ph.D.s awarded at Harvard (Hrvd}, Berkeley (UCBk}, Columbia (Clmb), and Pennsyluania (UPa) from the beginning of their respective programs to 1925

Institution 1890 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1925 Total

Hrvd - - 2 1 5 - 2 Ethnology - -

Archaeology - 1 - 2 1 2 2 1 9 Physical - 1 1 1 - - - - 3

UCBk Ethnology Archaeology Physical

Ethnology Archaeology Physical

Clmb

UPa - 1 2

0 1

- 1 Ethnology - Archaeology - - - - - Physical - - - - 1

RISE OF ACADEMIC PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY i N U.S. 357

vard in 1913 to the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, where he devoted himself exclusively to research. On the other hand, one should not overlook Putnam’s retire- ment in 1909, which clearly signaled a change in the political structure of the department and a resulting increase in emphasis on archeology in the academic program. In this regard it is worth noting that when Earnest A. Hooton was hired to replace Farabee, he was only marginally quaIified to teach physical anthropology; his training had been principally in social anthropology and archeology (see later).

In direct contrast to Harvard, the program at Columbia, which had been organized under the aegis of Franz Boas, failed to produce a single Ph.D. in physical anthropology during the period 1900-1925. This is surprising consider- ing Boas’s active interest in problems related to human growth and development. However, there appear to be several reasons for this failure. When Boas accepted Putnam’s invitation to come to New York in 1896 to assist in the development of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, it had been his ex- pressed intention to create “a well-organized school of anthropology” based on cooperation between the American Museum and Columbia University (Stocking, 1974;283-300). But this plan was frustrated by a developing conflict of interest with the museum’s authorities, and in particular with its administrative director, Her- man C. Bumpus. Besides being a keen business man, Bumpus also had definite ideas on the organization and purpose of a public museum. He believed the principal directives of a museum should be the education and enrichment of the community it serves, a philosophy which gave low priority to scientific research. As such, under Bumpus’s restrictive administra- tion, the twenty-five-year program Putnam had envisioned for anthropology in New York (Putnam to M.K. Jesup, April 11,1898: citedin Spencer, 1979:241) slowly dissolved in administrative disputes - and along with it Boas’s originial plan. After 1900, Putnam became persona non grata at the museum, while Boas endeavored, under increasing administrative interference, to maintain the fragile link between the American Museum and Columbia. At this juncture Boas was still convinced that the multiple institutional model established by Putnam was the best means to develop anthropology. In 1905, however, he abandoned this concept when he decided to quit the museum (his patience with Bumpus having run out) and devote his time

and energy to developing anthropology at Co- lumbia. Thus, divorced from the material and financial resources of a large museum, and unable to forge a lasting link with either the department of zoology or medicine at Colum- bia, Boas was obliged to restrict his program in physical anthropology to “field methods,” which consisted of a course on statistical variation and anthropometric techniques (Mason, 1906). But while this situation at Columbia undoubt- edly contributed to the failure of this program to produce a single doctorate in physical anthropology during this period, it is also abun- dantly clear that Boas placed a greater impor- tance on the development of ethnological and linguistic research.

At both the University of Pennsylvania and Berkeley physical anthropology at the graduate level was not formally developed until after the Second World War. In the case of Pennsyl- vania (see Table l), it appears that when George B. Gordon, a Harvard doctorate in archeology (1903), was hired to develop an academic program his plans had included “somatology” (Darnell, 1970b). Gordon’s plans, however, were subsequently modified by Frank G. Speck, a former student of Boas’s (hired by the department in 1908), to conform to the “Boasian point of view” (Darnell, 1970b:243-251). As a consequence only two doctorates in physical were produced at Pennsylvania prior to the Second World War: Ernst W. Hawkes (1915) and Loren C. Eisley (1937). The Department of Anthropology at Berkeley, on the other hand, was, from its inception, under the direction of Alfred L. Kroeber, who was incidentally Boas’s first Ph.D. from Columbia. Though clearly interested in physical anthropology, Kroeber seemingly made no attempt to develop the subject at a graduate level until the late 1930s, when the department hired its first Ph.D. in physical anthropology: Theodore D. McCown. I t should be noted that McCown did not re- ceive his graduate training at Berkeley, but rather from Sir Arthur Keith at the Royal Col- lege of Surgeons, London. Furthermore, it appears that it was not until after Sherwood L. Washburn’s arrival in the department in 1958 that the graduate program in physical at Berke- ley finally assumed its modern configuration.

Unlike the Harvard doctorates from this period, who as a group were predominantly interested in archeology and without a strong commitment to any major viewpoint in anthropological theory, the Columbia group were ar- dently committed to their mentor’s general anthropological orientation and to his conception

358 F. SPENCER

of anthropology as an academic profession. As such, Boas’s students represented a new and formidable political force in the still-nascent profession, whose potential was gradually realized during the period of the First World War when they gained control of the American Anthropological Association and its journal (the American Anthropologist), which they used to propagate their particular viewpoint of anthropology (see Stocking, 1968:273-307; Spencer, 1979:686-750). This is important because it was in this context that Ale5 HrdliEka had founded the American Journal of Physical Anthropology (AJPA) in 1918.* This event is a landmark in our profession’s history because (1) it had the immediate effect of secur- ing the discipline’s identity, (2) it provided HrdliEka with an opportunity to codify the discipline in broader and essentially modern terms, and (3) it gave him a political platform from which to continue his campaign for the recognition of physical anthropology as a legitimate and independent discipline.

Although an argument can be made that it was largely because of the emerging influence of Boas’s program at Columbia that HrdliEka moved in the direction he did, it appears that from the outset he had regarded physical anthropology as an adjunct of the biomedical sciences. Accordingly, during the first three decades of this century he endeavored to direct American physical anthropology along the same path Paul Broca had taken the discipline in France.

Essentially HrdliEka’s plan called for the establishment of an “American Institute of Physical Anthropology,” modeled closely along the lines of the so-called “Broca’s Anthro- pological Institute” in Paris. In reality this “Institute” was a loose federation of three quite independent organizations founded by Paul Broca, namely the Societe dAnthropologie de Paris (1859), the Laboratoire dAnthropologie de YEcole pratique des Hautes Etudes (1867), and the Ecole dAnthropologie (1876). which formed the institutional and intellectual hub of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French anthropology. Mindful of this, HrdliEka, who incidentally had received his training in anthropology there in 1896, envisioned a similar institutional complex sprouting on the banks of the Potomac (Stewart and Spencer, 1978; Spencer, 1979). Such aninstitute, HrdliEka argued, would serve not only as the “home” of a future national society of American physical anthropologists, but also as a “center for instruction” and “dissemination of anthropolog-

ical knowledge” (HrdliEka, 1899, 1908, 1919). In a nutshell, he saw this as an attractive institutional alternative that would provide both coherence and a powerful impulse to the development of physical anthropology in the United States.

Prior to his appointment at the US. Na- tional Museum of Natural History (USNM) in 1903, HrdliEka had spent two years at the Pathological Institute in New York as a medical anthropologist (1896-1898) and four years as an unsalaried fieldworker attached to the Hyde Expeditions of the American Museum (1899-1902). From these earlier experiences he was all too aware of the fact that under prevail- ing conditions the recruitment of “suitably” trained physical anthropologists was a precari- ous affair. Hence, during the first decade of his tenure at the USNM he made several unsuccessful attempts to found such an institute. Unable to arouse any interest in his scheme he turned his attention to the task of building his division at the museum into a major center for research and training in physical anthropology in the hope that at some future date he might be able to persuade the authorities at the Smithsonian to “upgrade his division to the status of an Institute.” To this general end he made a number of unsuccessful attempts to ca- jole the Smithsonian into creating a scholarship fund that could be offered to medical graduates “to be trained in [his] the laboratory and field (HrdliEka, 1908:38).

HrdliEka’s reason for singling out the medical graduate was because he believed their training was the “best” and probably the only “suitable” preparation for a student contem- plating a future career in physical anthropology. It should be noted, however, that in spite of his obvious penchant for the medical graduate, he was willing to accept other college graduates for training, provided they met the following prerequisites:

(a) possess a certificate of a pre- liminary training of at least two years study in anatomy, physi- ology, pathology, chemistry, microscopy, and biology; (b) to be adept in the mere ordinary mathematics; (c) to agree to stay two years in the laboratory so that an entire course, practical as well as theoretical, could be

2For further details on the founding of the AJPA, see page 348

RISE OF ACADEMIC PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN U.S. 359

gone through; (d) to be ready to undertake, towards the end of the course at expenses provided on their part of a certain amount of fieldwork (HrdliEka to G.B. Gordon, May 22, 1911: cited in Spencer, 1979:266).

Albeit HrdliEka’s scheme at the USNM was never fully realized, he did succeed between 1914 and 1920 in attracting a steady stream of workers for instruction in anthropology and anthropometric techniques. Included among these workers were Davidson Black, Fay Cooper Cole, Charles H. Danforth, James S. Foote, Earnest A. Hooton, Ralph Linton, and Michal Reicher.

In the years immediately following the First World War, HrdliEka established through the AJPA a small, but highly active network of re- searchers, many of whom were professional anatomists and shared his vision of physical anthropology (Table 6) . Evidently, through this network he had hoped to secure a beach- head in the anatomy fraternity (HrdliEka, 1927), while at the same time gathering support for his scheme to found an institute.

Regarding the matter of the institute, he apparently made two attempts in the 1920s to get this scheme funded through the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. But on both occasions his proposal was turned down. The reason for this rejection, so HrdliEka believed, was not due to the “un- worthiness’’ of the project, but rather because of what he called “personal animosities” between him and some of Boas’s students who

dominated the anthropological committee of the National Research Council at this time (Spencer, 1979:740-741).

Unwilling to admit defeat, HrdliEka bided his time until December 1928, whereupon he took advantage of the group of sympathetic workers assembled at the Section H meeting of the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science in New York City and per- suaded them that the time was “ripe” to found an independent body devoted exclusively to the needs of furthering physical anthropology, and requested that a committee of organization be formed. HrdliEka’s proposal was unani- mously endorsed and an organizing committee was formed, consisting of Fay Cooper Cole, Charles H. Danforth, George A. Dorsey, Wil- liam K. Gegory, Earnest A. Hooton, Ale5 Hrd- liEka, and Robert J. Terry. HrdliEka was duly elected chairman of this committee, and Dudley Morton was voted in as secretary (HrdliEka, 1927). Among the objectives (formu- lated by HrdliEka) to which the organizing committee understood the future AAPA would direct its activities was the following:

To the eventual establishment, in the most favorable location, of the “American Institute of Physical Anthropology” which would serve as a home and li- brary of the Association, and as the center of anthropometric instruction and of dissemination of anthropological knowledge (HrdliEka, 1927:305).

TABLE 6. HrdliEka’s network lproductiuity measured by number of research articles published in AJPA between I918 and 1937, based on Goldstein, 1940:197/’

Institution Department( s) No. articles Principal researcherb)

Washington University, St. Louis Anatomy 35 R.J. Terry; M. Trotter et al. [Case] Western Reserve University Anatomy 31 T. Wingate Todd et al.

Columbia University Anatomy

Tulane University Anatomy 14 H. Cummins et al. American Museum of Natural History Various 13 W.K. Gregory et al.

Carnegie Institution of Washington Various 15 - 12 -

Anthropology 3 F. Boas

Harvard University Anatomy 10 - Anthropology 2 E.A. Hooton

Johns Hopkins University Anatomy & others 11 A. Schultz e t al.

Stanford University Anatomy 11 C.H. Danforth et al. University of Virginia Anatomy 11 R.B. Bean et al.

total number. It IS interesting to note that Hrdlitka contributed 69 articles (14.7%). The remainder is divided between a miscellaneous number of institutions in the US. and abroad.

‘The total number of articles published in the AJPA between 1918 and 1937 totals 468. The above institutions contributed 35.9% of the

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During the next year Morton worked dili- gently with HrdliEka to enlist members to the new association. In November 1929, Morton sent HrdliEka a list of 58 prospective members, the majority of whom were drawn from the ranks of the American Association of Anatom- ists. By March 1930 the number of charter members had swollen to 83.3

Since the majority of the AAPAs members were anatomists it was decided for pragmatic as well as political reasons to hold the inaugural meeting in conjunction with the annual meeting of the anatomists, which in 1930 was scheduled to convene in Charlottesville, Vir- ginia. According to the published report of this first meeting in the AJPA (14533-90, 1930), at the opening business session on April 17, Hrd- IiEka “reviewed the aims of the Society [sic] and the progress made by the Organizing Commit- tee.” He then appointed a committee on bylaws, and instructed it to report at the closing session on the 18th. At this time both a constitution and the bylaws were adopted. The con-

stitution consisted of the same set of objectives HrdliEka had presented in New York City in 1928, in which No. 1 2 had dealt with the eventual establishment of an “American Insti- tute of Physical Anthr~pology.”~ From all ac- counts HrdliEka had proposed at this meeting in Charlottesville the idea of offering “cheap $25 life-memberships,” of which 80% of the in- come would be reserved to finance the founding of an institute (Trotter, 1956). This sugges- tion, however, was rejected, and after this time HrdliEka seems to have made no further effort to advance this cause. During the next decade the composition of the AAPAs membership changed very little (Tables 7,8). But where the

%ee Appendix 1 for a list of charter members

41n 1957 the constitution and bylaws of the AAPA were revised. The original constitution was called the “Preamble” and simply re- ferred to in the volume of theJourna1 for 1930 where it first appeared. Hence objective No. 12 has not been changed or eliminated.

TABLE 7. The comnosition of the AAPA membershiw in 1930

Origin of demee

Profession Degree U.S. Foreign Total

Physician M.D. 2 Anatomist M.D. 20

Ph.D. 21 Anthropologist :

Physical M.D. 2 Ph.D. 5* Ph.D. Ethnologist/

Archaeologist Zoologist Ph.D. Unidentified -

8

7 -

-

4 2

-

1

2 24 23

2 6

2 10 1 8

8 -

Total 83

‘One of these Ph.D.s is E.A. Hooton, who though functioning professionally as a physical anthropologist, had his degree in classics. Another was A.E. Jenks from the University of Wisconsin, who technically was not a professional physical anthropologist, but rather a generalist. He earned his Ph.D. at Wisconsin in 1899 for a dissertation on “Wild rice gatherers of the upper Great Lakes.” At this time ”anthropology” was linked with the department of economics.

TABLE 8. The composition of the AAPA membership in 1943 (figures include charter members, and are corrected for known deaths)

Origin of degree

Profession Deeree us. Foreign Total

Physician Anatomist

Anthropologist: Physical

Ethnologist/ Archaeologist Zoologist Unidentified

M.D. M.D. Ph.D.

M.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. -

5 25 56

2 20

13

6 -

2 7 7 32 5 61

2 1 21

2 15

3 9 39

Total: 176

-

-

RISE OF ACADEMIC PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN U S 361

anatomists were responsible largely for sus- taining and developing physical anthropology during the inter-war years, after 1946, the direction of the profession was determined almost exclusively by the Ph.D.s produced at Harvard under the aegis of Hooton.

Given Hooton’s arrival at Harvard in 1913 it is legitimate to ask why it took so long for his program to take effect. In addition to the First World War and the general climate of the profession at this time, all of which probably contributed to the retardation of Hooton’s plans, it appears (as suggested above) that when he re- placed Farabee he had only been marginally qualified to teach physical anthropology. In fact, he had originally intended a career in the classics, and had done graduate work in this line at the University of Wisconsin, where he earned the M.A. in 1908 and the Ph.D. in 1911. As the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, Hooton had gone to Oxford in 1910 fully ex- pecting to continue his studies in the classics, but instead ended up taking the diploma in anthropology (Howells, 1954). Apparently, while at Oxford he had come under the influence of Robert R. Marett. As it happened Marett was a close friend of HrdliEka, and he advised the young Hooton to seek a position in HrdliEka’s department at the USNM. This Hooton did, at the same time as applying for a position at Harvard. His letter of application to HrdliEka is of interest, since it summarizes his academic standing and interests at this time:

I have. . . done a certain amount of fieldwork and have been asked to deliver a paper to the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain on the physical character of early Saxons based on my study of the skeletal remains from the early Saxon cemetery in Berkeshire which I excavated last fall in cooperation with Dr. [Arthur] Keith and Harold Peake. . . I hope to take a research degree in anthropology before the end of the academic year. I have specialized in social anthropology as well as physical anthropology. In the latter field I have a competent writing knowledge, but if I de- cide to go on to that branch per- manently I shall devote a few months to special anatomical work, dissections, comparative

anatomy etc., in order to strength- en my command of the subject. I am interested almost equally in both sides of the work, but I understand there is a greater de- mand for physical anthropologists. . . (Hooton to HrdliEka, January 28,1913: cited in Spen- cer, 1979:459-460).

Although HrdliEka was unable to offer Hooton a position, he nevertheless did much to subsequently nurture Hooton’s incipient interest in the field.

At Harvard Hooton slowly developed Fara- bee’s introductory course, and in 1915 added an upper division course entitled “Criminal Anthropology and Race Mixture.” The same year he was made curator of somatology at the Peabody Museum. Later, in 1917, he was appointed a Fellow in anatomy at the Harvard Medical School (HrdliMta, 1919:81-82). This period of Hooton’s tenure at Harvard may be regarded as an apprenticeship which essentially terminated with his promotion to assistant professor in anthropology in 1921. Shortly thereafter he accepted his first graduate student: Harry L. Shapiro, who received the Ph.D. degree in 1926. Over the next three decades Hooton was to produce an unequaled number of doctorates in physical anthropology, many of whom were to subsequently play an integral role in the development of academic physical anthropology after the Second World War (Table 9).

The phenomenal success of Hooton’s program is not easily explained. There is little question that he was an extraordinary and gifted person. His writings are imbued with pungent wit and enviable lucidity. And evidently his teaching was equally inspired. But while unquestionably these talents greatly

TABLE 9. A chronological list of Hooton’s students (incomnletel

Date Name Date Name

1926 Harry L. Shapiro 1940 Sherwood L. Washburn 1928 Carleton S. Coon 1941 Marshall T. Newman 1929 Arthur R. Kelly 1941 Norman Gable 1929 C.W. Dupertuis 1942 Joseph B. Birdsell 1932 Fred L. Hulse 1942 J. Lawrence Angel 1933 C.C. Seltzer 1945 Gabriel W. Lasker 1934 William W. Howells 1946 James N. Spuhler 1936 Richard H. Post 1948 Stanley M. Garn 1938 C.E. Snow 1949 William S. Laughlin 1939 James B. Andrews 1951 Edward E. Hunt, Jr. 1940 Alice Brues

362 F. SPENCER

enhanced his ability to attract graduate students, it is also clear that his appearance on stage coincided, fortuitously, with an emerging interest in physical anthropology, which to a large extent can be traced directly to the earlier efforts of Ale5 HrdliEka.

The years immediately following the Second World War witnessed several major changes in the prewar configuration of American academic anthropology. Before the war it had been a largely white, middle-class domain. The expense of a university education had effec- tively screened out the lower socioeconomic classes. This, however, was changed by the passage of Public Law 346 which guaranteed not only the payment of full tuition, books, and other supplies, but also a living stipend to all veterans of military service for a period up to the time spent in the services, plus an extra year. This along with the so-called “baby boom,” contributed to the unprecedented growth of higher education after the war.

The early postwar period also saw a change in the pattern of funding anthropological research with the establishment of several new funding organizations in both the private and public sectors, namely the Wenner-Gren Foun- dation5 and the National Science Foundation respectively (see Table 1). The relative impact of these and other organizations such as the National Institutes of Health on the development of physical anthropology has recently been studied by Baker and Eveleth (in press).

Largely in response to the above developments, during the period 1950 to 1960 several academic departments of anthropology began expanding their graduate programs to include physical anthropology. From all appearances this initial period of growth was confined to those departments established prior to 1939, and included Arizona, Berkeley, Chicago, Co- lumbia, UCLA, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.6 With the notable exception of Pennsylvania, the physical anthropology programs in these departments were organized by either former students of Hooton or, as in the case of Michigan, by a student of a Hooton student (i.e., Fred Thieme, who earned his doctorate at Columbia in 1950 under Harry L. Sha- piro). In the case of Pennsylvania its program was formalized by Wilton M. Krogman, who was trained by T. Wingate Todd at (Case) Western Reserve, though he received his doctorate at the University of Chicago. Between 1950 and 1970 Krogman supervised seven of the eight Ph.D.s granted in physical anthropology at Pennsylvania during this period.

Among this crop of Ph.D.s was William M. Bass, who was responsible for organizing the doctoral program at Kansas and later at Ten- nessee. Besides Krogman, there appears to be one other source of Ph.D.s in physical anthropology that is not connected with Hooton, and that is Theodore D. McCown. Unfortunately, the extent of McCown’s influence in this regard is not known, though it appears to have been small.

After 1960 there was a rapid proliferation of graduate programs in physical anthropology. This growth continued well into the first half of the 1970s, whereupon it began to slow and finally ceased as a result of a general decline in university enrollments and a frigid economy. At this juncture the number of graduate programs had risen to a figure just short of 50. I t appears that the majority of these programs were founded by graduates from those programs established either during the 1950s or early sixties. Among those departments fall- ing into this latter category are Indiana, Kan- sas, Northwestern, Oregon, Pennsylvania State, and Yale.

Today most of the universities and colleges in the United States possessing a doctoral program in anthropology also offer a program in physical anthropology, though there are a few notable exceptions, e.g., Princeton, Stanford, and Virginia. Yet, while acknowledging that this growth during the past 30 years has had a beneficial effect on the profession, it is clear that physical anthropologists are still very much a minority group in academe. Indeed, it is interesting to note that while over 50% of the AAPAs current membership is either employed or affiliated with academic departments of anthropology, there are still a large number of undergraduate schools without a physical anthropologist on staff, which probably represents the residual effect of the earlier emphasis on ethnology and archeology. The general effect of this “traditional bias” is clearly reflected in Table 10.

Finally, following in the wake of the recent (and ongoing) decline in university enrollments and an attending shrinkage of employment opportunities in academic institutions, many

50 . . riginally this institution was known as the Viking Fund Inc.. which was founded in 1941. In 1951 i t was renamed the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research in honor of its founder, Axel Wenner-Gren, the Swedish industrialist. For further details on this organization see Dodds (1973) and Comas (1969:57-66, 83-86).

6Prior to 1958 the Department of Anthropology a t Wisconsin had been linked with sociology, see Table 3.

RISE OF ACADEMIC PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN U S . 363

TABLE 10. The “top ten” departments o f anthropology in the United States, ranked according to the number of Ph.D.k produced in anthropology (A) lculturaUarchaeology/physical) versus physical anthropology (PA) (based on data from Guide to Departments o f Anthropology, 1979-80, 18th edition, American Anthropological Association,

Washington, D.C. 1980)’

No. Ph.D.s Institution A

No. Ph.D.s Institution PA

1. Harvard 265 1. Harvard 42 2. Columbia 261 2. Michigan 41 3. Berkeley 256 3. Berkeley 40 4. Chicago 243 4. Wisconsin 27 5 . Michigan 164 5 . Pennsylvania 23 6. Pennsylvania 125 6. Chicago 22 I. Yale 122 7. Colorado 20 8. UCLA 116 8. Kansas 18 9. Arizona 110 9. Arizona 14

10. Cornell 109 10. Yale 12

‘The data upon which the above table is based contain a number of inherent errors and therefore should not be regarded as ab- solute production figures of the respective institutions.

departments have been prompted to evaluate the content and relevance of their current programs. According to a recent survey con- ducted by Kenneth Bennett (1979), it would seem that there is considerable dissatisfaction with many of the extant programs and that it is generally felt throughout the profession that future programs should place a greater emphasis on the biomedical and physical sciences. But whether this will be possible to do and still maintain the integrity of American anthropology as a “holistic” discipline remains to be seen.

LITERATURE CITED

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Shapiro, HL (1959) The history and development of physical anthropology. Am. Anthropol. 61:371-379.

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Spencer, F (1977) Two unpublished essays on the anthropology of North America by Benjamin Smith Barton. Isis 68:567-573.

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Stocking, GW, Jr (1968) Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology. New York The Free Press.

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Documents

The rise of academic physical anthropology in the United States (1880–1980): A historical overview