Margaret Mead

(Born: December 16, 1901 Died: November 15, 1978)

Early Life

Margaret Mead was born in Philadelphia but was raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She was the eldest child of Edward Sherwood Mead, a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and Emily (née Fogg) Mead. Her sister Katherine died at the young age of 9 months, and the death of her sister was very traumatic for Mead. She continued to think of her deceased sister often well into adulthood.

Mead earned her bachelor's degree from Barnard in 1923, then began studying with professor Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict at Columbia University, earning her master's degree in 1924. Mead set out in 1925 to do fieldwork in Samoa. In 1926, she joined the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, as assistant curator. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1929.

Mead was married three times total. Her first husband was Luther Cressman whom she was marreid to from 1923-1928. Mead married Reo Fortune for a period of time ending in 1935. Her third and final husband was Gregory Bateson, a fellow anthropologists. Bateson and Mead had a child whom they named Mary Catherine. Additionally, Mead and Bateson often worked together in their anthropological studies.

Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)

In 1935, Mead visited three different cultures in New Guinea; The Arapesh, The Mundugamor, and The Tchambuli. In these societies, Mead analyses the way that gender roles present themselves in these socities compared to America. In breif, she describes the gender roles amongst the Arapesh as equally peaceful, neither gender was known to be warlike or agressive, like men in America are thought to be. In Mundugamor society, both men and women were very agressive and warlike, the complete opposite of the Arapesh society. And in the Tchambuli, men and women acted in opposition to the roles in American society. The men were more passive and concerned with their appearances, whereas women were more practical and did the most of the work in Tchambuli society (Mead 1935). Her study of the three cultures helped support her idea that gender roles vary across cultures, due to the notion that gender is socially constructed.

Major Films...

Anthropological films Margaret Mead created with Gregory Bateson. Mead wrote the films as well as did the narration in them.

Trance and Dance in Bali

Bathing Babies in Three Cultures