American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

Boas, Franz 1858-1942
birth: July 9, 1858
death: December 21, 1942
Curator
Franz Boas is considered the "father of modern anthropology" for his pioneering work on race, culture, and language. Boas trained the first generation of professional American anthropologists including Ruth Benedict, Alfred L. Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Margaret Mead, and Edward Sapir. He organized the Jesup North Pacific Expedition as an ambitious comprehensive project on the cultures and history of the North Pacific region focused on the question of human migration from Asia across the Bering Strait. Between 1897 and 1903 Boas secured funding, fielded research teams, and over the next three decades, edited and supervised Expedition publications in addition to his other writing
Worked at the American Museum of Natural History in the Department of Anthropology.