ZORA NEALE HURSTON FRANZ BOAS PROFESSIONAL

Ruth Benedict and Ashley Montague both desperately tried to disabuse readers of the race constructionism and fanaticism that led to the atrocities of the Holocaust. The treatment of race in sciences such as anthropology underwent significant changes between the eugenics movement of the early 1920s and the post–World War II emphases on cultural determinism and race relations as the prominent fields of inquiry. The sociohistorical evolution of the discipline provides an illuminating context for the contributions these women of color would make to the field. 1 Most noteworthy, incongruous, and, for me, disquieting is that both remarkable researchers and historians died not only impoverished but in relative obscurity-unlike Boas, Ruth Benedict, or Margaret Mead, for example, who reaped the benefits (including recognition and lasting veneration in the field) of Hurston's and Deloria's tireless dedication. Hurston's hardship, according to extant letters located at APS, primarily delayed her pursuit of a doctorate and-according to Lorraine Roses and Ruth Randolph's biographical and critical insights-resulted in part from mismanagement of funds. Likewise, both suffered tremendous financial stress, though Deloria's was more often pronounced and varied because of her dire socioeconomic straits, which impinged on her familial obligations. Both women were resilient in the face of relentless racism, though they demonstrated their tenacity differently: Deloria, through eloquent candor, and Hurston, through fearless wit. Hurston seemed more inclined to iconizehim (signing a 10 October 1929 letter, for instance, 'Much love and reverence'), while Deloria occasionally expressed covertly her resentment of white expectations of her.

ZORA NEALE HURSTON FRANZ BOAS PROFESSIONAL

I have criticized both quite unfavorably but I had to, they were so trashy I should not like to be thought to pass on them.' It became their mission, thus, to offer antidotal efforts through extensive, rigorous fieldwork.īoth Hurston and Deloria were extremely dedicated to their intellectual and professional mentor, Boas.

In a correspondence with Boas, Deloria explained that she had been reading a couple of manuscripts for a publishing house: 'It is amazing what people write about Indians. Both women were stunned by what had passed for 'folklore' about their respective communities and could hardly bear it. Both Hurston and Deloria spent a good part of the 1920s and 1930s marshalling their expertise for the father of modern anthropology, Franz Boas. var target = $(this).children('a').attr('title') //$('.side_button').children('a').What did or could African American folklorist and writer Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) and American Indian ethnographer and linguist Ella Cara Deloria (1888–1971) have in common? According to their correspondences housed at the American Philosophical Society ( APS) in Philadelphia, they have more in common than those who have been conditioned to think of race in dualistic terms and apart from class might assume. The story of a Black writer and anthropologist who committed her career to studying and celebrating African American folklore and culture. Harlem Renaissance Author and Anthropologist Life Story: Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) Home / Confidence and Crises, 1920-1948 / The Jazz Age / Life Story: Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) New-York Historical Society Library.Īstronaut Ellen Ochoa, mission specialist, carries her son Wilson Miles-Ochoa following the STS-96 crew return at Ellington Field. “Oportunidades Iguales Para Las Mujeres En El Trabajo y La Educaccion”, Women’s Strike for Equality, New York, Fifth Avenue, 1970, Eugene Gordon photograph collection, 1970-1990. Smithsonian Institute Archives Image # SIA 2010-1509. Gertrude Kasebier, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.Ĭhien-shiung Wu (1912-1997), professor of physics at Columbia University, 1963. Gertrude Kasebier (photographer), Zitkala Sa, Sioux Indian and activist, c. University of Chicago Library, Special Collections Research Center. New-York Historical Society Library.Ĭihak and Zima (photographer), Ida B. Unidentified African American woman in uniform, 1861. Unknown photographer, A Typical Boomer Family, ca. Jarena Lee: giving an account of her call to preach the gospel, frontispiece. The Historic New Orleans Collection, acc.

Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City.įrançois (Franz) Fleischbein (artist), Portrait of Betsy, 1837. Nicolás Enríquez de Vargas (artist), Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, ca. Life Story: Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) - Women & the American Story

Zora neale hurston franz boas