Margaret Mead Papers and the South Pacific Ethnographic Archives ...

Phillips and E. W. Pearson Chinnery, government anthropologist from New Guinea; Peter Henry
Buck and Kenneth Pike Emory of the Bishop Museum in Hawaii; and Katharane Edson Mershon,
Walter Spies, and Madþ Kalþr, who assisted Mead and Bateson in their initial fieldwork in Bali in
the 1930s. Other professional colleagues represented include John Dollard, Mary Shattuck Fisher,
Raymond William Firth, Frank Fremont-Smith, Margaret E. Fries, Clifford Geertz and Hildred
Geertz, Herbert Ian Hogbin, G. Evelyn Hutchinson, Phyllis Mary Kaberry, Clyde Kluckhohn, Alfred
L. Kroeber, Harold Dwight Lasswell, Robert Harry Lowie, Philip E. Mosely, William Fielding
Ogburn, Douglas L. Oliver, and John Wesley Mayhew Whiting.
The Curriculum Vitae file, 1925-1979, contains biographical information and letters of
recommendation in support of educational, employment, grant, and fellowship applications by
students, colleagues, friends, and family. Items related to the achievements and qualifications of
applicants are supplemented by correspondence.
Mead's activities in a wide range of organizations are documented in both the Organizations File
and Special Working Group series, chiefly dated 1940 to 1978 and revealing involvement with
professional associations as well as other groups ranging in concern from health and nutrition to
cybernetics and ekistics. Mead's American Anthropological Association (AAA) files include
correspondence with Gregory Bateson, Eliot Dismore Chapple, A. Irving Hallowell, Melville J.
Herskovits, Clyde Kluckhohn, Alfred L. Kroeber, Kurt Lewin, Robert Harry Lowie, Sol Tax, and
others. In addition to correspondence, there are drafts of presentations given at AAA functions as
well as programs and administrative papers, particularly for 1960 when Mead served as president
of the organization. The most voluminous files in these series are for Mead's work with the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Particularly significant are her
contributions to the Committee on Science in the Promotion of Human Welfare. The materials are
most extensive for the years 1975-1976, when Mead served first as president and later as
chairwoman of the Board of Directors. These files provide insight into Mead's philosophy on race,
technological change, population, and world peace.
Beginning in 1934 with the Hanover Seminar, Mead became involved with interdisciplinary work
study groups, the most notable of which are represented by files in the Special Working Group
series, 1931-1978. She and Gregory Bateson applied their anthropological field training to
culturally related problems of World War II, joining with other concerned social scientists to form
the Committee for National Morale under the direction of Arthur Upham Pope. However, most of
Mead's wartime contributions evolved from her duties as executive secretary of the National
Research Council's Committee on Food Habits. In later years she worked with professionals from
other disciplines in such groups as the World Federation for Mental Health, the World Health
Organization, and the World Society for Ekistics. Following the death of Ruth Benedict in 1948,
Mead became coordinator of the Columbia University Research in Contemporary Cultures projects,
in which interdisciplinary teams were assembled to study world cultures from sources available
primarily in the United States. Through analysis of literature, film, interviews with immigrants, and
other research material, thousands of documents were amassed on the cultural traits of the peoples
of China, Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, Russia, Syria, Turkey, and other countries. There were
also cross-cultural studies on Jewish culture and on children. Documents for this project and its
successor studies on Chinese political character and human ecology, Soviet culture and
communication, and German national character are in the Projects in Contemporary Cultures
series.
The Scheduling File, 1928-1979, includes appointment books and memoranda and folders
containing correspondence, abstracts of lectures, and related items for speaking engagements,
personal appearances, conferences, office appointments, and other activities. Mead's practice of
conducting office business while on her trips resulted in unrelated material being filed with
scheduling papers. A list of folder headings is filed in the first box of the folders.
Mead continued to publish prolifically throughout her life. The Publications and Other Writings
series, 1923-1980, includes a nearly complete set of her published and unpublished work.
Margaret Mead Papers and the South Pacific Ethnographic Archives 11