Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Search this
Extent:
24.96 Linear feet (59 document boxes plus 1 oversize box)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Place:
Italy
Monte Castello di Vibio (Italy)
Date:
1939-2010
bulk 1949-2010
Summary:
The Sydel Silverman papers, 1939-2010 (bulk 1949-2010) document her field research in Italy, her work as an educator and foundation executive, and her involvement in professional organizations. Sydel Silverman taught at Queens College in New York, was Executive Officer of the CUNY Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, and served as president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Her primary fields of research have been agrarian communities in Italy and the history and practice of anthropology. Materials in the collection include field notes, journals, correspondence, calendars, published and unpublished writings, conference papers and lectures, teaching files, student files, photographs and slides, and sound recordings.
Scope and Contents:
This collection contains the professional papers of anthropologist Sydel Silverman. Included are research materials consisting of field notes, journals, other scholars' publications, and newspaper clippings; correspondence; postcards; calendars; published and unpublished writings; conference papers and lectures; brochures; itineraries; conference meeting notes; teaching files, including syllabi and reading lists; student files such as class notes and papers from Silverman's years as an anthropology student; photographs and slides; and sound recordings.
The materials in this collection document Silverman's travels through Italy while conducting field research, her role as an educator and academic administrator, and her involvement in professional organizations such as the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the American Anthropological Association. Silverman participated heavily in conferences and seminars across the U.S. and internationally. A copious note taker, Silverman recorded her reflections on many of these experiences. Her notes can be found throughout the collection.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into 10 series: (1) Field Research, 1939-2002 [bulk 1960-1987]; (2) Correspondence, 1959-2009; (3) Writings, 1963-2009; (4) Wenner-Gren Foundation Files, 1985-2009; (5) Professional Activities, 1961-2010; (6) Teaching Files, 1958-2005; (7) Biographical Files, 1961-2008; (8) Student Files, 1949-65; (9) Photographs, 1961-2002; (10) Sound Recordings, 1960-61
Biographical Note:
Sydel Silverman was an anthropologist known for her work as a researcher, writer, academic administrator, and foundation executive. Her career in anthropology began with her graduate studies at the University of Chicago (1952-1957) and Columbia University (1957-63). After graduation she started teaching at Queens College in New York (1962-75) and became Executive Officer of the CUNY Ph.D. Program in Anthropology (1975-86). After leaving CUNY, she moved on to the Wenner-Gren Foundation, serving as president of the Foundation from 1987 to 1999.
Silverman was born on May 20, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. Sydel, the youngest of seven siblings, was raised in the Jewish neighborhood of Lawndale on the west side of Chicago. Silverman credited her Uncle Hirschel for inspiring her to learn about foreign cultures and traditions, writing that her time spent with him reading about mysticism and oriental religions "may have been the beginnings of what became my interest in anthropology" (Silverman 2008).
Silverman graduated from high school in January 1951 and entered the University of Illinois at Navy Pier as a pre-med student. At the end of her second year at the University of Illinois, she entered the University of Chicago's program in Committee on Human Development, which combined study in biology, psychology, and sociology-anthropology. The program allowed students to enter with only two years of college with a special exam, which Silverman passed. She completed her Masters in 1957 and enrolled in the PhD program in Anthropology at Columbia University, during which she decided to focus her research on central Italy.
Silverman's first experience in Italy was in 1955 when she spent a year traveling through Europe with her first husband, Mel Silverman. They moved from city to city, beginning in Naples and then Rome, the city that Sydel writes was "the instant beginning of my love affair with Italy" (Silverman 2008). Upon their return from Europe the couple moved to New York. Sydel began working as a secretary but she soon decided to go back to school. She "picked anthropology, because it was the closest thing to being multi-disciplinary while still having a label, and Columbia was the obvious place to go in New York" (Silverman 2008). She was inspired to focus on the Mediterranean for her fieldwork because of Conrad Arensberg's cultural anthropological work in Europe.
In August of 1960 Sydel left for Italy to conduct a community study of the village Montecastello di Vibio. Silverman confessed in her memoirs that she was "never good at fieldwork," but she formed relationships with many of the locals who helped her collect data for her dissertation. Her research in Italy was one of the first social-anthropological studies of Central Italy and is known for its description of the traditional agrarian system of that area (the mezzadria) shortly before it was abolished by law. Silverman's dissertation research resulted in a book, Three Bells of Civilization, and numerous journal articles. She was awarded her Ph.D. in 1963.
Silverman's subsequent research in Italy included a study of a land reform area in the South (1967) and several field seasons (1980-85) devoted to a comparative study of competitive festivals in Central Italy. Most notable from this work are her publications on the Palio of Siena.
Silverman's other primary research interest has been in the history and practice of anthropology. She edited Totems and Teachers (1981, rev. 2004), a text about prominent anthropologists, and co-authored One Discipline Four Ways (2005). Her book The Beast on the Table (2002) analyzes twenty-five international symposia that she organized and led while at the Wenner-Gren Foundation and is a record of the living history of anthropology. She later became interested in parallels between the history of anthropology and that of the movies, which she presented as the 2006 Distinguished Lecture to the American Anthropological Association (published in The American Anthropologist Volume 109, Issue 3). In addition, she initiated an effort to save the primary documents of anthropology, co-authoring with Nancy Parezo the book Preserving the Anthropological Record (1992, rev. 1995) and co-organizing CoPAR (the Council for the Preservation of Anthropological Records).
Silverman's career as an administrator began in 1970 when she was elected as departmental chair at Queens College. In 1975 she was chosen as the Executive Officer of the CUNY Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, and under her leadership the program went from disarray and the threat of elimination to being cited as one of the ten top anthropology doctoral programs in the country. She also led a successful effort to retain full anthropology departments at all the senior CUNY colleges during the New York City budget crises of 1965-76. In 1987 she was appointed president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and acted as the spokesperson for the Foundation, overseeing fellowship and grant funding and advocating for the field of anthropology. She retired from Wenner-Gren in 1999.
Silverman died of cancer on March 25, 2019 at age 85.
Roberts, Sam. "Sydel Silverman, 85, Dies; Defended Anthropology in Academia." New York Times, April 5, 2019.
Chronology
1933 -- Born May 20 in Chicago, Illinois
1951 -- January: Entered University of Illinois at Navy Pier, pre-med, through August 1952
1952 -- Entered University of Chicago, Program in Human Development
1953 -- December 27: Married Mel Silverman
1957 -- September: Entered Columbia University, Department of Anthropology Received M.A. from University of Chicago
1960-1961 -- Conducted fieldwork in Montecastello di Vibio
1962 -- September: Began teaching classes at Queens College, CUNY
1963 -- PhD awarded
1966 -- Mel Silverman died
1968 -- Fall semester: Acting Chairman, Dept. of Anthro., Queens Tenure awarded, Queens College
1970-1973 -- Department Chairman, Anthropology, Queens
1972 -- March 18: Married Eric R. Wolf
1975 -- Executive Officer of Ph.D. Program in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate School (through June 1982)
1980-1982 -- Festival research and travels in Italy: Siena, Perugia, Gubbio, Rome, Florence, Geneva
1982-1983 -- September: Acting Dean of the Graduate School, CUNY
1987 -- President of Wenner-Gren Foundation
1999 -- Eric R. Wolf died Retired from Wenner-Gren presidency
2019 -- Silverman died of cancer on March 25 at age 85
Selected Bibliography
1968 -- Silverman, Sydel F. "Agricultural Organization, Social Structure, and Values in Italy: Amoral Familism Reconsidered." American Anthropologist 70 (February 1968): 1-20.
1970 -- Silverman, Sydel F. "'Exploitation' in Rural Central Italy: Structure and Ideology in Stratification Study." Comparative Studies in Society and History 12 (July 1970): 327-339.
1975 -- Silverman, Sydel. Three Bells of Civilization: the Life of an Italian Hill Town. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975.
1976 -- Silverman, Sydel. "Anthropology and the Crisis at CUNY." Anthropology News 17, no.10 (December 1976): 7-10.
1981 -- Silverman, Sydel, ed. Totems and Teachers: Key Figures in the History of Anthropology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
1984 -- Silverman, Sydel. "Anthropological Perspectives on Suicide." In Suicide: The Will to Live vs. The Will to Die, edited by Norman Linzer, 225-233. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1984.
1986 -- Silverman, Sydel. "Anthropology and History: Understanding the Boundaries." Historical Methods 19 (Summer 1986): 123-126.
1992 -- Silverman, Sydel and Nancy J. Parezo, eds. Preserving the Anthropological Record. New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 1992.
2002 -- Silverman, Sydel. The Beast on the Table: Conferencing with Anthropologists. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Sydel Silverman in April 2011.
Restrictions:
Files containing Silverman's students' grades and papers have been restricted, as have grant and fellowships applications sent to Silverman to review and her comments on them. For preservation reasons, the computer disks from The Beast on the Table are also restricted.
Access to the Sydel Silverman papers requires an appointment.
Sydel Silverman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The papers of Sydel Silverman were processed with the assistance of a Wenner-Gren Foundation Historical Archives Program grant awarded to Sydel Silverman.
The papers of Michiko Takaki, 1921-2011 (bulk 1960s), document her field work among the Kalinga people of the northern Philippines and her professional contributions as a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The papers consist primarily of economic and linguistic field data gathered between 1964 and 1968, used in the production of her doctoral dissertation ("Aspects of Exchange in a Kalinga Society, Northern Luzon," 1977) and throughout her anthropological career. The collection consists of field notes, maps, photographic prints, negatives, slides, sound recordings, recorded film, data and analysis, correspondence, working files and drafts, and publications.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Michiko Takaki, circa 1921-2011 (bulk 1960s), document her research into the Kalinga people of the northern Luzon region of the Philippines as both an economic and lingustic anthropologist. The collection consists of field notes; maps; photographic prints, negatives, and slides; sound recordings; recorded film; data and analysis; correspondence; working files and drafts; and publications.
The bulk of the collection consists of field-gathered data into the economics, culture, and language of the Kalinga people, created and compiled during Takaki's doctoral fieldwork in the Philippines between 1964 and 1968. This data was used in the production of her doctoral dissertation, "Aspects of Exchange in a Kalinga Society, Northern Luzon" (1977) and throughout the remainder of her career as a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In addition to Takaki, this material was often created or edited by her Kalinga research assistants during the period of her fieldwork or by her graduate student assistants at UMass-Boston. The material can be divided into the analytical categories related to the two main threads of Takaki's research: economic and subsistence activities, and linguistics. Economic material in the collection includes tables and tabulations of data on property, rice cultivation, and livestock use, as well as climatic data and cultural stories about exchange systems and subsistence work. Also included is gathered research into the Kalinga response to the Chico River Dam development project of the northern Luzon, an electric power generation project from the 1980s. Language material in the collection includes word lists, vocabulary slips, and morphology and phonology analysis that document the Kalinga language family of the northern Luzon. Also included are working files related to Takaki's project to translate Morice Vanoverbergh's Iloko Grammar into Kalinga.
Maps, photographic images, sound, and film contained in this collection largely document Takaki's fieldwork and research interests into Kalinga society and culture. Field-gathered data has been separated out into its own series. These materials - field notes and field data, maps, photographs, and sound and film recordings - form the first five series of the collection (Series 1-5). Research and analysis, compiled and refined from field-gathered data on the topics of culture, economics, and language, are arranged into their own three topical series (Series 6-8).
The collection also contains correspondence, as well as material documenting Takaki's professional life as a graduate student and faculty member. It includes grant applications, graduate essays, course preparation materials, professional presentations and publications, a curriculum vitae and tenure dossier from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a copy of her master's thesis, "A Case Study of Cross-Cultural Communication: Some Aspects of the Psychological Warfare as Applied by the United States against Japan during the World War II" (1960).
Arrangement:
The Michiko Takaki papers are divided into 10 series:
Series 1: Field data and field notes, 1935-1985 (bulk 1960s)
Series 2: Maps, circa 1950-2003, undated
Series 3: Photographs, circa 1964-2006
Series 4: Sound recordings, circa 1964-1995
Series 5: Films, circa 1964-1968
Series 6: Kalinga texts, circa 1960-2006, undated
Series 7: Economic and subsistence activities research and analysis, circa 1961-1997
Series 8: Lingustic research and analysis, 1921-1993
Series 9: Correspondence, 1960-2002
Series 10: Professional materials, circa 1958-2011
Biographical / Historical:
Michiko "Michi" Takaki was born on September 11, 1930 to Noboru Takaki and Sumiko Kohaka in Tokyo, Japan.
As a GARIOA Scholar (Government Appropriation for Relief in Occupied Areas), Takaki earned an associate's degree from Stephen's College in Columbia, Missouri (1952) and a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri (1953). She also earned a second bachelor's degree from the Tokyo Women's Christian University (1954), returning to the US to earn a master's degree in journalism from Southern Illinois University (1960). In the fall of 1960, Takaki began graduate studies in anthropology under Prof. Harold C. Conklin at Columbia University. Conklin transferred to the Department of Anthropology at Yale University in 1962. Takaki followed, completing her dissertation and earning her PhD from Yale in 1977.
From 1964 to 1968, Takaki completed a 46-month period of ethnographic fieldwork in the Philippines. Her dissertation, published in 1977, was entitled "Aspects of Exchange in a Kalinga Society, Northern Luzon." After a brief stint as a curator of Pacific ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History (1970-1973), Takaki became a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. While teaching, Takaki continued her research into the Northern Luzon region of the Philippines. Her early research into economic and subsistence activities gave way, in later years, to lingustic anthropology centered on the Kalinga language family. Takaki was granted tenure in 1980, and she remained on the UMass-Boston faculty until her retirement in 2002.
Michiko Takaki died in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 5, 2014.
Chronology
1930 September 11 -- Born in Tokyo, Japan
1951-1953 -- GARIOA Scholar (Government Appropriation for Relief in Occupied Areas)
1952 -- A.A. Stephens College
1953 -- B.A. Lindenwood College
1954 -- B.A. Tokyo Women's Christan University
1960 -- M.A. Southern Illinois University (Journalism)
1960-1962 -- Graduate coursework, Columbia University Department of Anthropology
1962-1968 -- Graduate coursework, Yale University Department of Anthropology
1964-1968 -- Field work in the Philippines
1964-1965 -- Research Fellow, International Rice Research Institute
1970-1973 -- Curator, Pacific Ethnology, Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History
1973-2002 -- Faculty, University of Massachusetts, Boston
1977 -- Ph.D. Yale University (Anthropology)
1980 November -- Awarded tenure by the University of Massachusetts, Boston
2014 December 5 -- Died in Boston, Massachusetts
Separated Materials:
The eleven film reels in the collection have been transferred to the Human Studies Film Archives, accession number HSFA 2017-009, but are described in this finding aid in Series 5: Films.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by R. Timothy Sieber, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts, Boston, in 2016.
Restrictions:
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Digital media in the collection is restricted for preservation reasons.
Access to the Michiko Takaki papers requires an appointment.
Annotated catalog of project reports, publications, working papers and training materials from grants and contracts on which Vivian E. Garrison, Ph.D. was Principal Investigator, now libraried in Columbia University, Department of Anthropology
The Vivian E. Garrison papers are open for research.
Certain materials in the collection contain personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI). These materials are restricted for 80 years from the date of their creation. Restricted materials are noted in the following finding aid and have been removed to boxes 54-61.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings.
Access to the Vivian E. Garrison papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Vivian E. Garrison papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
Arensberg, Conrad M. (Conrad Maynadier), 1910-1997 Search this
Extent:
108.29 Linear feet
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Place:
New York (State) -- New York City
New Jersey -- Newark
Date:
circa 1930-2009
bulk 1960-1993
Summary:
Vivian E. Garrison was an applied medical anthropologist who researched the cultural understandings and community treatment structures surrounding mental illness and mental health care among low-income, minority, and migrant communities of the New York metropolitan area. The Vivian E. Garrison papers document this research and consist of clinical and case files; research policies and protocols; presentations and workshops notes; manuscripts and drafts; publications and working papers; correspondence; grant applications; administrative files; sound recordings and films; annotated scholarly literature; and personal biographical material.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Vivian E. Garrison, circa 1930-2009 (bulk 1960-1993) document her work as an applied medical anthropologist in the New York metropolitan area. Garrison studied and published on the cultural understandings and community treatment structures surrounding mental illness and mental health care among low-income, minority, and migrant communities. The collection includes clinical and case files, sound recordings, and films; research policies and protocols; presentations and workshop notes and recordings; manuscripts and drafts; publications and working papers; correspondence; grant applications; administrative files; annotated scholarly literature (reprints and books); and personal biographical material.
The bulk of material in the collection relates to Garrison's research under and administration of different research grants focusing on community mental health care in the greater New York City area. As a research scientist at the Lincoln Hospital Mental Health Services (LHMHS), Garrison undertook anthropological research under the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant, "Study of Neighborhood Centers and Mental Health Aides" (1965-1969). The research completed at LHMHS was used in her dissertation (1971). Garrison continued her studies of the South Bronx populations at the Columbia-Bronx Research Center as principal investigator under the NIMH grant, "Folk Healers and Community Mental Health Programming" (1972-1975). She built upon that research as the director and principal investigator of the U.S. Public Health Grant "Inner-City Support Systems" (ICSS) from 1976-1982, run through the College (later University) of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (C/UMDNJ). Within the Resource Center for Multicultural Care and Prevention (RCMCP) at UMDNJ (born out of the ICSS program), Garrison administered the NIMH grant "Community Support Systems of Haitian Immigrants," (CSSHI) which transferred to Columbia University in 1984. Garrison's research under these and other grants was typically undertaken in concert with anthropological colleagues, community consultants, and medical professionals. The materials in this collection reflect the collaborative nature of this research process, as well as Garrison's administrative role at the ICSS project at UMDNJ. Some research notes, case files, and manuscript drafts of colleagues and contributors are present in this collection.
The collection also contains personal biographical, medical, and historical material documenting the lives of Vivian Garrison and her husband, anthropologist Conrad M. Arensberg. Much of this material relates to Arensberg's medical history and care in the last years of his life, as meticulously recorded and analyzed by Garrison. Personal material in the collection also relates to the preservation and destruction of her historic home in Rumson, New Jersey (the Morris-Salter-Hartshorn-Tredwell House).
Arrangement:
The Vivian E. Garrison papers are arranged into the following 10 series:
Series 1: Lincoln Hospital Mental Health Services, circa 1960-1973
Series 2: Columbia University Bronx Research Center, circa 1968-1977
Series 3: Inner-City Support System Project, circa 1968-1997
Series 4: Community Support Systems of Haitian Immigrants, circa 1973-1988
Series 5: Publications, manuscripts, and associated research files, circa 1960-2005
Series 6: Presentations, workshops, and conferences, 1969-2000
Series 7: Professional development files, 1955-2008
Series 8: Personal files, circa 1930-2009
Series 9: Scholarly literature and bibliographies, circa 1970s-1980s, undated
Series 10: Unprocessed material
Biographical Note:
Vivian Eva Garrison, known as "Kelly" to friends and colleagues, was an applied medical anthropologist who researched the cultural understandings and community treatment structures surrounding mental illness and mental health care among low-income, minority, and migrant communities the New York metropolitan area. She worked predominantly with African American, Hispanic, and Caribbean migrant populations in the South Bronx and in Newark, New Jersey.
Garrison was born on August 28, 1933 in Butte, Montana. She earned a B.A. in Spanish and psychology from New York University in 1961 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 1972. Her dissertation, Social Networks, Social Change and Mental Health among Migrants in a New York City Slum, was completed in 1971.
Garrison conducted her research under the purview of various federal and state grants to examine community mental health care. The majority of her research was completed at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, at the College/University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and at Columbia University.
Throughout her career, Garrison acted as a consultant in matters of folk healing and community health care and published frequently on folk healing, espiritismo, psychiatry, and psychiatric methodology. She taught intermittently, including teaching one semester of Margaret Mead's "Problems and Methods in Anthropology" course at Columbia University (1979). She also contributed to the President's Commission on Mental Health in 1977-1978.
Garrison married anthropologist Conrad M. Arensberg in 1973 and died in April 2013 at the age of 79.
Chronology
1933 August 28 -- Born in Butte, Montana
1961 -- B.A. New York University (Spanish and Psychology)
1965-1969 -- Research Scientist, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Grant "Study of Neighborhood Centers and Mental Health Aides," Lincoln Hospital Mental Health Services, Yeshiva University Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1969-1972 -- Assistant Professor and Staff Member, Program Information and Assessment Section, Connecticut Mental Health Center, Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine
1972 -- Ph.D. Columbia University (Anthropology)
1972-1973 -- Senior Research Associate, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
1972-1975 -- Senior Research Associate and Principal Investigator, NIMH Grant "Folk Healers and Community Mental Health Programming," Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
1973 -- Married Conrad M. Arensberg
1974-1985 -- Assistant to Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Mental Health Science, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), New Jersey Medical School
1976-1982 -- Principal Investigator, U.S. Public Health Grant "Inner-City Support Systems," UMDNJ
1979 -- Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University,
1980-1984 -- Director, Resource Center for Multicultural Care and Prevention, UMDNJ
1982-1984 -- Principal Investigator and Director, NIMH Grant "Community Support Systems of Haitian Immigrants," UMNDJ
1982-1984 -- Project Director, "Culturally Sensitive Case Management Training," State of New Jersey, Division of Mental Health and Hospitals, UMDNJ
1983-1986 -- Associate Research Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
1984-1985 -- Principal Investigator, U.S. Public Health Grant "Community Support Systems of Haitian Immigrants," Columbia University
1984-? -- Visiting Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School, King/Drew Medical Center
1986-? -- Senior Research Associate, Teachers College, Columbia University, Institute for Urban and Minority Education
2013 April 2 -- Died
Related Materials:
Conrad M. Arensberg papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Separated Materials:
The films in this collection have been transferred to the Human Studies Film Archives, accession number HSFA/NAFC 2017-013. They are described in this finding aid.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by the estate of Vivian Garrison Arensberg in 2017.
Restrictions:
The Vivian E. Garrison papers are open for research.
Certain materials in the collection contain personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI). These materials are restricted for 80 years from the date of their creation. Restricted materials are noted in the following finding aid and have been removed to boxes 54-61.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings.
Access to the Vivian E. Garrison papers requires an appointment.
18.37 Linear feet (32 document boxes, 2 card file boxes, one photo album, one oversize box, 2 map folders, and one document box of restricted materials.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Place:
Bahia (Brazil : State)
Date:
1946-1989
Summary:
This collection is comprised of the professional papers of Anthony Leeds, anthropologist and university professor. Leeds' reasearch was primarily concerned with urban development, though the fieldwork included in this collection is from rural areas. Included are correspondence, field notes, published and unpublished papers, photographs, newspaper and periodical clippings, conference papers, lecture notes, syllabi, critiques of colleague and student work, and several personal documents.
Scope and Contents:
This collection is comprised of the professional papers of Anthony Leeds, anthropologist and university professor. Included are correspondence, field notes, published and unpublished papers, photographs, newspaper and periodical clippings, conference papers, lecture notes, syllabi, critiques of colleague and student work, and personal documents such as calendars, biographical materials, and personal poems.
The materials in this collection reflect Leeds' field work in South America and Portugal, his role as a university professor, and his extensive involvement in various professional organizations. The majority of his anthropological endeavors focused on urban culture, the growth of technology and agriculture in society, and the philosophy behind anthropology and the social sciences. The fieldwork included in this collection is from early in his career, focusing on the study of Cacao agriculture in Brazil and the Yaruro people in Venezuela. The items in this collection document Leeds' various interests and activities.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged in 7 series: (1) Correspondence, 1950-1989; (2) Research, 1949-1989; (3) Field Work, 1950-1973; (4) University, 1947-1989; (5) Professional Activities, 1951-1988; (6) Personal, 1946-1989; (7) Photo Album, circa 1952
Biographical Note:
Anthony Leeds was born January 26, 1925 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Because of his parents' strong ties to Europe (both were of Jewish descent, with kin in Germany and England), Leeds spent a fair amount of his childhood in Vienna and Switzerland, where he became fluent in French and German. His father, a businessman and lawyer, died when Leeds was only three years old. Though his family returned to the United States in 1933 due to political unrest in Europe, Leeds continued to be exposed to world cultures and politics through his family. For instance, Leeds' mother was an actor, translator, and psychoanalyst who once studied at Freud's Psychoanalytic Institute in Vienna. His stepfather was not only a sculptor and musician, but also a political activist. This rich familial environment fostered an interest in the social sciences and the arts from a young age.
Leeds also got a taste for rural life when his mother moved to a working farm in Clinton Corners, New York in 1935. For the next nine years Leeds intermittently helped his mother with the farm work and attended a small high school in the area. Of his time spent at Clinton Corners, Leeds felt a strong sense of community which would make a profound influence in his understanding of rural settings as an anthropologist.
Leeds eventually attended Columbia University in New York City and received a B. A. in Anthropology in 1949. He then went directly into the graduate program at Columbia, where his fellow anthropology colleagues included Marvin Harris and Andrew P. Vayda. Some of his favorite professors and later influences were Alfred L. Kroeber, William Duncan Strong, and Karl Polyani. His dissertation was a study of the politics behind cocoa production in the Bahia region of Brazil. Conducted in 1951-1952, Leeds' investigation was one of four in Bahia supervised by Charles Wagley and Brazilian anthropologist Thales de Azevedo. This study led to his dissertation, "Economic Cycles in Brazil: The Persistence of a Total-Cultural Pattern: Cacao and Other Cases," in which Leeds analyzed the topic from a Marxist viewpoint.
After receiving his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1957, Leeds embarked on his primary career as a university professor. For the next 32 years, Leeds taught at a variety of institutions--first at Hofstra University and City College in New York City, then the University of Texas, and later at Boston University. In between, Leeds found the time to spend two years (1961-63) as the chief of the Program of Urban Development at the Pan-American Union (PAU) in Washington, D.C. He also spent a year (1972-73) at the Latin American centers in England associated with Oxford University and the University of London.
It was during his university years that Leeds focused on urban studies and urban analysis. Though he did conduct a brief study of the Yaruro peoples of Venezuela in 1958, the majority of his field work thereafter concerned urban development and its effects on society as a whole. Leeds made several field trips to Brazil and other areas of South America while working at the University of Texas; he specifically traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Bogota, Lima, and Santiago de Chile to study the cultural and political cultures of squatter settlements. From 1965 to 1966, Leeds received funding from the Social Science Research Council and the Ford Foundation to conduct a study of twelve specific favelas (squatter settlements) in Rio de Janeiro. For this fieldwork, Leeds organized Peace Corps volunteers, local community workers, academics (both foreign and Brazilian), and favela residents to help collect and analyze the data. It was during this trip that Leeds met Elizabeth Plotkin, a Peace Corps community action worker, who would later become Leeds' second wife and one of his most important collaborators. Together they wrote a book in Portuguese titled A Sociologia do Brasil Urbano (1978), based on their favela research.
In the 1970's Leeds and Plotkin made seven different trips to Portugal to follow different lines of research regarding the area. Leeds specifically researched the labor migration movements from the rural areas to the cities. He later wrote a book on his studies titled Minha Terra, Portugal: Lamentations and Celebrations (The Growth of an Ethnography and a Commitment), though it would go unpublished.
In his later years, Leeds not only took a more active role in various anthropological organizations (specifically those concerning the study of urban development), but he also became an active mentor to many students at Boston University. Leeds supported a variety of graduate student research in anthropology at Boston, as well as student research from other neighboring New England universities. In addition, Leeds began a "Thursday Night Group" that regularly met at his home in Dedham, Massachusetts to discuss a variety of anthropological subjects.
On February 20th, 1989, Leeds died of a heart attack in his Randolph, Vermont farmhouse.
Sources Consulted
Sieber, Timothy R. "The Life of Anthony Leeds: Unity in Diversity." In Cities, Classes, and Social Order, by Anthony Leeds, edited Roger Sanjek, 3-26. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Chronology
1925 -- Born January 26 in New York, New York
1949 -- Earns B.A. in Anthropology from Columbia University
1951-52 -- Conducts disseration field work in the Cacao region of Bahia, Brazil, where he studies the political economy of cocoa production
1956-61 -- Teaches at Hofstra University and later City College, both in New York City
1957 -- Completes dissertation, titled "Economic Cycles in Brazil: The Persistence of a Total-Cultural Pattern: Cacao and Other Cases"
1958 -- Conducts brief field work studying the Yaruro people in Venezuela
1961-63 -- Head of the Program of Urban Development at the Pan-American Union (PAU) in Washington, D.C.
1963-72 -- Professor at the University of Texas-Austin
1965-66 -- Organizes Peace Corps volunteers, Brazilian and foreign academics, and local residents to conduct an intense study of twelve favelas (Brazilian squatter settlements) in Rio de Janeiro
1972-73 -- Spends a transitional year teaching at the Latin American centers at Oxford University and the University of London
1973-89 -- Professor at Boston University
1976-80 -- Takes several field trips to Portugal with his second wife, Elizabeth Plotkin Leeds; there he studies Portuguese labor migrations
1978 -- Sociologia do Brasil Urbano, co-written with Elizabeth Plotkin Leeds, is published
1989 -- Leeds dies of a heart attack on February 20 in Randolph, Vermont at the age of 64
Selected Bibliography
1964 -- Leeds, Anthony. "Brazilian Careers and Social Structure: An Evolutionary Model and Case History." American Anthropologist 66 (1964): 1321-47.
1965 -- Leeds, Anthony and Andrew P. Vayda. Man, Culture, and Animals: The Role of Animals in Human Ecological Adjustment. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1965.
1968 -- Leeds, Anthony. "The Anthropology of Cities: Some Methodological Issues." In Urban Anthropology, Research Perspectives and Strategies, edited by M. Fried, M. Harris, and R. Murphy, 31-47. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1968.
1971 -- Leeds, Anthony. "The Culture of Poverty Concept- Conceptual, Logical, and Empirical Problems, with Perspectives from Brazil and Peru." In The Culture of Poverty, A Critique, edited by E. Leacock, 226-284. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971.
1976 -- Leeds, Anthony and Elizabeth Leeds. "Accounting for Behavioral Differences: Three Political Systems and the Responses of Squatters to them in Brazil, Peru, and Chile." In The City in Comparative Perspective: Cross-National Research and New Directions in Theory, edited by J. Walton and L. H. Masotti, 193-248. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1976.
1978 -- Leeds, Anthony and Elizabeth Leeds. A Sociologia do Brasil Urbano. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar Editora, 1978.
1979 -- Leeds, Anthony. "Forms of Urban Integration: "Social Urbanization" in Comparative Perspective." Urban Anthropology 8, no. 3/4 (1979): 227-27.
1981 -- Leeds, Anthony. "Low Income Urban Settlement Types, Processes, Structures, Policies." In The Residential Circumstances of the Urban Poor in Developing Countries, edited by United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, 21-61. New York: Praeger, 1981.
1984 -- Leeds, Anthony. "Cities and Countryside in Anthropology." In Cities of the Mind, edited by Lloyd Rodwin and Robert M. Hollister, 291-311. New York: Plenum, 1984.
Related Materials:
Anthony Leeds' correspondence and writings can also be found in the Marvin Harris papers at the National Anthropological Archives.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Columbia University's Department of Anthropology.
Restrictions:
Graded materials of Anthony Leeds' students and grant applications that he reviewed are restricted. His photo album is also restricted due to preservation concerns.
May Mayko Ebihara's oral history interviews with Conrad Arensberg (3/7/84); Harold Conklin (1/26/82); William Davenport (8/19/82); James B. Griffin (10/7/81); Jane Richardson Hanks (8/6/82); Lucien M. Hanks (8/7/82); Robert Heizer and George Foster (10/2/74); Charles Hocket (8/25/81); Thomas Kirsch (8/25/81); Alfred Kroeber, et al. on Sapir (dub 5/11/1959); Floyd Lounsbury (1/27/82); David Mandelbaum (11/9/78); Margaret Mead (12/8/66); Mervyn Meggitt; Robert and Beatrice Miller (7/29/86); Horace Miner (10/7/81); George P. Murdock (8/20/82); Robert Murphy (10/17/80); John V. Murra (8/24/81); Leopold Pospisil (1/28/82); Irving Rouse (1/27/82); Lauriston Sharp (5/6/82); Edward Shils (11/19/83); Robert J. Smith (8/26/81). Also includes typewritten transcripts for some of the above, as well as for interviews with Theodore Stern and David H. French. The collection also contains notes on anthropology departments at Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2009-15
Other Archival Materials:
May Ebihara's Reed College bachelor's thesis (1955), "An Ethnohistorical Study of the Shoshoni Indians of the Northern Basin," was received with the collection and transferred to the John Wesley Powell Library of Anthropology.
The bulk of this collection documents the professional life of Ruth Leah Bunzel from the 1940s to 1970s. The collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, notes, research files, teaching materials, card files, artwork, and sound recordings.
Scope and Contents:
The bulk of this collection documents the professional life of Ruth Leah Bunzel from the 1940s to 1970s. The collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, notes, research files, teaching materials, card files, artwork, and sound recordings. A large portion of the collection is comprised of work from the Chinese project that Bunzel led as part of Columbia University Research in Contemporary Cultures [RCC]. The collection also contains her paper for the Bureau of Applied Social Research, "Interviewing in National Character Research" (in which she analyzes the methods used in RCC), as well as materials from two spin-offs of RCC--Studies in Soviet Culture and Studies in Contemporary Cultures. Bunzel's relationship with Columbia University is also represented in the collection through her notes as lecturer and adjunct professor at Columbia University, correspondence with her students, and her students' papers. Among her students was Ethel Cutler Freeman, whose letters and assignments can be found in the collection. There are also memos and other materials documenting the activities of the anthropology department and university, as well as their responses to the 1968 student uprising at Columbia. In addition, the collection contains notes from courses Bunzel took with Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict as a graduate student at Columbia.
Other items of significance are the drawings of Hopi and Zuni kachinas that Bunzel collected while in the field in the Southwest and a map of a Tewa village sketched in pencil. The collection does not contain any of her field notes from her work in the Southwest nor from her work in Guatemala or Mexico.
Although Bunzel's writings are not well represented in the collection, there are items of interest such as typescript copies of "Tentative Questionnaire for Handbook of Psychological Leads for Ethnological Field Workers: Economics," her handwritten reminiscence of Boas, and drafts of papers she presented at conferences. Also of interest are notes on her memories of the Abram Kardiner psychocultural seminars (in which she was an early participant), notes from various seminars, and two 1963 sound recordings from an Anthropology and World Affairs regional conference.
Among her notable correspondents in the collection are David F. Aberle, Franziska Boas, Steve Boggs, Paul Bohannan, Joseph Casagrande, Vincent Crapanzano, Harold Driver, Abe Edel, Raymond Fogelson,Morton H. Fried, Ethel Cutler Freeman, Alexander Lesser, Oscar Lewis, George Marcus, Catharine McClellan, Margaret Mead, Lita Fejos Osmundson, George Spindler, Leslie White, Helene Boas Yampolsky, and Mark Zborowski.
Arrangement:
Arranged into 9 series: (1) Correspondence, 1957-1977; (2) Research in Contemporary Cultures, 1947-1954; (3) Columbia University, 1925-1941 & 1956-1969; (4) Writings and Projects, 1929-1968 [Bulk 1960-1968]; (5) Associations, Conferences, & Seminars, 1940-1973; (6) Writings by Others, 1921-1979; (7) Card Files; (8) Artwork; (9) Sound Recordings, 1963
Biographical Note:
Ruth Leah Bunzel was born on April 18, 1898 in New York City. Known as "Bunny" by her friends, she attended Barnard College where she received her B.A. in European History in 1918. With no thought of continuing her education, she acquired a job in 1922 as secretary and editorial assistant to Franz Boas at Columbia University. Esther Goldfrank, who had resigned as Boas's secretary to study anthropology at Columbia, was a friend of one of Bunzel's sisters.
By 1924 Bunzel, herself, was considering a career in anthropology and wanted to observe an anthropologist at work in the field. Since Boas traveled to Europe every summer, Bunzel decided to spend her vacation that year in Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico as a secretary to Ruth Benedict, who would be collecting Zuni mythology. When she informed Boas of her plan, Boas encouraged her to work on her own research rather than spending her time on secretarial work. He suggested that she study art, specifically potters and their pottery. Elsie Clews Parsons objected to Bunzel (who lacked formal training) conducting her own research in Zuni and threatened to withdraw her financial support of Benedict's mythology project. With Boas's firm backing, Parsons eventually relented and Bunzel was allowed to go to Zuni.
When she returned to New York, she began work on a draft of The Pueblo Potter and in 1925 resigned as Boas's secretary to become his student at Columbia University. Although she completed her doctoral work and dissertation in 1927, she was not awarded her PhD until 1929 when the The Pueblo Potter was published. (At the time, the university did not confer doctorates until a student's dissertation had been published.) The Pueblo Potter, a landmark work, was the first anthropological study of art and the individual in culture.
From 1924 to 1929 Bunzel spent several summers and winters in Zuni. Parsons, who had initially opposed her first trip, sponsored Bunzel's second trip, this time to study ceremonialism, and other trips and projects. Bunzel's papers on Zuni ceremonialism as well as creation myths, kachinas, and poetry were published in the 47th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1932). Flora Zuni and her family, with whom Bunzel lived when she was in the field, formally adopted her and initiated her into their clan, the Beaver clan. They gave her the Zuni name Maiatitsa, which means "blue bird," a reference to the blue smock that Bunzel often wore while making pottery. Bunzel's second Zuni name, Tsatitsa, was given to her by her primary informant and former governor of the pueblo, Nick Tumaka. After a decade long absence, Bunzel returned to Zuni for her last time in 1939 to study child development.
Having studied the Southwest, Bunzel felt it was natural to also study Mexico. During her interview for a Guggenheim Fellowship, however, the chairman of the foundation persuaded her to study Guatemala, instead, as no American anthropologist had done much work in the area. As a result, from 1930 to 1932 she studied the Highland Mayan village of Santo Tomas Chichicastenango. Her work there resulted in Chichicastenango, A Guatemalan Village, published in 1952. From 1936 to 1937 she also did fieldwork in the village of Chamula in Chiapas, Mexico. Her 1940 article "The Role of Alcoholism in Two Central American Communities" was a comparative study of Chichicastenango and Chamula.
During World War II, Bunzel worked in England for the U.S. Government Office of War Information from 1942 to 1945. Having spent some time in Spain during the late 1930s improving her Spanish, she translated broadcasts for Spain as well as incoming broadcasts.
When she returned to New York after the war, she became involved in the Columbia University Research in Contemporary Cultures project [RCC]. Directed by Ruth Benedict and funded by the Office of Naval Research, RCC was composed of research groups, each studying a different culture. From 1947 to 1951, Bunzel led the group studying China, which involved interviewing Chinese immigrants in New York City. The project produced several papers, including her unpublished manuscripts, Explorations in Chinese Culture and An Anthropological Approach to Chinese Communism, which she co-authored with John Hast Weakland.
Early in her career, Bunzel was a lecturer at Barnard College (1929-1930) and at Columbia University (1933-1935, 1937-1940). It was not until 1953 that she was hired as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia. Although the university's official appointment card lists Bunzel as having retired in 1966, she continued to teach at Columbia University after her retirement.
On January 14, 1990, Bunzel passed away at the age of 91.
Sources Consulted
Babcock, Barbara A. and Nancy Parezo. "Ruth Bunzel." Daughters of the Desert. University of New Mexico. 1988.
Fawcett, David M. and Teri McLuhan. "Ruth Leah Bunzel." Women Anthropologists: Selected Biographies. Ed. Ute Gacs, et al. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
Chronology
1898 -- Born April 18 in New York, New York
1918 -- Earns B.A. from Barnard College in European History
1922-1924 -- Secretary and editorial assistant to Franz Boas
1924 -- First trip to Zuni, New Mexico
1925 -- Enrolls in Columbia University's graduate program in anthropology
1925-1929 -- Spends summers and winters conducting fieldwork among the Zuni
1927-1928 -- Studies at University of Chicago
1928-1943 -- Executive Committee Board of AAA
1929 -- Studies at the National University of Mexico Publication of dissertation, The Pueblo Potter, A Study of Creative Imagination in Primitive Art Receives Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University
1929-1930 -- Lecturer at Barnard College
1930-1932 -- Fieldwork in Chichicastenango, Guatemala
1933-1935 -- Lecturer, General Studies and Summer Session, Columbia University
1936-1937 -- Lecturer, General Studies and Summer Session, Columbia University
1939 -- Fieldwork in Zuni studying child development
1942-1945 -- Social Scientist U.S. Government Office of War Information, Propoganda Analysis
1947-1951 -- Director of Chinese Project of Columbia University Research in Contemporary Cultures
1951-1952 -- Works on Bureau of Applied Social Research project on techniques of interviewing
1953 -- Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
1955 -- Research Associate, Institute of Intercultural Studies
1962 -- Teaching-consultant, Columbia University School of Nursing
1969-1987 -- Senior Research Associate, Columbia University
1974-1976 -- Chair, Section H, AAAS
1990 -- Dies January 14 in New York City at the age of 91
Selected Bibliography
1929 -- The Pueblo Potter, A Study of Creative Imagination in Primitive Art. New York: Columbia University Press.
1932 -- "Zuni Ritual Poetry." Ibid. "Introduction to Zuni Ceremonialism." 47th Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution. Washington: Government Printing Office. "Zuni Creation Myths." Ibid. "Zuni Katchinas." Ibid.
1933 -- Zuni Texts. Publications of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. 15. New York: G.E. Stechert and Company.
1938 -- "Zuni Grammar." Handbook of American Indian Languages, Vol. 3. New York: Columbia University Press. "The Economic Organization of Primitive People." Ibid. "Primitive Art." General Anthropology. Boston: D.C. Heath .
1940 -- "The Role of Alcoholism in Two Central American Communities." Psychiatry, Vol 33, pp. 361-387.
1950 -- Explorations in Chinese Culture. Research in Contemporary Cultures, Columbia University. (unpublished report)
1952 -- Chichicastenango, A Guatemalan Village. Publications of the American Ethnological Society, Vol 22. Locust Valley, New York: J. J. Auigustin. with John Weakland. An Anthropological Approach to Chinese Communism. Research in Contemporary Cultures, Columbia University. (unpublished report)
1960 -- edited with Margaret Mead. The Golden Age of American Anthropology. New York: George Braziller.
1966 -- "May Mandelbaum Edel 1909-1964." American Anthropologist, Vol 68, No. 4, pp. 986-989.
1976 -- "Chamula and Chichicastenango: A Reexamination." Cross-Cultural Approaches to the Study of Alcohol. The Hague: Mouton.
Related Collections:
Other materials relating to Ruth Bunzel at the National Anthropological Archives include kachina drawings in MS 4609; correspondence with the Bureau of American Ethnology in MS 4846 and the Records of the Bureau of American Ethnology; and a photograph of Bunzel in Photographic Lot 92-35. The Human Studies Film Archive has a video oral history of Bunzel (HSFA 89.10.8) which was created as part of the "History of Anthropology Series" produced by the University of Florida's Department of Anthropology.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Columbia University's Department of Anthropology.
Restrictions:
Materials with student grades were separated and have been restricted. Most of the restricted materials are not open for access until 2030.
Rights:
Contact repository for terms of use.
Sponsor:
Processed with the support of a Wenner-Gren Foundation Historical Archives Program grant.
