The Lessons of Franz Boas

Franz Boas, who emigrated to the United States in the late nineteenth century from Germany, ultimately became known as the “father of American anthropology.” Soon after arrival, he began efforts on the most vexing issue in the country at that time (and many would say it remains an important issue to this day), the “Negro question.” How did he become so widely known, both in his adopted country and around the world? What alerted him to the fraught question of race relations in the United States? How did he come to have such influence? At one point, most of the departments of anthropology in the country were headed by his students.