Ralph Linton (27 February 1893 – 24 December 1953) was an American
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
of the mid-20th century, particularly remembered for his texts ''The Study of Man'' (1936) and ''The Tree of Culture'' (1955). One of Linton's major contributions to anthropology was defining a distinction between status and role.
Early life and education
Linton was born into a family of
Quaker restaurant entrepreneurs in Philadelphia in 1893 and entered
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the e ...
in 1911. He was an indifferent student and resisted his father's pressures to prepare himself for the life of a professional. He grew interested in archaeology after participating in a field school in the southwest and took a year off of his studies to participate in another archaeological excavation at
Quiriguá in
Guatemala
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
. Having found a strong focus he graduated
Phi Beta Kappa
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...
in 1915.
Although Linton became a prominent anthropologist, his graduate education took place largely at the periphery of the discipline. He attended the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
, where he earned his master's degree studying with
Frank Speck while undertaking additional archaeological field work in New Jersey and New Mexico.
He was admitted to a Ph.D. program at
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
thereafter, but did not become close to
Franz Boas, the doyen of anthropology in that era. When America entered
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, Linton enlisted and served in France during 1917–1919 with Battery D,
149th Field Artillery, 42nd (Rainbow) Division. Linton served as a corporal and saw battle at the trenches, experiencing first hand a German gas attack. Linton's military experience would be a major influence on his subsequent work. One of his first published articles was "''Totemism and the A.E.F.''" (Published in
American Anthropologist vol. 26:294–300)", in which he argued that the way in which military units often identified with their symbols could be considered a kind of
totemism.
[Gillin, John. (1954) Ralph Linton 1893–1953. American Anthropologist, 56:274–280]
His military fervor probably did not do anything to improve his relationship with the pacifist Franz Boas, who abhorred all displays of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...
or
jingoism. An anecdote has it that Linton was rebuked by Boas when he appeared in class in his military uniform.
Whatever the cause, shortly after his return to the United States, he transferred from Columbia to
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
, where he studied with
Earnest Hooton,
Alfred Tozzer, and
Roland Dixon.
After a year of classes at Harvard, Linton proceeded to do more fieldwork, first at
Mesa Verde and then as a member of the
Bayard Dominick Expedition led by
E.S.C. Handy under the auspices of the
Bishop Museum
The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, designated the Hawaii State Museum of Natural and Cultural History, is a museum of history and science in the historic Kalihi district of Honolulu, Hawaii, Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. Founded in 1 ...
to the
Marquesas.
While in the Pacific, his focus shifted from archaeology to
cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The term ...
, although he would retain a keen interest in material culture and 'primitive' art throughout his life. He returned from the Marquesas in 1922 and eventually received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1925.
[Kluckhohn, Clyde. 1958. Ralph Linton 1893–1953: A biographical Memoir. National Academy of the Sciences.]
Academic career
Linton used his Harvard connections to secure a position at the
Field Museum of Chicago after his return from the Marquesas. His official position was as Curator of American Indian materials. He continued working on digs in Ohio which he had first begun as a graduate student, but also began working through the museum's archival material on the
Pawnee and published data collected by others in a series of articles and museum bulletins. While at the Field Museum he worked with illustrator and future children's book artist and author
Holling Clancy Holling.
Between 1925 and 1927, Linton undertook an extensive collecting trip to Madagascar for the field museum, exploring the western end of the
Austronesian diaspora after having studied the eastern end of this culture in the Marquesas. He did his own fieldwork there as well, and the book that resulted, ''The Tanala: A Hill Tribe of Madagascar'' (1933), was the most detailed ethnography he would publish.
On his return to the United States, Linton took a position at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...
, where the Department of Sociology had expanded to include an anthropology unit. Linton thus served as the first member of what would later become a separate department. Several of his students went on to become important anthropologists, such as
Clyde Kluckhohn,
Marvin Opler,
Philleo Nash, and
Sol Tax. Up to this point, Linton had been primarily a researcher in a rather romantic vein, and his years at Wisconsin were the period in which he developed his ability to teach and publish as a theoretician. This fact, combined with his penchant for popular writing and his intellectual encounter with
Radcliffe-Brown (then at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
), led to the publication of his textbook ''The Study of Man'' (1936).
It was also during this period that he married his third wife,
Adelin Hohlfeld, who worked as his secretary and editor as well as his collaborator—many of the popular pieces published jointly by them (such as ''Halloween Through Twenty Centuries'') were in fact entirely written by Adelin Hohlfield.
In 1937 Linton came to Columbia University, appointed to the post of head of the Anthropology department after the retirement of
Franz Boas. The choice was opposed by most of Boas' students, with whom Linton had never been on good terms. The Boasians had expected
Ruth Benedict to be the choice for Boas' successor. As head of the department Linton informed against Boas and many of his students to the FBI, accusing them of being communists. This led to some of them being fired and blacklisted, for example
Gene Weltfish.
[David H. Price. 2004. Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists. Duke University Press p. 112] Throughout his life Linton maintained an intense personal animosity against the Boasians, particularly against Ruth Benedict, and he was a fierce critic of the
Culture and Personality approach. According to
Sidney Mintz who was a colleague of Linton at Yale, he even once jokingly boasted that he had killed Benedict using a Tanala magic charm.
[Sydel Silverman. 2004. Totems and Teachers: Key Figures in the History of Anthropology. Rowman Altamira p. 118]
When
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
broke out, Linton became involved in war-planning and his thoughts on the war and the role of the United States (and American Anthropology) could be seen in several works of the post-war period, most notably ''The Science of Man in the World Crisis'' (1945) and ''Most of the World''. It was during the war that Linton also undertook a long trip to South America, where he experienced a coronary occlusion that left him in precarious health.
After the war Linton moved to
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
, a center for anthropologists such as
G. P. Murdock who had collaborated with the US government. He taught there from 1946 to 1953, where he continued to publish on culture and personality. It was during this period that he also began writing ''The Tree of Culture'', an ambitious global overview of human culture. Linton was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
in 1950.
He died of complications relating to his trip in South America on Christmas Eve, 1953. His wife, Adelin Hohlfield Linton, completed ''The Tree of Culture'' which went on to become a popular textbook.
Work
''The Study of Man'' established Linton as one of anthropology's premier theorists, particularly amongst sociologists who worked outside of the Boasian mainstream. In this work he developed the concepts of
status and
role for describing the patterns of behavior in society. According to Linton,
ascribed status
Ascribed status is a term used in sociology that refers to the social status of a person that is assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life. The status is a position that is neither earned by the person nor chosen for them. It is g ...
is assigned to an individual without reference to their innate differences or abilities. Whereas
Achieved status is determined by an individual's performance or effort. Linton noted that while the definitions of the two concepts are clear and distinct, it is not always easy to identify whether an individual's status is ascribed or achieved. His perspective offers a deviation from the view that ascribed statuses are always fixed. For Linton a
role is the set of behaviors associated with a status, and performing the role by doing the associated behaviors is the way in which a status is inhabited.
Throughout this early period Linton became interested in the problem of
acculturation
Acculturation refers to the psychological, social, and cultural transformation that takes place through direct contact between two cultures, wherein one or both engage in adapting to dominant cultural influences without compromising their essent ...
, working with
Robert Redfield and
Melville Herskovits on a prestigious Social Science Research Council subcommittee of the Committee on Personality and Culture. The result was a seminal jointly-authored piece entitled ''Memorandum for the Study of Acculturation'' (1936). Linton also obtained money from the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...
for students to produce work which studied acculturation. The volume ''Acculturation in Seven American Indian Tribes'' is an example of the work in this period, and Linton's contributions to the volume remain his most influential writings on acculturation. Linton's interest in culture and personality also expressed itself in the form of a seminar he organized with
Abram Kardiner at the
New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
References
Ralph Lintonon Encyclopædia Britannica.
*
External links
*
100 Percent American��A well-known popular piece by Linton.
* ''
Use of Tobacco among North American Indians'' at Gutenberg.org
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linton, Ralph
1893 births
1953 deaths
20th-century American anthropologists
American Anthropologist editors
United States Army personnel of World War I
Columbia University alumni
Columbia University faculty
Harvard University alumni
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Swarthmore College alumni
University of Pennsylvania alumni
Works Progress Administration workers
Yale Sterling Professors