IRA JACKNIS

2
V
The First Boasian: Alfred Kroeber and
Franz Boas, 1896-1905

ABSTRACT This article reviews the interplay of the personal, institutional, and intellectual factors in the relationship between Franz
Boas and Alfred Kroeber, his first important student. It focuses on their first decade, 1896-1905, a critical transitional period in the
formation of American anthropology. After a consideration of their personal and familial contexts, it reviews Boas's role as a graduate
professor to Kroeber, the beginning of an academic anthropology program at the University of California, Boas and Kroeber's collabo-
rative and competitive relationship as museum curators, their diverging ethnographic strategies, Boas's editing of Kroeber's profes-
sional writings, and their disagreements over the organization of national professional societies (primarily the American Anthropological
Association and the American Folklore Society). This article is a case study of the construction of anthropological traditions. [Keywords:
Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber, history of anthropology]

A CENTURY AGO, American anthropology was under-

going a period of critical transition. The year 1902 saw
the founding of the American Anthropological Association
(AAA) and the death of John Wesley Powell, founding direc-
tor of the Bureau of American Ethnology. At Columbia Uni-
versity, Franz Boas was working to shift the discipline's basic
institutional context from museums and institutes to acade-
mia, with a concomitant theoretical shift from unilinear evo-
lutionism to cultural diffusionism, methodological move-
ments from library study to fieldwork, and the replacement
of surveys by intensive investigation. This moment, at the
cusp of centuries, also marked the union of the personal and
the disciplinary for two men who would become successive
leaders of American anthropology: Franz Boas and Alfred
Kroeber.
Boas first met Kroeber in 1896 when the younger man
enrolled in Boas's seminar on American Indian languages at
Columbia University. Kroeber was so affected by the encoun-
ter that he went on to obtain his anthropology doctorate in
1901, the first supervised by Boas at Columbia. Alfred Kroe-
ber then moved to the San Francisco Bay area to start the an-
thropology program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Kroeber's maturity—both scholarly and institutionally—was
marked in 1905 by his hosting of the first meeting of the
American Anthropological Association in the west in San
Francisco.
By now the story of the early life and career of Franz
Boas (1858-1942) is so well known that it only needs to be
summarized here: his birth and upbringing in Germany, an
1881 doctorate in physics and shift from geography to an-
thropology, first fieldwork in Baffinland in 1883-84, first
Northwest Coast trip in 1886, immigration to the United States
in 1887, subsequent Northwest Coast fieldwork funded by
the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
teaching at Clark University (1888-92), assistant to Harvard's
Frederic W. Putnam in presenting anthropology at the Chi-
cago World's Fair of 1893, a period as an independent
scholar, exhibit work for the American Museum of Natural
History in the fall of 1895, and the 1896 appointment at Co-
lumbia (Cole 1999).
Although they were separated by about a generation.
Boas and Kroeber shared a common cultural milieu—the
German American community of New York City. Bom in
Hoboken, New Jersey, but raised in Manhattan, Alfred Kroe-
ber (1876-1960) was the son of an importer; he was tutored
at home before attending private schools (Kroeber 1970;
Steward 1961). As Steward puts it, this community was
a German upper middle class society of New Yofk in
which intellectual, esthetic, and scientific interests and
professional aspirations were a matter of course This
society of New York German families was a fairly tight-
knit and extensively-intermarried group, it shared a verv
special culture (though none of them thought ot it as non-
American), and it produced a disproportionate number of
eminent scientists, writers, lawyers, and othet profession-
al persons. It Included families of Jewish and Protestant
background, but its rationalistic orientation had elimi-
nated religious orthodoxy (1961:1039-1040|

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 1 0 4 ( 2 ) 5 2 0 - 5 3 2 COPYRIGHT C 2002. AMERICAN ANTHROPOIOGICAI ASSOCIATION


Boas, a German immigrant, and Kroeber, the son of German
immigrants, both spoke German as their mother tongues, al-
though Kroeber was also bilingual. Accordingly, both trans-
mitted to American anthropology a strong sense of the Ger-
manic intellectual tradition (Liss 1996). They had similar
classical educations, and both were passionate collectors of
natural history specimens in their youth (Alsberg 1936:
xiv-xv; Cole 1999:19-20). For both men, anthropology was a
personal mixture of the natural sciences and humanities (es-
pecially language and literature). After their meeting in 1896,
their relationship soon broadened to include their respective
families, who also became intimate. 1
This article will review the interplay of the personal, in-
stitutional, and intellectual factors in Boas and Kroeber's rela-
tionship during the first critical decade of their acquaintance.
It is not a double biography of the two men, covering every-
thing that each was doing during the period. Instead, it is a
relativist, reciprocal study, considering each man in relation
to the other and how each affected the other's life.
The relationship between Boas and Kroeber, an espe-
cially important one for both, was many sided and contin-
ued to evolve throughout their lives. It began as one of
teacher and student and moved to one of sympathetic but at
times conflicting, autonomous scholars. And, paradoxically,
while the decade between 1896 and 1905 clearly marked the
beginning of Kroeber's professional life, it was also a rela-
tively early period for much of Boas's career in American an-
thropology.
GRADUATE STUDY
Alfred Kroeber, who entered Columbia College in 1892 at the
age of 16, met Franz Boas during his senior year, 1896. Boas
had just started teaching at Columbia; three years later he
was promoted from lecturer to full professor of anthropol-
ogy. After a year at the American Museum of Natural History,
he accepted a curator's position there, and during the next
decade he conducted an active program of research, exhibi-
tion, and publication Oacknis 1985).
Anthropology had been taught at Columbia prior to
Boas's appointment, but not in a separate department. Be-
ginning in 1894, Livingston Farrand, a lecturer in physical
psychology, gave a course on primitive culture; and William
Z. Ripley, a specialist on railroad economics, taught one de-
voted to physical geography and anthropology. In psychology,
James McKeen Cattell offered related instruction (American
Anthropologist 1906:466; Steward 1961-.1042).2 In 1896, Boas
was given the university's first full-time appointment in an-
thropology. He taught two main courses, "Statistical Theory"
and "American Indian Languages,' along with a third in
physical anthropology, which met at the American Museum.
Kroeber enrolled in the language seminar (which he took
twice) and the course in physical anthropology. While begin-
ning his anthropology studies, Kroeber continued studying
English.' After earning a master's in the sub|ect In 1897, he
served as a teaching assistant in the department tor the next
two years. The turning point in his professional affiliation
Jacknis • The First Boasian 521
came in the fall of 1899 when he accepted a year-long fellow-
ship in anthropology, with a minor in psychology.
As Steward remarked, "To choose a career in anthropol-
ogy at the turn of the century was to commit oneself to a
nebulous and insecure future" (1961:1042). In Kroeber's case,
his professional commitment coincided with a period of "se-
vere financial reverses" for his family (Alsberg 1936:xvii). We
do not know precisely what made him shift from English to
anthropology, but two principal factors seem to have been
his intense fascination with linguistic patterning and his
attraction to a liberating cause. Recounting his childhood
fascination for irregular verbs in English and German, he ex-
plained, "This episode may illustrate a strong bent, a satisfac-
tion in recognizing patterns, which seems to be at the root of
my linguistic interests. It was because of this proclivity that
the first course 1 took with Boas, an inductive analysis of sev-
eral American Indian languages, largely steered me into be-
coming an anthropologist" (Kroeber 1970:46). More gener-
ally, as he explained to a close childhood friend, while he
wanted a life in research, a result in chemistry or physics
was not likely to affect men's thinking and to make for
progress in the only way that was worth while: to free
man intellectually. The confused thinking about religions
was perhaps the most important bar to man's progress
and freedom. Anthropology was, he thought, capable of
bringing some degree of clarity into the confused thought
of men, and of freeing them to some degree from hoary
tribal taboos. [Alsberg 1936:xvii]
This fundamental conception of anthropology as a mode of
personal, social, and cultural liberation was reminiscent of
Boas's desire to free humanity from the "shackles of tradi-
tion" (1938:201).
Although Boas supervised the anthropology doctorate of
Alexander F. Chamberlain at Clark University in 1892,4 Kroe-
ber was the first to take the degree at Columbia. During his
graduate study, the anthropology program was so small that
several of his classes met around Boas's dining-room table
(Kroeber 1943:15). Consequently, Kroeber had few compan-
ions. Although he was with a handful of other students in his
classes (who did not get degrees), his study did not overlap
with any of the other anthropology doctorates of Columbia's
first decade, all of whom entered after he graduated. 5 How-
ever, he probably did encounter there Roland B. Dixon and
John R. Swanton, two students of Frederic Putnam. Both
studied linguistics with Boas during 1898 and 1899 before
earning their Harvard doctorates in 1900 (Bernstein 19*>3:20:
Kroeber 1940:2).6 Some of this time was devoted to field-
work: Dixon, Swanton, as well as Kroeber, all spent the sum-
mer of 1899 in the field.7
Kroeber characterized Boas's teaching methods as rigor-
ous: "Essentially, he would teach nothing but principles,
methods, and problems, fortified by only such concrete data
as were necessary tor his sure and rapid mind to understand
the situation. The load was wholly on the student; it he as-
sumed it, Boas was ready to give him intellectual guidance"
(Kroeber 194/1:15). Robert Lowie had the same experience:
"He was, lndmi. uncanny in his capacity to harness a student's
522 American Anthropologist • Vol. 104, No. 2 • June 2002
skills for the advancement of science, but he did not trouble
to ferret out a learner's needs at a particular stage of progress.
Novices were not pampered with milk for babes" (1947:313).
Boas's aura of preoccupation was partly due, Kroeber argued,
to the lack of resources and the immensity of the task in
those early days (1956:153). Lowie believed it was because of
his "feud with the director of the American Museum"
(1947:314). Although Boas modified his teaching methods as
the discipline developed, in his first class one of his basic in-
structional modes was the close examination of case studies.8
As part of his linguistics seminar, for example, Boas brought
in Esther, a "Labrador half-breed woman" and wife of a mu-
seum mechanic, who offered Inuit grammatical forms to
Kroeber and his classmates (Kroeber 1970:47). There was no
real secondary instruction; students learned directly by do-
ing.
KROEBER'S FIRST FIELDWORK
The time of Kroeber's graduate study coincided with the dec-
ade of Boas's curatorship at the American Museum of Natural
History. As in other joint museum-university programs in
anthropology (Darnell 1998), the held research Kroeber con-
ducted served as both a contribution to the museum and in-
struction for the university. Thus, in addition to his supervi-
sion of Kroeber as professor, Boas was Kroeber's superior as
museum curator and department head as well.
In 1900, the American Museum was sponsoring the field
research and collecting of both Boas and Kroeber. For the for-
mer it was the end of his most substantive period of field-
work, but for the latter it marked the beginning of his ethno-
graphic career, first to the Plains and then to California,
which remained his base. After spending two seasons in the
field, 1897 and 1900, Boas did not return to British Columbia
until 1930, shifting instead to working by correspondence
with his Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw) assistant George Hunt.
During those years, however, the modes of Boas and Kroe-
ber's fieldwork were quite different. The Jesup Expedition
was a grand, well-funded survey, and Boas was part of a large
team spread over two continents. Although the museum
eventually supported a similar large survey of Plains ethnol-
ogy, Kroeber's Plains trips, like the others, were individual
and successive rather than simultaneous, and much more
modest than Boas's.
The American Museum's anthropology department was
under the general control of Frederic Putnam since 1894, but
as the senior curator in residence and the leading ethnolo-
gist, Boas directed its ethnographic field expeditions: the Je-
sup North Pacific Expedition to the Northwest Coast and
Eastern Siberia (1897-1902), the Huntington California Ex-
pedition (1899-1904), and the Plains expeditions (1899-1901),
which began with funding from the wife of the museum's
president, Morris K. Jesup, and continued until 1919.
Alfred Kroeber's first ethnography, however, came not
in the field but In a kind ot trial right In the New York mu-
seum with a group of l'oiar hskiino (Inuit) from Smith Sound,
Greenland. As Boas had done his first fieldwork among the
Inuit of Baffinland in 1983-84, he was an appropriate men-
tor for his young student's inaugural ethnographic research
(which was also reminiscent of Boas's own displaced ethno-
graphic initiation with a party of Bella Coola [Nuxalk] visit-
ing Berlin in 1886). In 1895 Boas asked explorer Robert Peary
to bring back an Eskimo. Never receiving a reply, he was sur-
prised when Peary returned at the end of September 1897
with a party of six Inuit. As Boas was busy with the Jesup Ex-
pedition, he gave the primary responsibility of working with
the group to his new student under his supervision: "1 think I
shall be able to go out with you once a week or so, and we
shall make some appointment for a time to discuss the mate-
rial that you are going to obtain" (Boas to Kroeber, December
10, 1897).9 Kroeber continued his ethnographic work, using
Esther as an interpreter. Unfortunately, all six Inuit soon
came down with tuberculosis, and they were moved from
their quarters in the museum to a hospital and private
homes. Plans called to return them home the following sum-
mer, but eight months after their arrival, four had died and
only one had returned to Greenland, leaving a young boy,
Minik.
In recent years, Kroeber's Inuit work has gained notoriety
because of the fate of the lnuits' bodies (Harper 1986:
90-101). In February 1898, Qisuk, the group's leader, died of
tuberculosis. Evidently the museum arranged a fake burial
for him, attended by Boas, several scientists, some museum
employees, and the eight-year-old Minik. Qisuk's body was
sent to Bellevue Hospital's College of Physicians and Sur-
geons for autopsy, and then his skeleton was prepared and
sent to the museum (Thomas 2000:77-83). Although the de-
tails remain obscure, the 22-year-old Kroeber, new to anthro-
pology, undoubtedly did what he was told to do by his men-
tor and superiors and may not have been aware of the
details.10
Out of this unfortunate experience came Kroeber's first
professional publications: two essays on Eskimo folktales
(1899a, 1899b) and a general ethnographic account (1899c).
His interest in literature undoubtedly encouraged his focus
on mythology. All three publications, but especially the eth-
nography, include comprehensive literature reviews; the
monograph also summarizes the museum's Peary artifact
collection. As David H. Thomas rightly notes, "Reading these
reports a century later, one is amazed at the quality of Kroe-
ber's ethnographic reportage, particularly given his age and
lack of anthropological experience'' (2000:83).
Committing himself to anthropology, Kroeber soon set
out for three summer field trips to the tribes of the Great
Plains: Southern Arapaho of Oklahoma (1899); Northern
Arapaho, Ute, Bannock, and Northern Shoshone of Wyo-
ming, Idaho, and Utah (1900); and Gros Ventre and Assini-
boine of Montana (1901). He began by collecting artifacts for
a study of decorative symbolism, the subject of his disserta-
tion, but he soon broadened his research to religion and
ceremonial organization. As a novice, Kroeber continualrv
sought guidance from his professor, and Boas obliged accord-
ing to his desiderata for ethnographic collecting. Instructing
Kroeber not to be content with drawings or photographs of

bead work but to obtain the actual specimens, he wrote: "It
ought to be one of the principal objects of your work to col-
lect a series as full as possible of designs, with their explana-
tions" (Boas to Kroeber, July 31,1899, AMNH). With his in-
terest in documenting precontact aboriginal cultures, Boas
admonished, "Always try to get old things rather than new
ones" (Boas to Kroeber, August 10, 1899, AMNH). Kroeber,
however, wondered whether the museum wanted the worn
artifacts he was finding. Boas responded: "For our Museum
purposes I would much rather have a good old specimen, no
matter how dirty and dilapidated it may look, than some-
thing new that is not so characteristic of the life and mode of
thought of the Indian" (Kroeber to Boas, August 17, 1899,
AMNH). No matter was too minor for Boas's instruction, as
he even reminded Kroeber to properly fasten his labels (Boas
to Kroeber, August 6, 1899, AMNH). The role of instructor to
field collectors was quite familiar to Boas, especially to
George Hunt (Berman 1996; Jacknis 1991) and to John Swan-
ton, Berthold Laufer, Roland Dixon, Waldemar Bogoras, and
all the other museum collectors under his supervision (Cole
1985).
Boas was very pleased with his student's results: "It
would be difficult to find another collector as good as Mr.
Kroeber, whose work is really remarkable" (Boas to Jesup, No-
vember 14, 1900, AMNH). Over the next few years, Boas, as
chief curator of the anthropology department, continued to
supervise Kroeber, instructing him on details of museum cu-
ration such as cataloging, label writing, and the installation
of life-group exhibits.
KROEBER'S DISSERTATION
For the subject of his 1901 doctoral dissertation, Alfred Kroeber
chose Arapaho decorative symbolism, which he first explored
in a descriptive essay (1900). His professor was undoubtedly
responsible for the choice of topic, despite Herskovits's later
remark that "dissertation topics were brought to Boas for his
approval, not suggested by him" (1953:23). n Kroeber, with
primarily literary interests, never had much personal concern
for material culture. Yet, because of his funding, his field-
work had been based on artifact collection for the museum.
Kroeber's resulting dissertation was an important contri-
bution to the developing Boasian critique of cultural evolu-
tion (Jacknis 1992; Thoresen 1977:115-119). He considered
whether Arapaho specimens could shed light on the origins
of decorative designs in realistic or geometric impulses, as
well as the relation between form and meaning, an impor-
tant concern of 19th-century evolutionists, which was then
under review by Boas. Finding both tendencies to be present
and equally developed in Arapaho art, Kroeber concluded
that the evolutionists' search for origins was futile. He argued
instead that the tendencies characterized all art. As befits a
maiden effort, Kroeber's culture theory was fundamentally
Boasian. Yet, though building on Boas's earlier review of
Northwest Coast decorative art (1897), he drew broad conclu-
sions that preceded Boas's own formulation of the problem
(1903), Extending the argument from art to the fundamental
Jacknis • The First Boasian 523
nature of culture and anthropology, Kroeber anticipated his
superorganic theory of culture, that culture was a sui generis
phenomenon: "The fundamental error of the common an-
thropological method of investigating origins is that it iso-
lates phenomena and seeks isolated specific causes for them.
In reality, ethnic phenomena do not exist separately: they
have their being only in a culture" (1901:335).
Kroeber remembered his dissertation defense as being
somewhat anticlimactic:
The writer's doctoral examination . . . consisted of settling
around a table with Boas, Farrand, Cattell, and Nicholas
Murray Butler [a philosophy professor who became presi-
dent of Columbia in 1902], outlining his 28-page disserta-
tion, answering some questions derivative from it, avow-
ing ignorance of a series of other fields, and being
dismissed—rather to his disappointment—at the end of a
pleasant hour. There was no notification of the result, and
Boas's only subsequent comment, made when he was en-
countered in the Museum elevator a few days later, was
that there was a lot that the candidate had not read.
[1943:14]
Later that year, Boas shared with his student the praise he
had heard from colleagues in Berlin. As he wrote in a letter, "I
thought you would like to hear all these opinions, after my
criticisms of your paper which 1 gave you last spring. 1 still
believe in your conclusions you take an extreme view, and
exaggerate your standpoint just as much as the other stand-
points have been exaggerated before.'' And he added, "I
should like very much to have a chance to see what your
ideas in regard to these matters will be fifteen years hence"
(Boas to Kroeber, October 19, 1901, AMNH). Boas's reaction
exemplifies George Stocking's argument that Boas's students
often took "one aspect of Boasian assumption and .. . [car-
ried] it farther than Boas himself would accept" (1974:17).
Stylistically, Kroeber presented his argument more discur-
sively and logically than one finds in Boas, but at least the
professor should have been pleased with Kroeber's attempt.
As Lowie remembered, Boas "came very near holding up A.
B. Lewis, whose knowledge was incomparably superior to
mine, but whose dissertation discussed nothing of theoretical
significance. Berthold Laufer, who liked it, observed queru-
lously to me, 'Boas always wants a thesis to have a point!' "
(1947:315). Kroeber's dissertation could not be judged as
lacking theory.
THE BEGINNINGS OF ACADEMIC ANTHROPOLOGY IN
CALIFORNIA
Just when Kroeber was obtaining his degree, the University
of California was in the final stages of creating a department
and museum of anthropology, the first to be established west
of the Mississippi. As arguably the leading academic in the
discipline, Boas consulted with patron Phoebe Hearst; her
friend, prt'historian Zelia Nuttali; and Frederic Putnam in the
spring of 1901 (Jacknis 20OO:6J; cf. l.on£ 1998; Thoresen
1975). In a now well-known letter to Nuttall, who had solic-
ited his opinions, Boas advised against starting such a pro-
gram at the time, suggesting that none ot his students—nei-
ther Kroeber nor Dixon, then collecting in Calitornia—were
524 American Anthropologist Vol. 104, No. 2 • June 2002
yet ready to take on such a task (Stocking 1974:286-289).
Boas recommended setting up a fellowship under his direc-
tion and the establishment of an anthropology program in
California in five years.
Despite his reservations regarding Dixon and Kroeber,
Boas was supportive of both men. When the California Acad-
emy of Sciences in San Francisco was seeking a curator, Boas
recommended Dixon (Boas to David S. Jordan, January 27,
1900, AMNH).12 Kroeber, who got the position when Dixon
declined the offer, left after five months at the end of 1900,
due to the lack of funding for field research.13 Boas then en-
couraged his student to make connections among relevant
faculty at Berkeley and Palo Alto: "No matter what the out-
come of the present affair may be, 1 have perfect faith that
you can do an exceedingly useful work in California, and
that we ought to make every endeavor to give you the oppor-
tunity to do it" (Boas to Kroeber, December 26,1900, AMNH).
Over Boas's objections, Phoebe Hearst and the Univer-
sity of California decided to proceed with an anthropology
program in September 1901, with Putnam as chair of the ad-
visory committee and Kroeber as instructor and museum cu-
rator. Although Boas was made a member of the committee,
tellingly he was not present at Mrs. Hearst's California haci-
enda when the group made its decision. When he returned
from a summer in Germany, he was upset that his colleague
Putnam had moved against his recommendations. Beyond
his personal feelings, Boas, who had been directing field re-
search in the region since 1899, viewed this as a transgres-
sion into his territory.
During the early years of the California department,
Boas had several disagreements with the advisory committee
over the conduct of anthropology at the University (Thore-
sen 1975:267-268). For instance, in November 1901, he pro-
posed an ambitious collaborative survey but was rejected
(Long 1998:31). A year later, when the department was reor-
ganized under an executive committee, Boas was simply
dropped (Nuttall and Alice Fletcher resigned). Boas's steadily
deteriorating relationship with Putnam put Kroeber in a diffi-
cult position, and Kroeber often allied himself with Putnam
(Kroeber 1970:66; Mark 1980:42-47).
Thus, both Boas and Kroeber were involved in institu-
tion building, beginning major academic and museum pro-
grams. The relative timing of those opportunities for the two
men was ironic. Boas had begun the Columbia program in
1896, when he was 38 years old and after many years of field-
work, publications, and other professional experience; whereas
just five years later his 25-year-old student was offered essen-
tially the same opportunity. Compounding the situation, de-
spite the senior-junior relationship of Boas and Kroeber,
Frederic Putnam was then the official supervisor of both, at
least until the Harvard professor's resignation from the
American Museum in 1903 (when he officially took up the
departmental chair and museum directorship at Berkeley, al-
though still part-time). Under the circumstances, Kroeber's
siding with Putnam was to be expected.
Although he was personally ambitious, Kroeber recognized
Noas's seniority. Finding himself caught between differing
opinions on the conduct of teaching, Kroeber sought his
mentor's "personal non-official opinion" (Kroeber to Boas,
May 11, 1902, KP). The older man reinforced Kroeber's feel-
ing that fieldwork coupled with advanced graduate training
should take precedence over undergraduate instruction (Boas
to Kroeber, May 20, 1902, KP). This also had been Boas's ap-
proach at Columbia. Boas went on to suggest that some of
the advanced students could go to "a university for a few
years where they could have greater advantages than you can
offer at the present time. These men m i g h t . . in course of
time, become your helpers in expanding your department."
This is exactly what happened with Kroeber's students Sa-
muel A. Barrett and Thomas T. Waterman, who both studied
with Boas. Kroeber encouraged them to go to New York for
his teacher's superior linguistic training, which he believed
he could not offer.1*
In winter 1905, Kroeber visited the Field Museum and
American Museum of Natural History to review their collec-
tions and meet with colleagues. In February, the director of
the American Museum offered him a position as an associate
curator, under Boas but evidently without Boas's knowledge
(Kroeber to Putnam, February 23, 1905, PP). It is unclear to
what extent Kroeber's decision was influenced by his rela-
tionship with Boas, but he must have been quite tempted
Funding for the anthropology program at California was
problematic; his administrative burdens were heavy; and he
had had other job offers. In the end, however, Kroeber chose
California where he felt he would ultimately have more op-
portunity (Long 1998:123.138-139).
CURATORIAL COLLEAGUES
Today, Alfred Kroeber is not generally thought of as a mu-
seum anthropologist, but during the first decade of his careei
he devoted much of his time to collecting and curation. He
modeled his work after and sought guidance from each of his
two mentors. From Putnam, he learned about cataloging, la-
bels, and similar kinds of museological housekeeping; from
Boas, he derived his knowledge of cultural documentation
and general ethnographic strategy Oacknis 1993b).
As museum curators, Boas and Kroeber cooperated and
competed on behalf of their respective institutions. All
American anthropology museums at the time worked in a
kind of colonial sphere of influence within North America, if
only to avoid duplication of limited resources. By sending
Roland Dixon to the Maidu, Shasta, and neighboring groups
in 1899, Boas began directing research in California. How-
ever, he soon had to acknowledge Kroeber's priority among
the Yurok and other Klamath River peoples (Boas to Kroeber,
March 19, 1902, KP). Accordingly, the m e n s museums ex-
changed collections from these regions, and Boas allowed
himself to be guided by his student's greater knowledge of
the area (Boas to Kroeber, April 25, 191)2. KP). On the other
hand, Kroeber expressed his territorial sense e\-en toward his
old mentor. Replying to Boas's offer of cooperative fteldvrork.
Kroeber wrote: "1 do not want to collect in this state for any
institution but our own. and admitted that "1 should very

much like to keep you out of the state altogether" (Kroeber to
Boas, March 3, 1905, KP).1S To this message Boas responded
curtly (in a letter addressed to "Mr. Kroeber"), "1 am sorry
that it seems impossible to get you interested in any work
that does not originate with you, and so I give up further at-
tempts to interest you in our work" (Boas to Kroeber, March
13,1905, KP).
Toward the end of his days as a museum curator, Boas
asked Kroeber if he wanted to undertake a trip to the Crow to
investigate the role that the group had played in transmit-
ting decorative art and religious ideas from the Prairie west-
ward (Boas to Kroeber, March 1, 1905, KP). An extension of
Kroeber's doctoral research, this was to be part of the ongo-
ing American Museum program in Plains decorative symbol-
ism. With Kroeber's refusal, the study was subsequently
taken up by Robert H. Lowie in 1907.
Whatever their respective tensions, both Boas and Kroe-
ber were in active competition with George A. Dorsey's well-
funded Field Museum; the former with Charles F. Newcombe
on the Northwest Coast, and the latter with John W. Hudson
in California. For both New York and Chicago, the major in-
terest was the Northwest Coast, with its spectacular totem
poles and masks, but both institutions desired the baskets
and ceremonial regalia of California. The American Museum's
collecting of Californian items, on a much smaller scale, had
also been stimulated by the Smithsonian's 1899 purchase of
the Hudson Porno basket collection Oacknis 1993a). Kroe-
ber's spirit of curatorial competition only subsided around
1910, when he succeeded in amassing the largest and most
comprehensive California collection (Long 1998:141).
ETHNOGRAPHIC STRATEGIES
During his first decade as an anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber
carried out fieldwork in three regions of Native America: the
Arctic (conducted in New York), the Plains, and California.
Among his important contributions to Plains ethnology were
his transcription of texts, his analysis of secondary meanings
of designs, the delineation of tribal styles (Arapaho and Gros
Ventre), and the first detailed report of Plains age societies
(Lowie 1936:xix). After an initially active period in 1901-02,
Kroeber's California fieldwork was limited between 1902 and
1905, before being revived in 1906-07 (Thoresen 1976). Al-
though he focused on the Yurok in the northwestern part of
the state and the Mohave in the southeastern, he tried to
broadly cover the region, spending lesser periods with groups
living in between, such as the Wiyot, Hupa, Karuk, Yuki,
Porno, Yokuts, and Cahuilla. This extensive coverage was
partially motivated by his desire to build the museum's Cali-
fornia collections. In October 1903, the work was formalized
by the establishment of an "Ethnological and Archaeological
Survey of California."
Boas's student certainly agreed with his mentor on the
basic goals and methods of ethnographic survey: a tendency
toward antievolutionism, the use of diffusionist methods,
the ethos of salvage ethnology, the collection of linguistic
texts, the use of the traditional four fields of anthropology,
Jacknis • The First Boasian 525
and the employment of university-trained anthropologists,
all devoted to the ultimate project of reconstructing the cul-
tural history of Native North America (Cole and Long 1999).
Yet here, too, Kroeber was distinctive. The two anthropolo-
gists diverged in their definition of cultural phenomena, in
the significance they placed on language as an ethnographic
method, and in the relative balance they gave to survey ver-
sus intensive investigation (Long 1998:76-79). Soon after go-
ing to California, Kroeber delineated four distinct cultural
types within the region by mapping the distribution of dis-
crete culture traits into larger geographic patterns (1904c).
Kroeber's data tended to be more objectified than his men-
tor's: "Whereas Boas was interested in the logic of the mind,
Kroeber was interested in the logic among phenomena, that
is, the way they patterned" (Thoresen 1971:104; cf. Buckley
1996:272). And as he had shown in his dissertation, Kroeber
had a greater propensity to typify culture than did his teacher.16
Although Kroeber advocated the text method of Boasian
ethnography, he was less committed to it personally. Boas
would never have admitted that "ethnology does not require
for its successful prosecution an absolute understanding of
the structure of the language spoken by the people who are
being studied" (Kroeber to Swanton, December 22, 1908,
UCDA). Perhaps for this reason, only one-third of his Ara-
paho myths were in text (Kroeber to Boas, November 2,
1901, AMNH). Again, although he carried out physical an-
thropology research as part of the survey, in 1907, he did not
feature it. And, as demonstrated later in his stance on folk-
lore, he was more accepting of amateur contributors: "It
seems to me that the survey can best be brought home to the
people of the state and gain their greatest support if it is not
identified only with three or four men inside the Depart-
ment, but really cooperates with any one interested in the
anthropology of California and ready to do scientific work
seriously" (Kroeber to Putnam, April 18, 1904, PI'; cf. Long
1998:77, 83).
Although both Boas and Kroeber stressed empirical field-
work (Steward 1961:1049), they had differing conceptions of
the balance between survey and intensive study as ethno-
graphic goals. Both men had selected a tribe for intensive col-
lecting and research as part ot a regional survey. Kwakiutl
(Northwest Coast) and Yurok (Northwest California). Both
were engaged in the mapping of ethnographic areas that
were basically unknown at the time; but Boas, who had
chafed at the necessity for survey in British Columbia (Gruber
1967), repeatedly encouraged Kroeber to settle down: "1 am of
the opinion that you ought not to do much more miscella-
neous work among the various tribes, but that you should
take up one group by itself and work it out thoroughly" (Boas
to Kroeber, January 6, 1902, AMNH). Although he acknowl-
edged the necessity for survey, in the end Boas telt "that it is
not well to continue scattering work for too long a time"
(Boas to Kroeber. April 2. 1902, AMNH).
As early as 190S, Kroeber was thinking ot writing the
overview ot Californian ethnology that would become his
of tht Irulums of I alifamui (1925). Again, he and
526 American Anthropologist Vol. 104, No. 2 • June 2002
Boas differed on the value of such an effort, As Kroeber ex-
plained:
I do not know whether you are aware that virtually all of
my field work has been essentially comparative. If 1
should now decide to begin exhaustive special mono-
graphs, 1 should practically have to begin my field work
over. 1 may have been unwise in following this course, but
it struck me as being both desirable and an opportunity,
and it seems to me preferable to follow it out now rather
than to make a change. For one thing I am very doubtful
whether I should ever be able to settle down to thorough
work before this comparative work is off my mind. [Kroe-
ber to Boas, May 19,1903, AMNH]17
Boas responded:
My suggestion regarding a very extended review of Cali-
fornia ethnology is mainly founded on my own experi-
ences in British Columbia. You remember that 1 had to
make annual reports to the British Association, and conse-
quently 1 was often compelled to correct previous state-
ments. Principally for this reason I should advise you to
make your general statement brief, and not to put too
much energy into it at the present time. [Boas to Kroeber,
May 28, 1903, AMNH]
As ethnographers, Boas tended to work inductively from the
inside out and Kroeber the opposite way, in a more compara-
tivist fashion. Interestingly, their divergent ethnographic
perspectives were reflected in their publications. Unlike Kroe-
ber's comprehensive regional summary, Boas never was able
to complete his long-projected concluding volume for the Je-
sup Expedition monographs.
PROFESSIONAL WRITING AND EDITING
In his capacity as editor of the anthropological papers for the
American Museum, Boas also supervised the publications of
Kroeber's Plains research (1902, 1904a, 1907). Because Kroe-
ber was 3,000 miles away from the artifacts he was describ-
ing, he had to rely on Boas's help in preparing his material,
especially when it involved illustrations. Responding to
Kroeber's hope that all the labor was not causing him too
much trouble, Boas wrote with uncharacteristic sarcasm: "1
fully believe that you find it easier to write your paper from a
distance; at least, judging from the amount of time that 1
have to put into it, you save a great deal of yours" (Boas to
Kroeber, December 9,1903, KP).
Although some points in the men's correspondence
were minor (but telling)—as in Kroeber's insistence on his
own style of punctuation (Kroeber to Boas, November 23,
1903, KP)—the exchange of letters also touched on basic pro-
fessional matters. Boas was often accused of offering little as-
sistance to the reader in his ethnographies, but he continu-
ally tried to get Kroeber to clarify his accounts by adding
tables and appendices (Boas to Kroeber, February 24, 1904,
KP); rearranging the order of his illustrations to match the or-
der of the text (Boas to Kroeber, May 17, 1902, KP); and sub-
stituting English for American Indian names wherever possi-
ble (Boas to Kroeber, December 14, 1903, KP).18 One
exchange about illustrations exemplified the fundamental
intellectual difference between the two men. Boas wanted
the photos rendered as drawings because "the first thing de-
sired is distinctness and clearness in your illustrations" (Boas
to Kroeber, December 9, 1903, KP). Kroeber, however, was
not interested in the detail, because "in the majority of cases
the detail is not symbolic." He thought that photos would be
better "to give a general impression of the regalia," since he
was trying "to secure the general effect" (Kroeber to Boas, De-
cember 2, 1903, KP). In the end, though, Kroeber accepted
Boas's solution of drawings (Kroeber to Boas, December 17,
1903, KP). What is notable is that Boas would insist on ex-
treme fidelity to detail, whereas Kroeber's goal was the general
picture—a characterization of their respective approaches to
anthropology.
With a compulsion to make his research available to
scholars and as the author of many publications, Boas con-
tinued to prod his student. Suggesting to Kroeber that he
write out his Arapaho material "at an early time" he advised,
"I do not believe you will ever get back to the subject, and
the sooner you get it off your mind, the better" (Boas to Kroe-
ber, March 25, 1902, KP). When Kroeber was confronted
with George Dorsey's competing research on the Arapaho,
Boas recommended that the two men publish their mytho-
logical accounts jointly (Dorsey and Kroeber 1903). Dorsey's
work on Arapaho ceremonial organization, however, did
trouble Kroeber, who worried about publishing priority
(Kroeber to Boas, October 14, 1903, AMNH). Although Kroe-
ber had been the first to study the subject and felt his work
was "more compact, clear, and useable,' he wanted the
American Museum to publish his monograph as soon as pos-
sible, arguing that it would be "a distinct advantage both to
myself and to the Museum" (Kroeber to Boas, October 14,
1903, AMNH; cf. Kroeber 1904a).
As editor and organizer of research, Boas also planned to
involve Kroeber in his Handbook of American Indian Languages,
sponsored by the Bureau of American Ethnology (Stocking
1992:71-72). When he first discussed the matter in 1901,
Boas explained that "everybody who studies Indian lan-
guages scientifically should contribute his share towards this
work" (Boas to Kroeber, October 19, 1901, KP). When he
took it up again in 1903, he told his student that he was
"counting on your assistance in this matter" (Boas to Kroe-
ber, May 1,1903, KP). Although he left the choice of topic up
to Kroeber—"one of your Californian languages (of course
the one you know best)" (Boas to Kroeber, May 1, 1903.
KP)—he first asked Kroeber to write on Yurok (Boas to Kroe-
ber, December 11, 1903, KP). Kroeber replied that his mate-
rial on the language was not detailed enough; he was con-
cerned about the university not publishing his work first
and he asked how far Boas would "work over the material" to
make all the entries uniform (Kroeber to Boas, December 27.
1903, February 22, 1904, KP). Boas was frustrated: "1 wish
you would definitely make up your mind what to do, be-
cause 1 must go ahead with the plan of the book; and if you
will not contribute. 1 have to see how 1 can get along without
you* (Boas to Kroeber, March 15, 1904, KP). Although the
younger scholar submitted an analysis of Yuki. he was not
able to make the changes desired bv Boas, and eventually

withdrew the manuscript. 19 The failure of his principal stu-
dent to come through for him on the project no doubt was a
keen disappointment for Boas.
SCHOLARLY ORGANIZATIONS
Even as founders and supporters of professional societies,
Boas and Kroeber diverged. Both were active early members
of the American Folklore Society (AFS), founded in Cam-
bridge in 1888, and the AAA, founded in Washington, D.C.,
in 1902. Boas was an important influence in the beginning
of both societies.20 The younger Kroeber, although officially
listed as a founder of the AAA, played a peripheral role, per-
haps due to his distant, California location (Stocking 1960:15).
Nevertheless, Boas soon turned to his former student in his
effort to establish an institutional structure for his version of
anthropology. In late 1903, he arranged for Kroeber to be
elected secretary of the AAA because he wanted a west coast
representative for the organization (Boas to Kroeber, Novem-
ber 2, 1903, KP). Kroeber demurred, arguing that he was too
far away from most of the members, but more likely he felt
overcommitted (Kroeber to Boas, November 9, 1903, KP).21
Acknowledging his colleague's problems, Boas urged him to
"do your share in contributing to the advancement of an-
thropological interests in this country.... 1 hope, therefore,
that, even if the position will entail some undesirable work,
you will be willing to make the necessary sacrifice" (Boas to
Kroeber, November 2, 1903, KP). Responding to Kroeber's
ambiguous reply, Boas and Dorsey formally nominated him
to the position, and Kroeber's ultimate refusal undoubtedly
further upset his mentor (Kroeber to Boas and Dorsey, Febru-
ary 1,1904; Boas to Kroeber, February 8,1904, KP).
Two years later, though, it was Kroeber who took the in-
itiative. Over Boas's objections (Boas to Kroeber, May 8,
1905, KP), Kroeber recommended moving a special summer
meeting of the AAA from Portland, site of a world's fair, to
San Francisco, primarily so the city's anthropological re-
sources could be seen in a national forum. He felt so strongly
about the matter that he insisted the association meet in San
Francisco or not come to the west coast at all (Kroeber to
Boas, May 1 and 24, 1905, KP). Frederic Putnam, who was
the AAA president at the time (as well as chair of the Califor-
nia department), sided with Kroeber (Long 1998:93). Accord-
ing to a subsequent report in the American Anthropologist,
"The special meeting held in San Francisco, August 29 to Sep-
tember 2,1905, was the most notable of all, proving as it did
the truly national character of the organization in that a suc-
cessful meeting of anthropologists could be held inde-
pendently of other societies and on the Pacific, as well as the
Atlantic, coast" (American Anthropologist 1906:493).
Kroeber also went his own way in the American Folklore
Society. In both societies, Boas had to confront entrenched
alternative centers of power: Smithsonian anthropologists of
a more evolutionary stripe and Cambridge literary folklorists
more interested in the lore of Anglo-American folk, respec-
tively (Bronncr 1986:16-19), Yet because of his good rela-
tions with William W, Newell, the long-time AFS secretary
Jacknis • The First Boasian 527
and editor of the journal, Boas had been given fairly free
reign to publish research on American Indian mythology.
Coming from a literary background, Kroeber began his pro-
fessional career with folklore (Thoresen 1973). His first publi-
cation, "Animal Tales of the Eskimo," was first read at an an-
nual meeting of the AFS at Columbia University in December
1898, his first professional meeting. In 1901, Kroeber was ap-
pointed to a three-year term as a councilor of the AFS by
Newell, who encouraged him to stimulate interest in the sub-
ject by starting a branch of the society in California (Zum-
walt 1988:78-79).
The San Francisco anthropology meeting, in turn, led to
the founding of two local folklore societies.22 In May, Kroe-
ber had been a charter member and first secretary of the
Berkeley Folk-Lore Club, composed largely of university fac-
ulty; three months later he helped organize a more formal
body, a California branch of the AFS, also serving as its first
secretary.23 The AFS had instigated a series of local branches
to encourage financial and other kinds of support for a small
field.24 But a spirited debate arose over the role of amateurs in
the national organization. Boas, as he had in the formation
of the AAA (Boas 1902), preferred to conceive of the societies
as national scholarly organizations, rather than collections of
local groups in which professionals mixed with amateur en-
thusiasts (Zumwalt 1988:30).
Kroeber disagreed with his mentor on the role of ama-
teurs (Darnell 1998:259). In fact, it was at one of the local San
Francisco meetings, in 1906, that he met his first wife, Hen-
riette Rothschild, then a pianist (Kroeber 1970:77).25 For
some years, the national journal had included news of the lo-
cal meetings, and Kroeber recommended that it publish de-
scriptive articles as well as theoretical contributions. Boas ob-
jected to Kroeber's wish to "go on expanding without
improving our scientific methods" (Boas to Kroeber, October
6,1908, BP). Even though Kroeber served as AFS president in
1906, the first of Boas's students to be elected (Thoresen
1973:42), the tension between the national society and the
California branch grew so great that the latter "nearly split
off as an independent society" (Dixon to Kroeber, January
22, 1910, KP).26
To some extent, Kroeber's focus on local societies—as
well as his career-long devotion to his adopted home of Cali-
fornia as a research site and professional base—was an ex-
pression of a western regionalism, like many eastern mi-
grants, the young Kroeber decided to make his reputation by
developing institutions based in a separate and independent
West. However, he was always more tied to national and spe-
cifically eastern establishments than local boosters such as
Los Angeles's Charles F. Lurnmis or Santa Fe's Edgar L Hewett.
In fact, Kroeber's San Francisco branch of the Archaeological
Institute of America competed with Lummis's. and he sided
with Boas in the latter's continuing clashes with Hewett
(Snead 2001:73, 143-144).
The Turn of the Century was a period of professionaliza-
tion for American scholarship, and anthropology was but
one of the disciplines to establish academic programs, national
organizations, and scholarly journals (Bronnor 198t>:54-^0:
528 American Anthropologist • Vol. 104, No. 2 • June 2002
Darnell 1971). During this decade, Kroeber understandably
put most of his institutional energies into developing an-
thropology at the University of California. Because of his
heavy administrative burdens in the department, he avoided
national work for the AAA until he was ready to do it on his
terms. Anthropology's virtual nonexistence in the west made
him marginal; but because of the more flexible structure of
the AFS (at least until Boas finally prevailed), with its greater
appeal to amateurs and an interdisciplinary range of schol-
ars, he could play a more active role in that discipline. For
Boas, his relative success among the folklorists must have
made Kroeber's more inclusive stance all the more upsetting.
TEACHERS A N D STUDENTS, FATHERS A N D SONS
Around 1905, Franz Boas and Alfred Kroeber were both expe-
riencing a period of transition, a time of fulfillment as well as
beginnings. In June of that year, Boas (then aged 47) severed
his connection to the American Museum, thus personally
foreshadowing the shift of American anthropology to the
academy. The following year he accepted a festschrift mark-
ing the 25th anniversary of his doctorate (a volume to which
Kroeber contributed a version of his aborted chapter for the
language handbook) (Kroeber 1906). That year, Kroeber
(aged 29) decided to remain in California, and the following
year he was promoted from instructor to assistant professor.
His marriage, also in 1906, marked a kind of personal matur-
ity. By 1907 Kroeber had finished his most active period of
California fieldwork, and the following year Samuel Barrett
was awarded California's first anthropology doctorate. Thus,
the first decade of the Boas-Kroeber relationship was very
much one of forming foundations.
Especially when contrasted with anthropologists from,
for example, Washington and Cambridge, Boas and Kroeber
were clearly more alike than not.27 Yet their first decade rep-
resented a gradual growing apart, a distancing marked by the
decline of their correspondence around 1904 (Long 1998:137).
The tensions between them accumulated, growing from
Boas's muted criticism of Kroeber's dissertation to the in-
flamed situation caused by Putnam and Kroeber's occupation
of California; Kroeber's alliance with Putnam in the Cam-
bridge professor's alienation from Boas; and the competition
of Kroeber's and Boas's collections and research agendas. The
failure of Kroeber to participate in the Handbook of American
Indian Languages prepared the way for the men's disagree-
ment over the organization of American anthropology and
folklore. However, when Boas was preparing to retire in 1931,
he attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Kroeber to be his
successor at Columbia (Modell 1983:187). Although there
were real differences in the men's debate over history and sci-
ence in anthropology later that decade (Boas \9.UY. Kroeber
1935), they were arguing more about personal definitions
and interests than fundamental culture theories.
It is probably useless to speak of Boas's general opinion
of Kroeber, but on several occasions he expressed disappoint-
ment in his student. When ( anada was seeking a director for
its Ethnological Survey (a position that would %o to Sapir),
Boas praised Kroeber's "good work" and "good points of
view." But in addition to his student's "lack of skill in han-
dling linguistic problems," Boas believed that Kroeber was
"not sufficiently painstaking in carrying through his investi-
gation of each problem that he takes up. He does not pene-
trate into it as deeply as I should incline to do" (Boas to Regi-
nald W. Brock, May 14, 1910, PP). Boas repeated this
complaint to others: "He has not become as good as I hoped
some years he would be, because he never learned to firmly
bite into a problem and suck it to the last drops. He belongs,
however, to our best people, though that's not saying much"
(Boas to Sophie Boas, July 18, 1911, BP). Of all their differ-
ences, this lack of deep focus seems to have been Boas's ma-
jor criticism of his student.
Despite Boas's occasional frustrations with Kroeber, their
correspondence reveals his solicitous concern—"I wish you
would let me hear from time to time how your work pro-
gresses. I am, of course, interested in what you are doing*
(Boas to Kroeber, April 15, 1903, KP)—and support—"1 do
not think you are right in 'criticizing' your papers in the way
you do" (Boas to Kroeber, March 22, 1902, KP). And he re-
commended that Kroeber come to New York "because it
gives you a chance to talk with a number of your colleagues.
A too long isolation is not beneficial" (Boas to Kroeber, July
9, 1902, KP). Years later, Boas was attributing Kroeber's prob-
lems to his distant location: "Kroeber . has not done what
he has promised. He has not borne well the isolation of Cali-
fornia" (Boas to Sophie Boas, December 25,1909, BFP). Boas,
who was very oriented to his native Europe and adoptive
New York, seems never to have understood the depth of
Kroeber's attraction to California and the west.
In the end, whatever his own feelings might have been,
Boas believed in letting his students go their own way. For
instance, he declined to edit a manuscript of Kroeber's on the
languages of southern California (1904b). As Boas explained
to Putnam, "It seems to my mind that it is in the best inter-
ests of science to let young men who have had a good train-
ing develop without interference, because new points of
view, which are so essential to a healthy development of sci-
ence, are much more likely to develop among students who
work independently" (Boas to Putnam, May 17,1902, AMNH).
In a similar vein he later wrote to his son, "1 must confess I
often am annoyed with the young people who forget what
they owe to us seniors, and then 1 get still more angry at my-
self that 1 am upset by it, for it is quite natural, and they
should feel that they think and work for themselves* (Boas to
Ernst Boas, April 13, 1918, BFP).28
Kroeber commented on Boas in the more public venues
of obituaries and published memorials (1943, 1^44. 1Q56,
1959). On the one hand, he characterized Boas "as a power-
ful father figure, cherishing and supporting those with whom
he identified in the degree that he felt they genuinely were
identifying with him. but, as regards others, aloof and prob-
ably fundamentally indifferent, coldly hostile if the occasion
demanded. A true patriarch, in short, with patriarchal strength
and outlook" (1956:156), At the same time, he acknow-
ledged his mentor's broaiiniindedness and patience: "He was

in general tolerant, especially toward younger men; and
where he recognized partial merit, he often withheld public
criticism of weakness" (1943:21).
Boas's tolerance of his students' individuality meant, as
Kroeber and many other Boas students maintained, that
there was no "Boas school" of anthropology:
There never was a "Boas school," in spite of the profound
influence which Boas exerted. He was the last man that
wanted such a school; what he stood for was a sound ap-
proach, not a dogma. Like everyone else, he was suscepti-
ble to the degree of flattery implicit in approval and agree-
ment with his views. But he never excommunicated or
even discountenanced those of his students who devel-
oped paths different from his own. One could legitimately
speak perhaps of a Boas group, in differentiating those di-
rectly influenced by him from those little or not influ-
enced. Essentially, a Boas "school" has existed only in the
minds of those themselves heading or wanted to head a
school. [Kroeber 1943:24; cf. Kroeber 1956:157; Mead
1959:31]
Yet, if one cannot speak of a Boas school, one can profit-
ably speak of "Boasians" (Darnell 1998:271-273, 294-297;
Stocking 1974:17-18, 1976:7-8). As in many paternal rela-
tionships, Kroeber felt the need to assert his independence,
justifying Stocking's label of him as one of the "rebelling"
Boasians (along with Radin and Sapir) (1974:17).29 In fact,
Kroeber's rebellion from Boas paradoxically marked him as a
Boasian because of the way Boas taught—encouraging his
students to learn for themselves by developing principles
and theory from specific case studies. At the same time, he
did not demand acquiescence to his own views. Kroeber and
Boas had a kind of "open" relationship, a combination of
consonance and dissonance. Although Kroeber was inspired
to go into anthropology by Boas and was in basic agreement
on the ultimate goals of the discipline, he rebelled on many
specifics, both theoretically and institutionally, and his
teacher accepted it, despite personal regrets.
To some extent, Kroeber's divergence from Boas was
merely an expression of the kind of complex mixture of in-
fluences one finds in any relationship. To say that Kroeber
was a Boasian does not mean that Boas was his only mentor
or role model. Kroeber looked to Putnam for administrative
models and toward Tylor and Spencer, among others, as in-
tellectual precursors. Extending the familial metaphor, one
could argue that the older Putnam (1839-1915) was more of
a grandfather figure for Kroeber, perhaps more indulgent
than the father (Kroeber 1915). What Kroeber did share with
Putnam and Boas was their ambition and institutional en-
trepreneurship. It is not mere coincidence that all three were
founders of departments and leaders of the discipline.
Viewed historically, the story of Boas and Kroeber's first
decade represents a remarkable moment of synchronicity.
For, in addition to witnessing the new programs at Columbia
and California and the beginning of so much of the two
men's work, the turn of the last century saw a tremendous
amount of change in American anthropology (Darnell 1998).
The death of Powell marked the end to BAE dominance,
while the founding of the AAA represented a new sense of
Jacknis • The First Boasian 529
self-consciousness and professionalism. Even museums, so-
often associated with the 19th century, were expanding—the
massive collecting of the American Museum and the Field
Museum, the new building for the University of Pennsylva-
nia Museum, Stewart Culin's founding of the Ethnology De-
partment at the Brooklyn Museum, and even the expanding
of anthropology at Harvard, the nation's oldest academic de-
partment and museum dedicated to the discipline. All this
activity was made vividly clear in the pages of the American
Anthropologist, when it reviewed the progress of the discipline
in the years between the 1902 meeting of the Congress of
Americanists and the 1905 San Francisco Annual Meeting
(American Anthropologist 1906). American anthropology was
touched by the society's widespread feelings of progress, a
belief in the novelty and growth that the new century would
bring (Crichton 1998).
As the century went on, first Boas and then Kroeber
would come to be seen as the intellectual leaders of the disci-
pline in America. Even after his retirement in 1946, Kroeber
continued to actively research, teach, publish, and organize
conferences until his death in 1960, just as anthropology be-
gan its most substantial expansion in the century. By then,
of course, Boasian anthropology had been supplanted as the
dominant paradigm, and in fact was subjected to vehement
critiques (e.g., Harris 1968). However, its fundamental set of
assumptions has continued to underlay much of the field,
even if often unacknowledged (Darnell 2001), In order to un-
derstand how this Boasian tradition was created, it is impor-
tant for us to trace in detail how theory and practice, institu-
tions and biography interacted. This study of Kroeber's early
career must be complemented by comparative treatments of
the rest of the large and complex Boasian "family," each a
Boasian in his or her own fashion.
IRA JACKNIS Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology,
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
NOTES
Acknowledgments. This is a revised version of a paper originally
presented at a session devoted to Franz Boas at the 1997 Annual
Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. 1 would like
to thank Herbert S. Lewis for inviting my participation, as well as
for sharing archival sources and his comments on the article. 1 am
also grateful to Douglas Cole and Alexander Long for sharing archi-
val sources; Karl and Clifton Kroeber for sharing family memories:
Virginia Knechtel for research assistance; and Regna Darnell and
an anonymous reviewer for their comments.
Correspondence will be noted in the text followed by an abbre-
viation of the archival source: American Museum of Natural His-
tory, Department of Anthropology Archives (AMNH); Franz Boas
Professional Papers, American Philosophical Society Library (RPl;
Franz Boas Family Papers, American Philosophical Society Library
(BFP); Alfred L. Kroeber Papers, the Bancroft Library. IV-Berkeley
(KP); Frederic W. Putnam Papers. Department of Anthropology-
Unlvcrsity of California. Harvard University (PPl: University of
California. Department of Anthropology, the Bancroft library.
UC-Berkeley (UCDA).
1. "It was also the beginning of close friendships between (Kroeber|
and Boas. Mlml |hls mother| and Mrs Boas. >md F.lslx'th |his sisterj
ami Helena Boas, youngest of the four Boas children" (kroebei
1970:46: Cf Boas to Kroelx-r. February IK. 191)4. KP).
530 American Anthropologist • Vol. 104, No. 2
2. "In 1899, anthropology, along with philosophy, education, and
psychology, was incorporated into a single department and Boas
was made a full professor, but the contributory offerings in anthro-
pology remained for years in different departments and even facul-
ties of the University" (Steward 1961:1042).
3. Technically, Kroeber studied in literature as there was no sepa-
rate English department at the time (Kroeber 1970:45).
4. The failure of A. F. Chamberlain (1865-1914) to fulfill his po-
tential as the effective "first Boasian" is a cause for speculation; it
was most likely because of a combination of factors. He was dis-
tanced by his birth in England and upbringing in Canada, where
he came under the influence of his real mentor, Daniel Wilson,
president of the University of Toronto. There he earned both his
B.A. and M.A. Chamberlain took up the position at Clark aban-
doned by Boas, which he held from his 1892 doctorate until his
relatively early death. Although Kroeber's San Francisco was even
more isolated from the centers of American anthropology than
Worcester, Massachusetts, Chamberlain does not seem to have
been part of the relevant social network; nor did he do much to ex-
pand the department, unlike the personally ambitious Kroeber. He
did some ethnography, but his primary interest was in folklore and
childhood development (encouraged by Clark's president, psy-
chologist G. Stanley Hall). He was, by all accounts, not theoreti-
cally inclined, much of his professional activity being devoted to
bibliography and editing the Journal of American Folklore. Boas,
however, remembered him with affection (1914; Gilbertson 1914).
The other two candidates for priority, Swanton and Dixon, got
their degrees from Harvard (1900) before Kroeber, but both were
fundamentally Boasian. A decision to focus on Kroeber is a reflec-
tion of his closer relation to Boas as well as his Columbia degree.
5. Columbia's first anthropology doctorates, after Kroeber, were
William Jones (1904), Albert B. Lewis (1907), Robert H. Lowie
(1908), Edward Sapir (1909), Alexander Goldenweiser (1910), Leo
Frachtenberg (1910), and Paul Radin (1911).
6. As Kroeber noted, Swanton and Dixon were about the only two
of Boas's students who "maintained a sane and constructive inter-
est in tribal and ethnic migrations" (1936:295; cf. Payne and Mur-
ray 1983), an interest not shared with Kroeber, for the most part.
7. Dixon was in California and Kroeber in Oklahoma, both collect-
ing for the American Museum, while Swanton was in South Dakota
doing Lakota linguistics for Putnam. Between 1896 and 1898,
Swanton also participated in excavations in Maine, New Jersey,
Ohio, and New Mexico. In 1898 Dixon was in Washington State
for thejesup Expedition.
8. Later, when he was a professor, Kroeber did much the same
(Foster 1976:17). In this regard, Kroeber was fond of quoting Boas,
"If they have shown that they are good men, they should be given
their degrees, after which they will learn what they need" (Steward
1961:1047).
9. The location of this letter is unclear. According to Zumwalt
(1988:75), it is in the University of California Archives (UCDA), but
1 have been unable to find it.
10. This is not the place for the discussion this episode deserves,
but we can offer a few words on its effect on Kroeber. It was trau-
matic and undoubtedly encouraged his general lack of interest in
physical anthropology. During his California work, he avoided the
subject, investigating it only in 1907 when he feared that the de-
partment faced the end of its field funding. Even then, he only
measured and photographed people, and left it to Edward Glfford
to write up the information. Tuberculosis, the cause of the lnuit's
death, also claimed his first wife In 1913, and lshl, the last Yahl,
who lived at the UC anthropology museum, In 1916. This would
help explain his insistence that lshl not be given an autopsy as well
as Kroeber's transfer of lshl's brain to the Smithsonian when lshl
was autopsled against Kroeber's wishes (Thomas 2000:88).
11. Of the first four docloral dissertations directed by Boas, Kroe-
ber's was the only nonllngulstk one: Chamberlain wrote on the
language of the Mlsslssauga Indians; Swauton, i IK- "Morphology of
the Chinook Verb"; and Dixon, "The 1 .inguage of the Maldu Indi-
ans of California."
12. There 1$ no evidence of bad feelings hetween Dixon and Kroe-
ber; their correspondence was always warm and cordial. In fact,
June 2002
they had originally planned to coauthor what became the Hand-
book of the Indians of California, and they collaborated on research
and writing on California Indian languages.
13. Although the lack of research funds was a valid reason, David
Starr Jordan, chair of the academy board, confidentially added a
reservation about Kroeber's personality: "Mr. Kroeber does not
have the initiative which will enable him to accomplish here any-
thing of importance outside of purely scientific investigation. He is
too young and boyish to produce much impression on men who
might be interested in his work, and it seems to be necessary to tell
him what to do in order to get anything in particular done, while
none of us know what he ought to do" (Jordan to Boas, January 18,
1901, AMNH). This perspective, coming at the beginning of his ca-
reer, was quite a contrast to the authoritative "grand old man" that
Kroeber was later to become.
14. Barrett was in New York in 1907-08. After spending 1909-10
at Columbia, Waterman finally earned his doctorate under Boas in
1913.
15. Long argues that Kroeber's belligerence on this point was mo-
tivated by his refusal of the job offer from the American Museum
(1998:139). In any event, Kroeber acknowledged to Clark Wissler,
Boas's successor at the museum, that the university could not have
California all to itself:
1 do not think that we should be regarded as holding a monop-
oly, except for investigations already in progress, of anthropo-
logical work in this state. In the course of time there must be
many institutions for whom it will be desirable, for their own
development and the advancement of science, to take up such
work. We cannot expect to entirely reserve the field for our-
selves. It is only because our work will always of necessity be
specially directed to California and will presumably be perma-
nent that I feel that it will be for the best interests of everyone
if co-operation obtains. I should regard in the same way work
our University on the North Pacific coast or in certain regions
of the Plains where your Museum has been pre-eminent.
[Kroeber to Wissler, January 25, 1906, AMNH]
16. As Long points out, Kroeber's thinking on California culture
areas was influenced by Stephen Powers, Hubert H. Bancroft, and
Edward B. Tylor, as well as Boas (1998:69-75).
17. Although in 1902 Kroeber agreed with Boas "that I have done
about enough" of miscellaneous survey work (Kroeber to Boas,
January 13, 1902, AMNH), he continued to address his research
and writing to comparative issues.
18. On the other hand, Boas once remarked to Kroeber. "I shall be
guided largely by what you say" (Boas to Kroebex, March 19,1902,
KP). Darnell (1998:294) observes other instances of Boas's encour-
agement of Kroeber to make his arguments comprehensible to the
untrained reader.
19. There was some confusion over whether Kroeber would sub-
mit Yuki or Yokuts (Boas to Kroeber, May 19, June 27, August 3,
1904. KP; Kroeber to Boas, October 19, 1904, KP). In May. Kroeber
suggested Yokuts, but he did not have time to work on it (Kroeber
to Boas, May 24, 1904, KP). "I am still hoping to have my Yuki
ready for your hand-book by the end of the yeai. My Yokuts is all
in shape but 1 do not think that it is of a character to make it avail-
able for your purposes" (Kroeber to Boas. October 19.1904, KP).
20. In their early decades, the AAA and AFS were closely related;
they overlapped in membership and officers, and usually met con-
jointly (Zumwalt 1988:38).
21. As Long explains in detail, 1903 was an especially hectic time
for Kroeber. He was teaching undergraduate classes, planning an
elaborate joint essay with Dixon on Californian Indian languages,
corresponding with Dorsey about their coauthored book on Ara-
paho mythology, directing the fieldwork of a Harvard student who
died In the field, moving the museum's collections from Berkeley
to San Francisco, dealing with the university administration over
the status of the department's publications, and formalizing the
department's California survey (lv*>N: 134-135). Boas never under-
stood the scope of Kroeber's duties.
22. According to an unsigned note contributed by Kroeber with
the exception of Lummls's Southwest Socletv. the beginning of th«
several anthropological societies of California "was in each instance

coincident with or Immediately following the coming of the an-
thropologists, and much of the stimulus that that has given them
life was born of this meeting" (American Anthropologist 1906: 493).
23. Interestingly, the California branch had considerable East
coast connections, at least at the beginning. Frederic Putnam, then
in residence and president of the AFS Boston branch, served as the
first president of the California branch, and Roland Dixon, presi-
dent of the Cambridge branch, also attended the first meeting
(Kroeber 1905).
24. Each AFS branch was organized differently; by 1913 there were
18, including one for California and one for Berkeley.
25. According to Long (1998:98), Kroeber met his first wife at the
1905 AAA meeting (Kroeber to Putnam, April 30, 1906, PP).
26. Boas was AFS president in 1900. In 1917-18 Kroeber was the
first of Boas's students to become president of AAA, preceded,
again, by Boas in 1907-08.
27. In this essay the disagreements have perhaps been emphasized
to counter the men's fundamental sympathy, which has drawn
most of earlier scholarly attention.
28. A notable exception to Boas's usually accepting relationship
with former students was his adamant opposition to Edward Sapir's
proposed genetic classification of American Indian languages
(Darnell 1990:113-114,122-123). Beyond fundamental theoretical
divergences, this disagreement was deepened by Boas's self-taught
command of linguistics versus Sapir's thorough training in Indo-
European philology.
29. On the matter of rebellion, Lowie remarked:
Estrangements from one-time students were in part merely the
familiar phenomenon of filial revolt, but in part they resulted
from Boas's taking a rational point of view that clashed with
the disciple's emotional urges. He was wont to survey the
chessboard of anthropological jobs and figure out how science
could be best served, then he would try to move anthropolo-
gists about like the pawns in a game. His judgement was usu-
ally right, but some men and women resented the impersonal-
ity of his strategy. [1947:318]
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