Ruth Fulton Benedict, an American cultural anthropologist, was born in the city of New York in 1887 and died there in 1948. Her early years were spent on her maternal grandparents' farm near Norwich, New York as her father died when Benedict was just eighteen months old. Benedict's mother, Bertrice Shattuck Fulton (VC 1885), moved her family to St. Joseph, Missouri and Owatonna, Minnesota before becoming a librarian in Buffalo, New York when Ruth was eleven. In 1909, after graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, New York, Benedict traveled to Europe with college friends. Following that, she was a social worker for a year, then spent three years teaching before marrying Stanley Benedict, a biochemistry professor at Cornell Medical School, in 1914.
In 1919 Ruth Benedict began taking courses, first at Columbia University with John Dewey and then at the New School for Social Research with Elsie Clews Parsons whose course in ethnology of the sexes kindled Benedict's interest in anthropology. Under the guidance of Franz Boas, Benedict received her doctorate in 1923 from Columbia, where she remained throughout her career. In 1948 she was promoted to full professor in the Faculty of Political Science, the first woman to achieve such status.
Benedict's fieldwork was done in California among the Serrano and with the Zuñi, Cochiti, and Pima in the Southwest. Student training trips took her to the Mescalero Apache in Arizona and Blackfoot in the Northwest. From her work in the field, se veral of her books were developed: Tales of the Cochiti Indians (New York: 1931); Zuñi Mythology (New York: 1935); and Patterns of Culture (Boston: 1934), which became a best seller and influenced American life in that it explained t he idea of "culture" to the layperson.
During World War II, Benedict worked for the Office of War Information, applying anthropological methods to the study of contemporary cultures. A study of Japan was her final assignment. The outgrowth of her work on Japan for the OWI was her book, Th e Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (New York: 1946), which became a bestseller at the time and, ultimately, a classic work in the study of Japanese culture. It is still in print today.
After Ruth Benedict's death on 17 September 1948, her executor and sole legatee, Dr. Ruth Valentine, did preliminary sorting of Benedict's professional and personal papers located in her home and office. The papers were sent to Margaret Mead's office at the American Museum of Natural History where they were further arranged into categories by Benedict's friend and former undergraduate student, Marie Eichelberger, for use by Mead in An Anthropologist at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict (Boston: 1959 ).
Early in 1959, the Ruth Fulton Benedict Papers were shipped to the Vassar libraries by Mead. The collection comprises the largest number of Benedict's known personal and professional papers and consists of correspondence, manuscripts of published and unp ublished works, notebooks, lecture and research notes, diaries, photographs, financial papers, and clippings. The Benedict Papers served as the basis for two biographies: Judith Schachter Modell, Ruth Benedict: Patterns of a Life (Philadelphia: 19 83) and Margaret M. Caffrey, Ruth Benedict: Stranger in This Land (Austin: 1989). Benedict's work on Japan is currently being revisited by scholars in Japan. Some recent publications are: Pauline Kent, "Ruth Benedict's Original Wartime Study of the Japanese," International Journal of Japanese Sociology, no. 3 (1994): 81-97; Nanako Fukui, From "Japanese Behavior Patterns" to "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword," (Kansai: 1995).
Correspondence accounts for nearly a third of the Ruth Fulton Benedict Papers and includes a large number of letters from colleagues, friends, family, acquaintances, and students, along with many carbon copies of Benedict's responses, ranging from 1916 un til Benedict's death in 1948. It is arranged chronologically, with some exceptions. A project is underway to index the names of the correspondents and their organizations (if letterhead was used). Organizational correspondence is arranged alphabeticall y by organization name and includes the American Anthropological Association, New York Academy of Sciences, Council Against Intolerance in America, the National Research Council, and Progressive Education Association, among others.
From 1925 until 1940, Benedict was editor of the Journal of American Folk-Lore; consequently, there is a large series of correspondence relating to the journal (1923-1944). Correspondence from Franz Boas to Benedict covers the period 1922-1940. A nother series of correspondence, restricted until 1999 by Margaret Mead, Benedict's original literary executor, includes letters to Benedict from some of her students, colleagues, and informants.
The collection contains many manuscripts of Benedict's published and unpublished articles, book reviews, speeches, and lectures, as well as numerous drafts of her unpublished biographical essay on Mary Wollstonecraft; a partial, unpublished book manuscrip t, "The Religion of the North American Indians"; and drafts and other materials relating to some of her books, including Race: Science and Politics (New York: 1940) and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. During the 1920s, Benedict published s onnets, mainly in journals like Poetry, under the pseudonym of Anne Singleton. Many of her poetry manuscripts are located in the collection along with the stories that she wrote as a child and young adult.
There are a large number of Indian subject files, deriving from Benedict's field work and other research, especially regarding mythology, as well as material from some of her students' field work. Numerous culture area files from her OWI days and corresp ondence and reports from her work for the government are in the papers; also her diaries (mainly from the 1920s) and notebooks; drafts of An Anthropologist at Work; and teaching and lecture notes.
Photographs in the collection include many of Benedict and her family; photos of her taken by Stanley Benedict; the family farm in Norwich and Benedict's homes; and a few of Benedict in the Southwest. Some of these have been published in various works ab out her.
Margaret Mead served as Benedict's literary executor until her death in 1978. In a letter to Vassar's librarian in 1959, Mead noted that certain materials were still in existence, but not included in the collection: Benedict's letters to Mead and Mead's letters to Benedict (now located in the Mead Papers at the Library of Congress); and Edward Sapir's letters to Benedict. She further stated that most of Stanley Benedict's letters to Ruth were destroyed by her executor, Ruth Valentine, and no trace of he r letters to Edward Sapir had been found.
In addition to her personal and professional papers, a portion of Ruth Benedict's personal anthropological library was given to the Vassar College Libraries after her death by the executor of her estate, Dr. Valentine. At the time they were donated to Va ssar in 1948, the decision was made to incorporate her books into the main library collection. In her letter dated 16 November 1948 to Sarah Gibson Blanding, then President of Vassar, Valentine expressed the hope that the books would be to those who read them "what they were to [Benedict]. Not only a record of others' research and thinking but a stimulus to go ahead and further ... enrich scholarship as a living force in the world."
Sources consulted for biographical data on Benedict:
Caffrey, Margaret. Ruth Benedict: Stranger in This Land. Austin: 1989.
International Dictionary of Anthropologists. New York: 1991.
Women Anthropologists. New York: 1988.
Source: Estate of Ruth Fulton Benedict
Literary Executors:
Dr. Mary Catherine Bateson Subjects Covered:
American Anthropological Association
Anthropology
Anthropology - Bibliography
Boas, Franz, 1858 - 1942
Boas, Franz, 1858 - 1942 - Bibliography
Civil Rights
Culture
Indians of North America
Japan - Bibliography
Japan - Social Life and Customs
Journal of American Folk-Lore
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