A Maverick Boasian: The Life and Work of Alexander A. Goldenweiser

269 Pages·2023·27.415 MB·English

by  Sergei Kan

A Maverick Boasian
Critical Studies in the
History of Anthropology
SerieS editorS
Regna Darnell
Robert Oppenheim
A Maverick
Boasian
The Life & Work
of Alexander A. Goldenweiser
Sergei Kan
University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln
© 2023 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
Portions of the book previously appeared in “Alexander
Goldenweiser’s Politics,” Histories of Anthropology Annual
5 (2009): 182– 99; and “The Falling- Out between Alexander
Goldenweiser and Robert Lowie: Two Personalities, Two Visions
of Anthropology,” in Corridor Talk to Culture History: Public
Anthropology and Its Consequences, ed. Regna Darnell and Frederic
W. Gleach, Histories of Anthropology Annual, vol. 9 (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 1– 31.
All rights reserved
The University of Nebraska Press is part of a land- grant institution
with campuses and programs on the past, present, and future
homelands of the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe- Missouria, Omaha, Dakota,
Lakota, Kaw, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Peoples, as well as those of
the relocated Ho- Chunk, Sac and Fox, and Iowa Peoples.
Publication of this work was assisted by the Murray- Hong Family
Trust, to honor and sustain the distinguished legacy of Stephen
O. Murray in the History of Anthropology at the University of
Nebraska Press.
Publication of this work was also assisted by the Dean of Faculty
Office at Dartmouth College.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Kan, Sergei, author.
Title: A maverick Boasian: the life and work of Alexander A.
Goldenweiser / Sergei Kan.
Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2023] |
Series: Critical studies in the history of anthropology | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2022020610
iSbn 9781496233486 (hardback)
iSbn 9781496234414 (epub)
iSbn 9781496234421 (pdf)
Subjects: lcSh: Goldenweiser, Alexander, 1880– 1940. |
Anthropologists— Russia (Federation)— Biography. |
Ethnologists— Russia (Federation)— Biography. | Racism in
anthropology— United States. | United States— Race relations—
History. | biSac: biography & autobiography / Educators |
Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social
Classification: lcc gn21.g65 K36 2023 | ddc 305.80092
[B]— dc23/eng/20220519
lc record available at https:// lccn .loc. gov /2022020610
Set in Questa.
To the memory of my teachers
Raymond D. Fogelson (1933– 2020)
George W. Stocking Jr. (1928– 2013)
who inspired me to pursue
history of anthropology
and taught me a lot about doing it
And to the people of Ukraine
(Goldenweiser’s birthplace) who have
been fighting courageously
for their freedom and sovereignty

contentS
List of Illustrations | ix
Series Editors’ Introduction | xi
Acknowledgments | xv
Introduction | 1
1. The Russian Beginning
and the Early American Years | 7
2. Early Scholarship, the
Iroquois Fieldwork, and Columbia | 19
3. The New School, Academic
and Popular Writing,
and a Devastating Divorce | 81
4. The West Coast Exile | 139
5. The End | 187
Notes | 201
References | 213
Index | 229

illuStrationS
Following page 80
1. Engagement announcement of
Alexander Solomonovich Goldenweiser
and Sophia Grigor’evna Munshtein
2. Alexander Solomonovich Goldenweiser, 1910
3. 13 Reitarskaia St., Kiev
4. Alexander Goldenweiser as a student
at St. Vladimir University, 1900
5. The Goldenweiser siblings, 1904
6. The Goldenweiser family on the
beach at Norderney (?), late 1890s
7. Alexander Goldenweiser and Anna
G. (Hallow) Goldenweiser, 1909
8. Alexander Goldenweiser and his
daughter Alice Rosalind, ca. 1918
9 Alexander Goldenweiser with fellow
students of Franz Boas, ca. 1910
10. Franz Boas and his graduate students, ca. 1910 (?)
11. Alexander Goldenweiser and family in Kiev, 1909
12. John Arthur Gibson
13. Alexander A. Goldenweiser, 1930s
14. Goldenweiser at Suny Buffalo, summer 1936
15 Alexei Goldenweiser, 1930s (?)
16. Emmanuel Goldenweiser, 1930s
ix