Benedict, Ruth

orig. Ruth Fulton

Ruth Benedict.

(credit: Courtesy of Columbia University, New York)

(born June 5, 1887, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Sept. 17, 1948, New York City) U.S. anthropologist. She received a Ph.D. under Franz Boas at Columbia University and taught at Columbia from 1924 until her death. In Patterns of Culture (1934), her most famous work, she emphasized how small a part of the range of possible human behaviour is elaborated or emphasized in any one society. She described how these forms of behaviour are integrated into patterns or configurations, and she supported cultural relativism, or the judging of cultural phenomena in the context of the culture in which they occur. In The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), she applied her methods to Japanese culture. Her theories had a profound influence on cultural anthropology.

Benedict, Ruth (b. Fulton) (1887–1948) anthropologist; born in New York City. A Vassar College graduate, she earned a Ph.D. in anthropology under Franz Boas at Columbia University, where she joined the faculty and assisted Boas (1923–48). Although deafness limited her fieldwork, she was recognized as America's leading anthropologist after Boas' retirement. Her Patterns of Culture (1934) was a classic statement of cultural relativity and one of the most influential modern works of anthropology. In it she argued for cultural determinism; analyzing three Indian tribes in archetypal terms, she concluded that cultures are "personalities writ large," and that psychological normality is culturally defined. Her Zuñi Mythology (1935) and Race (1940), an anthropologically based denunciation of racism, developed these themes. In her wartime work for the Bureau of Overseas Intelligence (1943–46), she initiated an innovative method of applying anthropological techniques to the study of foreign cultures, developing a series of "national character" studies that bore fruit in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), an analysis of Japanese culture. In this effort, she worked closely with Margaret Mead, who wrote an important study of her friend, An Anthropologist at Work (1959).