Cora Alice Du Bois (October 26, 1903 – April 7, 1991)
was an American cultural
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
and a key figure in culture and personality studies and in psychological anthropology more generally. She was
Samuel Zemurray Jr. and Doris Zemurray Stone-Radcliffe Professor at
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
from 1954. After retirement from Radcliffe, she was Professor-at-large at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
(1971–1976) and for one term at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
(1976).
She was elected Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) 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 ...
in 1955,
president of the
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
in 1968–1969, and of the
Association for Asian Studies The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political and non-profit professional association focusing on Asia and the study of Asia. It is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.
The Association provides members with an Annua ...
in 1969–1970, the first woman to be allowed that honor.
Early life and education
Du Bois was born in New York City on October 26, 1903, to Mattie Schreiber Du Bois and Jean Du Bois, immigrants to the U.S. from
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. She spent most of her childhood in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, where she graduated from high school in
Perth Amboy
Perth Amboy is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey. Perth Amboy is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 55,436. Perth Amboy has a Hispanic majority population. In the 2010 census, th ...
. She spent a year studying library science at the New York Public Library and then attended
Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
, graduating with a B.A. in history in 1927. She earned an M.A. in history from
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in 1928.
Encouraged by an anthropology course taught by
Ruth Benedict
Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist.
She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College, and graduated in 1909. After studying anthropology at the New School of Social Re ...
and
Franz Boas
Franz Uri Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical ...
at Columbia, Du Bois moved to California to study anthropology with Native American specialists
Alfred L. Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...
and
Robert Lowie
Robert Harry Lowie (born '; June 12, 1883 – September 21, 1957) was an Austrian-born American anthropologist. An expert on Indigenous peoples of the Americas, he was instrumental in the development of modern anthropology and has been described as ...
. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1932. Du Bois’s doctoral dissertation, “Girls’ Adolescence Observations in North America” covered the topic of puberty and menstrual customs and how they are viewed among Native Americans. The topic was recommended by a fellow graduate student, but she considered it a very dull and tedious library job.
Du Bois was more interested in the question of the dividing line between cultural behavior and psychologically foundational human behavior, and thought this specific physiological condition (menstruation) would be a good place to study this question. However, there wasn’t sufficient data available to her at that time.
Early work
In part due to prejudices against women academics, she was initially unable to find a university position. She remained at Berkeley as a teaching fellow and research assistant from 1932 to 1935. In 1932, Du Bois’s Tolowa Notes was published in American Anthropologist. This article explored the culture of the Tolowa people, with data from Agnes Mattez, a full blooded Tolowa woman of forty-five.
Subjects discussed in the text include the puberty and marriage preparation ceremonies for girls. The puberty ceremony includes the piercing of the girl’s nasal septum and fasting, while the marriage ceremony includes bride prices discussed before marriage, and the presentation of gifts to the prospective mother-in-law.
She conducted salvage ethnography on several Native American groups of northern California and the Pacific Northwest, including the
Wintu
The Wintu (also Northern Wintun) are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun (or Wintuan). Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wintu ...
Indians of northern California. This endeavor was published as A Study of Wintu Myths in The Journal of American Folklore. Its main focus is on how the Wintu myths changed or remained stable. In the study, Du Bois and her co-author
Dorothy Demetracopoulou divided the data into different groups, including the literary aspects of the mythology, the recorded myth, which includes the determination of the time and language factors of recording, and change and stability in Wintu mythology.
Of the stories discussed in the text, there are three main categories. First are the bolas, which take up the bulk of storytelling. Second are the ninas, which are based on love songs. The third and final type are anecdotes, which is a name used by the researchers themselves, not the Wintu.
Certain beliefs of the Wintu were also discussed, such as the stories having an effect on the weather if not told at the right time. She published ''The 1870 Ghost Dance'' in 1939, a study of a
religious movement among Native Americans in the Western U.S.
In 1935, Du Bois received a
National Research Council National Research Council may refer to:
* National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development
* National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome
* National Research Council (United States), part of ...
Fellowship to undertake clinical training and explore possible collaborations between anthropology and psychiatry. She spent six months at the
Boston Psychopathic Hospital
The Boston Psychopathic Hospital, established at 74 Fenwood Road in 1912, was one of the first mental health hospitals in Massachusetts, United States. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The name was cha ...
, now the
Massachusetts Mental Health Center
The Massachusetts Mental Health Center is a historic psychiatric hospital complex at 75 Fenwood Road in the Longwood medical area of Boston, Massachusetts.
The center was founded in 1912 as the Boston Psychopathic Hospital. Its original main ...
, and six months at the
New York Psychoanalytic Society
The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute — founded in 1911 by Dr. Abraham A. Brill — is the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States.
The charter members were: Louis Edward Bisch, Brill, Horace Westlake Frink, Fre ...
. In New York she worked with psychiatrist
Abram Kardiner
Abram Kardiner (17 August 1891, New York City – 20 July 1981, Connecticut) was a psychiatrist (Cornell Medical School, 1917) and psychoanalytic therapist. An active publisher of academic research, he co-founded the Psychoanalytic and Psychosomati ...
, who became her mentor and collaborator for several projects in cross-cultural diagnosis and the psychoanalytic study of culture. Du Bois also taught at
Hunter College
Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...
in 1936–1937 while developing a fieldwork project to test their new ideas.
Published in 1937, Du Bois’s Some Anthropological Perspectives on Psychoanalysis discussed the relationship between Anthropology and Psychoanalysis. Du Bois stated that The first anthropological theory was a biological outgrowth of a biological analogy.
Work in Indonesia and OSS
From 1937 to 1939, Du Bois lived and conducted research among the
Abui people
The Abui are an indigenous ethnic group (also known as Barawahing, Barue or Namatalaki) residing on Alor Island, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Abui people are spread across the districts of South Alor, East Alor, and Northwest Alor in Alor Rege ...
on the island of
Alor, part of the
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
, now
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
. She collected detailed case studies, life-history interviews, and administered various personality tests (including
Rorschach test
The Rorschach test is a projective psychological test in which subjects' perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a pe ...
s), which she interpreted in collaboration with Kardiner and published as ''The People of Alor: A Social-Psychological Study of an East Indian Island'' in 1944. One of her major theoretical advances in this work was the concept of "modal personality structure". With this notion she modified earlier ideas in the Culture and Personality school of anthropology on "basic personality structure" by demonstrating that, while there is always individual variation within a culture, each culture favors the development of a particular type or types, which will be the most common within that culture. Her work strongly influenced other psychiatric anthropologists, including
Robert I. Levy
Robert I. Levy (1924 – 29 August 2003, Asolo, Veneto, Italy) was an American psychiatrist and anthropologist known for his fieldwork in Tahiti and Nepal and on the cross-cultural study of emotions. Though he did not receive a formal degree in a ...
, with his
person-centered ethnography, and
Melford Spiro
Melford Elliot Spiro (April 26, 1920 – October 18, 2014) was an American cultural anthropologist specializing in religion and psychological anthropology. He is known for his critiques of the pillars of contemporary anthropological theory ...
.
Like many other American social scientists during World War II, Du Bois served as a member of the
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...
(OSS) working in the Research and Analysis Branch as Chief of the Indonesia section. In 1944 she moved to Ceylon (now
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
) to serve as chief of research and analysis for the Army's Southeast Asia Command.
For her service to the country in the OSS, Du Bois received the
Exceptional Civilian Service Award from the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
in 1946. The Thai government honored her with the
Order of the Crown of Thailand
The Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand ( th, เครื่องราชอิสริยาภรณ์อันมีเกียรติยศยิ่งมงกุฎไทย; ) is a Thai order, established in 1869 by King Rama ...
in 1949 for her efforts during the war on behalf of Thailand.
Later work and Harvard career
She left the OSS after World War II and from 1945 to 1949 was Southeast Asia Branch Chief in the State Department's Office of Intelligence Research.
In 1950, she declined an appointment to succeed Kroeber as head of the anthropology department at Berkeley rather than sign the
California Loyalty Oath required of all faculty members.
Du Bois worked for the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
in 1950–1951. In 1954, she accepted an appointment at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
as the second person to be the
Samuel Zemurray Jr. and Doris Zemurray Stone-Radcliffe Professor at
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
. She was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) 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 ...
in 1955.
She was the first woman tenured in Harvard's Anthropology Department in 1954 and the second woman tenured in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. During this time, Du Bois wrote The Dominant Value Profile of American Culture, with the goal of describing the views on American values and the ideas that can be drawn from them. In this text, she discussed how oppositional propositions are used in America. Since most of them are more spurious than genuine, they lack consistency and are thereby unhelpful in describing American values. The four basic premises and three focal values that can be drawn from them are key information in this work. The four basic premises are 1) the universe is mechanistically conceived, 2) man is its master, 3) men are equal, and 4) men are perfectible.
The three focal values that can be drawn from them are “material well-being that derives from the premise that man is a master of a mechanistic universe; conformity that derives from the premise of man’s equality; effort-optimism that derives from man’s perfectibility.
Du Bois asserts that these assumptions have proved valid for the American middle class over the last 300, and expects that to continue in the future.
She reviewed widely. In 1950 wrote that ''The Kalingas, Their Institutes, and Custom Law'' by R.F. Barton was believed to be one of his best pieces on the customary laws of the Philippines Tribes in the Mountain Province of Luzon. In 1957, she reviewed ''Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History'' by
G. William Skinner
George William Skinner (; February 14, 1925 – October 26, 2008) was an American anthropologist and scholar of China. Skinner was a proponent of the spatial approach to Chinese history, as explained in his Presidential Address to the Associat ...
, comparing it to works by
Victor Purcell
Victor William Williams Saunders Purcell Order of St Michael and St George, CMG (26 January 1896 – 2 January 1965) was a British Colonialism, colonial public servant, historian, poet, and Sinology, Sinologist in British Malaya, Malaya (now Malay ...
and
Kenneth Landon Kenneth Perry Landon (27 March 1903 Meadville, Pennsylvania – 26 August 1993 Arlington, Virginia) was a government and academic specialist on Thailand. He and his wife, Margaret Landon, were Presbyterian missionaries in southern Thailand from 192 ...
. Du Bois described Purcell's work as a monumental compilation.
She conducted research between 1961 and 1967 in the temple city of
Bhubaneswar
Bhubaneswar (; ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Odisha. The region, especially the old town, was historically often depicted as ''Ekamra Kshetra'' (area (''kshetra'') adorned with mango trees (''ekamra'')). Bhubaneswar is ...
in the Indian state of
Orissa
Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sch ...
, where a number of graduate students in Anthropology and
Social Relations
A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...
conducted fieldwork.
In 1970 she retired from Harvard but continued teaching as Professor-at-large at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
(1971–1976) and for one term at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
(1976).
Most of her research materials and personal papers are held in the
Tozzer Library
Tozzer Library is Harvard Library's primary source for all subfields of anthropology and archaeology. With over 250,000 volumes, Tozzer is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive anthropology and archaeology collections worldwide. The an ...
at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
.
Some are in the
Regenstein Library
The Joseph Regenstein Library, commonly known as "The Reg" is the main library of the University of Chicago, named after industrialist and philanthropist Joseph Regenstein. It is one of the largest repositories of books in the world and is noted ...
at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
.
Personal life
Du Bois met
Jeanne Taylor, another OSS employee, in Ceylon. There she began a
lesbian
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
relationship with her. They lived together as a couple
and in the mid-1950s they visited
Paul
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
and
Julia Child
Julia Carolyn Child (née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American cooking teacher, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, '' ...
in Paris.
Du Bois' obituary in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called Taylor "her longtime companion."
Du Bois and Taylor, according to her
Harvard Library
Harvard Library is the umbrella organization for Harvard University's libraries and services. It is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection ...
biography, "enjoyed an active social life" together.
Death
Cora Du Bois, aged 87, died from pneumonia and heart failure on April 11, 1991, in
Brookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...
.
Selected works
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Cora Du Bois (1950). Review of ''The Kalingas, Their Institutes, and Custom Law.'' Arlington, Virginia:
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
*
*Cora Du Bois (1957). Review of ''Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History''. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:
The American Academy of Political and Social Science
Interlocutors
*
Abram Kardiner
Abram Kardiner (17 August 1891, New York City – 20 July 1981, Connecticut) was a psychiatrist (Cornell Medical School, 1917) and psychoanalytic therapist. An active publisher of academic research, he co-founded the Psychoanalytic and Psychosomati ...
, psychiatrist
*
Ralph Linton
Ralph Linton (27 February 1893 – 24 December 1953) was an American anthropologist 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 contributio ...
, anthropologist
Notable students
*
Jean Briggs
Jean L. Briggs (May 28, 1929 – July 27, 2016) was an American-born anthropologist, ethnographer, linguist, and professor emerita at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her best known works included the 1970 landmark book ''Never in Anger: Portr ...
, cultural and psychological anthropologist, Canadian Inuit
[Briggs, Jean (1970) ''Never in Anger: portrait of an Eskimo family.'' Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. P. ix.]
*
Richard Taub, sociologist
*
Richard A. Shweder, cultural anthropologist and cultural psychologist, Orissa
References
External links
Guide to the Cora DuBois Papers 1961–1972at
University of Chicago Library
University of Chicago Library is the library system of the University of Chicago, located on the university's campus in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the tenth largest academic library in North America, with over 11.9 million volumes as ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Du Bois, Cora
1903 births
1991 deaths
20th-century American scientists
20th-century American women scientists
American women anthropologists
Lesbian academics
American lesbian writers
LGBT anthropologists
Psychological anthropologists
American people of Swiss descent
People of the Office of Strategic Services
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Presidents of the Association for Asian Studies
Barnard College alumni
Cornell University faculty
Harvard University faculty
Hunter College faculty
University of California, Berkeley alumni
20th-century American anthropologists
American women academics
20th-century LGBT people