Edmund "Ted" Snow Carpenter (September 2, 1922 – July 1, 2011) was an American anthropologist best known for his work on tribal art and visual media.

Early life

Born in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located i ...

to the artist and educator Fletcher Hawthorne Carpenter (1879–1954) and Agnes "Barbara" Wight (1883–1981), he was one of four children. He was a fraternal twin with Collins W. "Connie" Carpenter, later of

Canandaigua, New York Canandaigua (; ''Utaʼnaráhkhwaʼ'' in Tuscarora) is a city in Ontario County, New York, United States. Its population was 10,545 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Ontario County; some administrative offices are at the county complex ...

.Prins and Bishop 2002"Dr. Collins W. (Connie) Carpenter - Obituary"
''

Democrat and Chronicle The ''Democrat and Chronicle'' is a daily newspaper serving the greater Rochester, New York, area. At 245 East Main Street in downtown Rochester, the ''Democrat and Chronicle'' operates under the ownership of Gannett. The paper's production fa ...

'', Rochester, New York, August 25, 2008Sherwood, Julie
"In Memory of Craftsman, doctor, civic leader: Dr. Connie Carpenter will be remembered for his many talents and his caring nature"
, '' Daily Messenger'', Canandaigua, New York, August 31, 2008 He was a descendant of William Carpenter (1605 England - 1658/1659 Rehoboth, Massachusetts) the founder of the Rehoboth Carpenter family who came to America in the mid-1630s.''Carpenters' Encyclopedia of Carpenters 2009'' (DVD format), Subject is RIN 128585; this work contains updates to the 1898 Carpenter Memorial by Amos B. Carpenter Edmund Carpenter began his anthropology studies under Frank G. Speck at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

in 1940. After completing his semester in early 1942, he volunteered to serve his country during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

World War II

He joined the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through ...

in early 1942, fighting in the Pacific Theater of Operations for the duration of the war especially in

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

, the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its ca ...

, the Marianas, and

Iwo Jima Iwo Jima (, also ), known in Japan as , is one of the Japanese Volcano Islands and lies south of the Bonin Islands. Together with other islands, they form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The highest point of Iwo Jima is Mount Suribachi at high. ...

. After the war ended, he was assigned to oversee hundreds of Japanese prisoners, putting them to work on an archaeological dig in Tumon,

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic ce ...

Post war

Discharged as a captain in 1946, he returned to the University of Pennsylvania using his G.I. Bill, was awarded a bachelor's degree, and earned his doctorate four years later in 1950. His doctoral dissertation was on the pre-history of the Northeast, entitled ''Intermediate Period Influences in the Northeast''. Carpenter began teaching anthropology at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

in 1948, taking side jobs such as radio programming for the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the governme ...

(CBC). In 1950, he started fieldwork among the Aivilingmiut, returning to these

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, ...

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the '' Nunavut Act'' and the '' Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act'' ...

in the famine winter of 1951–52, and again in 1955. When public television took off in Canada with the launching of CBC-TV in 1952, Carpenter began producing and hosting a series of shows. Moving back and forth between Toronto's broadcasting studios and Arctic hunting camps, Carpenter collaborated on the theoretical ideas in development by

Harold Innis Harold Adams Innis (November 5, 1894 – November 9, 1952) was a Canadian professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of seminal works on media, communication theory, and economic history of Canada, Canadian econo ...

and

Marshall McLuhan Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media studies, media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridg ...

. He and McLuhan co-taught a course, and together hatched core ideas about the agency of modern media in the process of culture change. In 1953, after a well-received proposal written by Carpenter, he and McLuhan received a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the dea ...

grant for an interdisciplinary media research project, which funded both the Seminar on Culture and Communication (1953–1959) and their co-edited periodical ''Explorations'' throughout the 1950s. Meanwhile, Carpenter continued his programs on CBC-TV, including a weekly show also titled "Explorations" (which started as a radio program). Together with

, Eric A. Havelock, and

Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symm ...

, McLuhan and Carpenter have been characterized as the

Toronto School of communication theory The Toronto School is a school of thought in communication theory and literary criticism, the principles of which were developed chiefly by scholars at the University of Toronto. It is characterized by exploration of Ancient Greek literature and t ...

. In his famous article "The New Languages" (1956), Carpenter offers a succinct analysis of modern media based on years of participant observation in different cultures, academic and popular print publishing, and radio and television broadcasting.

Visual media

In 1959, Carpenter joined anthropologist Raoul Naroll at San Fernando Valley State College ( California State University-Northridge) and was appointed an assistant professor and founder of an experimental interdisciplinary program of Anthropology and Art, where students were trained in visual media, including filming.''Valley State Sentinel'', San Fernando Valley State College newspaper, March 17, 1960 As the only faculty member in the new department, Carpenter went on to hire more faculty. In 1960, he was promoted to the rank of associate professor. In 1961, he was made chairman of the anthropology department. With award-winning filmmaker Robert Cannon, he made an innovative documentary about "

surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

" Kuskokwim Eskimo masks. Carpenter also co-authored ''Georgia Sea Island Singers'' (1964), a film documenting six traditional African-American songs and dances by

Gullah The Gullah () are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and cul ...

s of

St. Simon Island St. Simons Island (or simply St. Simons) is a barrier island and census-designated place (CDP) located on St. Simons Island in Glynn County, Georgia, United States. The names of the community and the island are interchangeable, known simply as ...

, based on fieldwork by

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, s ...

. And with Bess Lomax Hawes, he collaborated on ''Buck Dancer'' (1965), a short film featuring Ed Young, an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

musician-dancer from

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mis ...

. In 1967, however, just when visual anthropology began to take institutional form as an academic enterprise, the program was closed. During this period, Carpenter worked with McLuhan on the latter's book ''Understanding Media'' (1964). In 1967 McLuhan was awarded the Schweitzer Chair at

Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...

, and he brought Carpenter (on a sabbatical from Northridge),

Harley Parker Harley Parker (April 13, 1915 – March 3, 1992) was a Canadian artist, designer, curator, professor and scholar - a frequent collaborator with fellow Canadian and communications theorist Marshall McLuhan. Parker specialized in watercolour p ...

, and Eric McLuhan to be on his research team. On leave from his faculty position at Northridge, Carpenter subsequently held the Carnegie Chair in anthropology at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge ...

(1968–69), and then took a research professorship at the

University of Papua New Guinea The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) is a university located in Port Moresby, capital of Papua New Guinea. It was established by ordinance of the Australian administration in 1965. This followed the Currie Commission which had enquired ...

, officially having resigned his position at Northridge. Joined by photographer Adelaide de Menil (who later became his wife), he journeyed to remote mountain areas where indigenous Papua had "no acquaintance" yet with writing, radios, or cameras. They took numerous Polaroid and 35mm photographs, made sound recordings, and shot some 400,000 feet of 16mm film in black and white, as well as color and

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from aroun ...

film. During the next dozen years, Carpenter taught at various universities, including

Adelphi University Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York. Adelphi also has centers in Manhattan, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County. There is also a virtual, online campus for remote students. It is the oldest institution of higher edu ...

(c. 1970–1980), Harvard, New School University, and

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

(c. 1980–1981). In addition to numerous other publications, he also completed art historian Carl Schuster's massive cross-cultural study on traditional art motifs, ''Materials for the Study of Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art: A Record of Tradition and Continuity'', published privately in three volumes, with a much-abbreviated one-volume version published in 1996 by Abrams under the title ''Patterns That Connect''. In 2008, Carpenter guest-curated an important Eskimo traditional and prehistoric art exhibit ''Upside Down: Les Arctiques'' at the Musée du quai Branly, the ethnographic art museum in Paris, France. This exhibit was re-installed in 2011 as ''Upside Down: Arctic Realities'' at The

Menil Collection The Menil Collection, located in Houston, Texas, refers either to a museum that houses the art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself of approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawin ...

, an art museum in Houston, Texas, which, since 1999, also houses his permanent exhibit ''Witnesses to a Surrealist Vision.''

Personal life

On June 14, 1946, Edmund Carpenter married a fellow student at the University of Pennsylvania, Florence Ofelia Camara, and had two children with her, sons Stephen and Rhys. Their marriage united two of the earliest English and Spanish families to settle in the New World: the Camaras were a Spanish Conquistador family who settled in the

Yucatán Peninsula The Yucatán Peninsula (, also , ; es, Península de Yucatán ) is a large peninsula in southeastern Mexico and adjacent portions of Belize and Guatemala. The peninsula extends towards the northeast, separating the Gulf of Mexico to the north ...

of Mexico. They served under Francisco de Montejo, the Adelantado and Capitan General of Yucatán, and after that under his son,

Francisco de Montejo (el Mozo) Francisco de Montejo y León (; 1508 – 8 February 1565), known as "the Younger" (), was a Spanish conquistador, who in 1542 founded the city of Mérida, capital of State of Yucatán, Mexico. The son of Francisco de Montejo, ca. June 1527 he ...

, conqueror of the Yucatán. They divorced in the mid-1950s. On September 6, 1961, in Yorkville, Michigan, Carpenter married Virginia York Wilson, of Toronto, the daughter of the well-known Canadian artist Ronald York Wilson. This marriage produced a third son, Ian Snow Carpenter. This marriage also ended in divorce. In the late 1960s, Carpenter met Adelaide de Menil, the daughter of

Dominique de Menil Dominique de Menil (née Schlumberger; March 23, 1908 – December 31, 1997) was a French-American art collector, philanthropist, founder of the Menil Collection and an heiress to the Schlumberger Limited oil-equipment fortune.Helfenstein, Josef, ...

and John de Menil of

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

, Texas. Adelaide was a professional photographer who had worked for the American Museum of Natural History, and who joined Carpenter in

when he took a professorship there in 1969. Their collaborations and subsequent marriage lasted until his death in 2011.

Memorial service

A memorial service for Edmund Carpenter, attended by 400 people, was held on October 29, 2011, at the LeFrak Theater of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It was followed by a celebration of his life at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street.

Selected publications

"An Unusual Pottery Jar from East Milton"
(1943) ''Bulletin Of The Massachusetts Archaeological Society'', Vol.4, No.3, April, 1943. (submitted December, 1942) *''Intermediate Period Influences in the Northeast.'' (PhD Thesis, U Penn, 1950) *''Eskimo.'' (with Robert Flaherty, 1959) *''Explorations in Communication, An Anthology.'' (co-edited with Marshall McLuhan, 1960) *''They Became What They Beheld.'' (1970) *''Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me!'' (1972) *''Eskimo Realities'' (1973) *"The Tribal Terror of Self-Awareness." Pp. 451–461. In: Paul Hockings, ed., ''Principles of Visual Anthropology.'' (1975a) *"Collecting Northwest Coast Art." pp. 8–27. In: Bill Holm & William Reid. ''Form and Freedom: A Dialogue on Northwest Coast Indian Art.'' (1975b) *''In the Middle, Qitinganituk: The Eskimo Today.'' (with Stephen G. Williams, 1983) *''Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art.'' (with Carl Schuster; 3 Parts, 12 vols., 1986–1988) *''Patterns That Connect:Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art.'' (1996) *"19th Century Aivilik/Iglulik Drawings." pp. 71–92. In ''Fifty Years of Arctic Research: Anthropological Studies.'' Eds. R. Gillberg and H.C. Gullov. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark. (1997) *"Arctic Witnesses." pp. 303–310. In ''Fifty Years of Arctic Research: Anthropological Studies.'' Eds. R. Gillberg and H.C. Gullov. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark. (1997) *"That Not-So-Silent Sea." pp. 236–261. In: Donald Theall. ''The Virtual Marshall McLuhan.'' (2001) *"European Motifs in Protohistoric Iroquois Art." pp. 255–262. In: W.H. Merrill and I. Goddard, eds., ''Anthropology, History, and American Indians: Essays in Honor of William Curtis Sturtevant.'' (2002) *''Norse Penny.'' (2003a)
''Comock: The True Story of an Eskimo Hunter.''
(with Robert Flaherty, 2003b) *''Two Essays: Chief & Greed.'' (2005) *"Marshall." pp. 179–184. ''Explorations in Media Ecology'', Vol.5, No.3 (2006)
''Upside Down: Arctic Realities.''
Ed. Edmund Carpenter. Houston: Menil Foundation/Yale U Press. (2011)

Documentary film

(2003; Video/DVD, 55 minutes). Filmmakers

John Melville Bishop John Melville Bishop (born April 4, 1946, in North Dakota) is a contemporary, U.S., documentary filmmaker known for the breadth of his collaborations, primarily in the fields of anthropology and folklore. He has worked with Alan Lomax, John Marshal ...

and

Harald E.L. Prins Harald E. L. Prins (born 1951) is a Dutch anthropologist, ethnohistorian, filmmaker, and human rights activist specialized in North and South America's indigenous peoples and cultures. Biography Harald Prins was born in the Netherlands and is a ...

,Cf. Media-Generation.co
"Profile: John Bishop"
/ref>

References

*Prins, Harald E.L. and John Bishop
Edmund Carpenter: Explorations in Media & Anthropology
''Visual Anthropology Review''. Volume 17, Number 2, Fall-Winter 2001–2002:110-140. *Prins, Harald E.L., Book Review of "Patterns that Connect: Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art." ''American Anthropologist'' 100 (3): 841. *Prins, Harald E.L. and John Bishop. "Edmund Carpenter: A Trickster's Explorations of Culture & Media." pp. 206–245. B. Engelbrecht, Ed. ''Memories of the Origins of Ethnographic Film.'' (2007) *Prins, Harald E.L. and Bunny McBride."Upside Down: Arctic Realities & Indigenous Art." Review Essay & Obituary. ''American Anthropologist'' 114 (2):359-64.(2012)

External links

Edmund Carpenter's ''Oh, What a Blow That Phantom Gave Me!''
��text of Carpenter's book as well as film clips and photographs from fieldwork
An annotated and illustrated transcript of the film on Carpenter

About the controversial Norse penny found at a prehistoric Indian site on the Maine coast

Book reviews and information for TWO ESSAYS: CHIEF & GREED by Edmund Carpenter, PhD and PATTERNS THAT CONNECT by Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter
* Richard Pyle
"Benevolent Bidder returns mask to Alaskan tribe"
''The Washington Post'', Dec. 3, 1998. {{DEFAULTSORT:Carpenter, Edmund Snow 1922 births 2011 deaths University of Pennsylvania alumni Harvard University staff University of Toronto faculty American anthropologists American expatriates in Canada Visual anthropologists United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II