George Murdock
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George Peter ("Pete") Murdock (May 11, 1897 – March 29, 1985), also known as G. P. Murdock, was an American
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 ...
who was professor at Yale University and University of Pittsburgh. He is remembered for his empirical approach to ethnological studies and his study of family and kinship structures across differing cultures. His 1967 ''Ethnographic Atlas'' dataset on more than 1,200 pre-industrial societies is influential and frequently used in social science research.


Early life

Born in
Meriden, Connecticut Meriden is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, located halfway between the regional cities of New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven and Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. In 2020, the population of the city was 60,850.Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
. He then attended
Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...
, but quit in his second year and took a long trip around the world. This trip, combined with his interest in traditional material culture, and perhaps a bit of inspiration from the popular Yale teacher A.G. Keller, prompted Murdock to study anthropology at Yale. Yale's anthropology program still maintained something of the evolutionary tradition of
William Graham Sumner William Graham Sumner (October 30, 1840 – April 12, 1910) was an American clergyman, social scientist, and classical liberal. He taught social sciences at Yale University—where he held the nation's first professorship in sociology—and be ...
, a quite different emphasis from the
historical particularism Historical particularism (coined by Marvin Harris in 1968)Harris, Marvin: ''The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture''. 1968. (Reissued 2001) New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company is widely considered the first American ...
promulgated by
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. In 1925, he received his doctorate and continued at Yale as a faculty member and chair of the anthropology department. Even in his earliest writings, Murdock's distinctive approach is apparent. He advocates an empirical approach to anthropology, through the compilation of data from independent cultures, and then testing hypotheses by subjecting the data to the appropriate statistical tests. He also sees himself as a social scientist rather than more narrowly as an anthropologist, and is in constant dialogue with researchers in other disciplines. At Yale, he assembled a team of colleagues and employees in an effort to create a cross-cultural
data set A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record of the ...
. Believing that a cross-cultural approach would help the U.S. war effort during World War II, Murdock and a few colleagues enlisted in the Navy and wrote handbooks on the cultures of
Micronesia Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...
, working out of an office at
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 ...
. After completing the handbooks, Murdock and his fellow officers were sent to the Pacific as military government officials, serving for nearly a year in the administration of occupied
Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...
. While his pre-war fieldwork had been among the
Haida Haida may refer to: Places * Haida, an old name for Nový Bor * Haida Gwaii, meaning "Islands of the People", formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands * Haida Islands, a different archipelago near Bella Bella, British Columbia Ships * , a 1 ...
and other indigenous peoples of the Northwest North American coast, Murdock's interests were now focused on Micronesia, and he conducted fieldwork there episodically until the 1960s.


Yale

Murdock joined the faculty of Yale University in 1928. His PhD from the institution was in the field of Sociology, as Yale at that time did not yet have a Department of Anthropology. Murdock taught courses in
physical anthropology Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct Hominini, hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly ...
. In 1931, Yale established an anthropology department and hired
Edward Sapir Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States. Sa ...
as the chairman. Murdock's sociological and positivist approach to anthropology was at odds with Sapir's Boasian approach to cultural anthropology. Following Sapir's death, Murdock served as chairman of the Department of Anthropology from 1938 until 1960, when he reached the then mandatory retirement age at Yale. However, he was offered the chair of Andrew Mellon Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. Leaving his long-time residence at 960 Ridge Road in Hamden, Connecticut, Murdock moved with his wife to 4150 Bigelow Boulevard in Pittsburgh. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh until his retirement in 1973, at which point he moved to the Philadelphia area to be close to his son. Murdock and his wife had one child, Robert Douglas Murdock. He was born in 1929 and died in 2011. Bob and Jean Murdock had three children, Nancy and Karen (born 1955) and Douglas (born 1959). For Murdock's war service in World War II, the best source is his own account as published in ''A Twenty-Five Year Record: Yale College Class of 1919'', a class yearbook published in New Haven, Connecticut in 1946. These are Murdock's own recollections, as shared with his classmates in the class of 1919 at Yale: According to David H. Price, in a chapter entitled "Hoover's Informer", devoted to Murdock during
McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...
, Murdock had secretly informed on AAA colleagues to
J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation  ...
. Murdock was particularly antagonistic of Boasian cultural anthropology, which he considered to be aligned with communist thought. Murdock was not the only person in his field or at his university to cooperate with intelligence agencies. For much of the 20th century, agencies such as the CIA and the FBI enjoyed a close relationship with American universities. Yale University was especially known (later) as a breeding ground for employees of the agencies. Researchers in anthropology and foreign relations were often debriefed after foreign field trips. Murdock later served as chair of the American Anthropological Association's (AAA's) Committee on Scientific Freedom, established to defend anthropologists from unfair attacks. In 1948, Murdock decided that his cross-cultural data set would be more valuable were it available to researchers at schools other than Yale. He approached the
Social Science Research Council The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a US-based, independent, international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines. Established in Manhattan in 1923, it today maintains a he ...
and obtained the funding to establish an inter-university organization, the
Human Relations Area Files The Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF), located in New Haven, Connecticut, US, is an international nonprofit membership organization with over 500 member institutions in more than 20 countries. A financially autonomous research agency based a ...
, with collections maintained at Yale University (Whiting 1986: 684).


Major works

In 1954, Murdock published a list of every known culture, the ''Outline of World Cultures''. In 1957, he published his first cross-cultural data set, the ''World Ethnographic Sample'', consisting of 565 cultures coded for 30 variables. In 1959, despite having no professional experience in Africa, Murdock published ''Africa: Its peoples and their culture history'', a very useful reference book on African ethnic groups which also broke new ground in the analysis of prehistory, especially the domestication of plants. There is also a list of his other major works: * ''Correlations of Matrilineal and Patrilineal Institutions.'' // G. P. Murdock (ed.) Studies in the Science of Society, New Haven: Yale, 1937. * ''Social Structure.'' New York: The MacMillan Company. 1949. * ''Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary.'' Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press. 1967. * ''Standard Cross-Cultural Sample'' // Ethnology 8 (4): 329–369. 1969. * ''Atlas of World Cultures.'' Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press. 1981.


University of Pittsburgh

In 1960, Murdock moved to the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
, where he occupied the Andrew Mellon Chair of Anthropology. In 1971, he was instrumental in founding the
Society for Cross-Cultural Research A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...
, a scholarly society composed primarily of anthropologists and psychologists (Whiting 1986: 685). Between 1962 and 1967, he published installments of his ''Ethnographic Atlas'' in the journal ''Ethnology''—a data set eventually containing almost 1,200 cultures coded for over 100 variables. In 1969, together with
Douglas R. White Douglas R. White (1942 – 22 August 2021) was an American complexity researcher, social anthropologist, sociologist, and social network researcher at the University of California, Irvine. Biography Douglas White was born in Minneapolis in 194 ...
, he developed the
Standard Cross-Cultural Sample The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) is a sample of 186 cultures used by scholars engaged in cross-cultural studies. Origin Cross-cultural research entails a particular statistical problem, known as Galton's problem: tests of functional relat ...
, consisting of a carefully selected set of 186 well-documented cultures that today are coded for about 2000 variables (Whiting 1986: 685). At the end of his career, he felt "no hesitation in rejecting the validity and utility of the entire body of anthropological theory, including the bulk of my own work...consigning it to the realm of mythology otscience" as in "anthropology there's virtually no ..consensus" on "the essential core of its body of theory."Anthropology's Mythology, George Peter Murdock Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 1971 (1971), pp. 17–24 After his retirement from Pitt, Murdock moved to the Philadelphia area to be close to his son and grandchildren. He is buried in a military cemetery, Valley Forge Memorial Gardens, 352 South Gulph Road, King of Prussia, PA.


Ethnology

In 1962, Murdock founde
''Ethnology'' An International Journal of Cultural and Social Anthropology
published by the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
. Publication ended in 2012 owing to a lack of interest from the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. Journal staff was released shortly thereafter, and offices were permanently repurposed.


Contributions

Murdock is known most of all for his main sequence theory whose gist was spelled out by him initially as follows: "When any social system which has attained equilibrium begins to change, such change regularly begins with modification of the rule of residence. Alteration in residence rules is followed by development or change in form of descent consistent with residence rules. Finally adaptive changes in kinship terminology follow (Murdock 1949:221–222)."


Notes


See also

*
List of cultures in the standard cross cultural sample The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) is a sample of 186 cultures used by scholars engaged in cross-cultural studies. Origin Cross-cultural research entails a particular statistical problem, known as Galton's problem: tests of functional relat ...


Publications

* * Murdock, G.P. 1959. Africa: Its peoples and their culture history. New York: McGraw-Hill. * Murdock, G. P. 1965. ''Culture and Society: Twenty-Four Essays''. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press. * Murdock, G. P. 1967. ''Ethnographic Atlas: A Summary''. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press. * * Murdock, G. P. 1980. 'Theories of Illness: A World Survey'. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press. * Murdock, G. P. 1981. ''Atlas of World Cultures''. Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press. * Murdock, G. P. 1985. Kin Term Patterns and their Distribution. ''World Cultures'' 1(4): stds25.dat, stds25.cod. * * * Murdock, G. P., R. Textor, H. Barry III, D. R. White, J. P. Gray, and W. Divale. 1999–2000. Ethnographic Atlas. ''World Cultures'' 10(1): 24–136, at01–09.sav; 11(1): ea10.sav (the third electronic version

. * * * Murdock, G.P, C.S. Ford, A.E. Hudson, R. Kennedy, L. W. Simmons, and J. W. M. Whiting, Outline of Cultural Materials, New Haven: Institute of Human Relations, 1938. Chronological listing of books and articles: * ''The Evolution of Culture'' by Julius Lippert (New York: Macmillan, 1931) (as translator and editor) *"Ethnocentrism", ''Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences'', vol. 5, pp. 613–614 (New York, 1931) * "The Science of Culture", ''American Anthropologist'', n.s., 34: 200–215 (1932) * "Lippert, Julius", ''Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences'', vol. 9, pp. 490–491 (1933) * "The Organization of Inca Society", ''Scientific Monthly'', 38: 231–239 (1934) * ''Our Primitive Contemporaries'' (New York: Macmillan, 1934) * "Kinship and Social Behavior among the Haida", ''American Anthropologist'', n.s., 36: 355–385 (1934) * "A Racial Primer", ''Bulletin of the Associates in the Science of Society'', 4.4: 1–3 (1935) * "The Witoto Kinship System", ''American Anthropologist'', n.s., 38: 525–527 (1936) * "Rank and Potlatch among the Haida", ''Yale University Publications in Anthropology'', no. 13, pp. 1–20 (1936) * ''Studies in the Science of Society'' (New Haven: Yale, 1937) (editor) * "Correlations of Matrilineal and Patrilineal Institutions". In G. P. Murdock (ed.) ''Studies in the Science of Society'', New Haven: Yale, 1937. * "Comparative Data on the Division of Labor by Sex", ''Social Forces'', 15: 551–553 (1937) * "Anthropological Glossary", ''Southwestern Monuments'', pp. 77–88, 268–274 (1938) * "Notes on the Tenino, Molala, and Paiute of Oregon", ''American Anthropologist'', n.s., 40: 395–402 (1938) * "Guia para la investigacion etnologica", trans. by Radames A. Altieri, Universidad Nacional de Tucuman, ''Notas del Instituto de Antropologia'', I, ii, 21–131, Tucuman, 1939 (coauthor with C.S. Ford, A. E. Hudson, R. Kennedy, L. W. Simmons, and J. W. M. Whiting) * "The Cross-Cultural Survey", ''American Sociological Review'', 5: 361–370, 1940 * "Double Descent", ''American Anthropologist'', 42:555–561, 1940. * "Ethnographic Bibliography of North America", ''Yale Anthropological Studies'', I, pp. 1–169, 1941 * "Anthropology and Human Relations", ''Sociometry'', 4: 140–149, 1941. * "Bronislaw Malinowski", ''Yale Law Journal'', 51: 1235–1236, 1942. * "The Yale Survey of South American Ethnology", ''Proceedings of the Eighth American Scientific Congress'', 1940, 2: 199–202. Washington, 1942. * "Marshall Islands", Navy Department (OPNAV 50E), ''Military Government Handbook'', no. 1, pp. 1–113. Washington, 1943 (coauthor with C. S. Ford and J. W. M. Whiting) * "Bronislaw Malinowski", ''American Anthropologist'', n.s., 45: 441–451, 1943. * "East Caroline Islands", Navy Department (OPNAV 50E), ''Civil Affairs Handbook'', no. 5, pp. 1–213. Washington, 1944. (coauthor with C. S. Ford and J. W. M. Whiting) * "West Caroline Islands", Navy Department (OPNAV 50E), ''Civil Affairs Handbook'', no. 7, pp. 1–222, Washington, 1944. (coauthor with C.S. Ford and J. W. M. Whiting) * "Mandated Marianas Islands", Navy Department (OPNAV 50E), ''Civil Affairs Handbook'', no. 8, pp. 1–205, Washington, 1944. (coauthor with C.S. Ford and J.W.M. Whiting) * "Marshall Islands Statistical Supplement", Navy Department (OPNAV 50E), ''Civil Affairs Handbook'', no. 1S, pp. 1–38, Washington, 1944 (coauthor with C.S. Ford and J. W. M. Whiting) * "Izu and Bonin Islands", Navy Department (OPNAV 50E), ''Civil Affairs Handbook'', no. 9, pp. 1–188. Washington, 1944 (coauthor with C.S. Ford and J.W. M. Whiting) * "Ryukyu (Loochoo) Islands", Navy Department (OPNAV 13), ''Civil Affairs Handbook'', no. 31, pp. 1–334. Washington, 1944. (coauthor with C. S. Ford and J. W. M. Whiting) * "The Common Denominator of Cultures", in Ralph Linton (ed.), ''The Science of Man in the World Crisis'', New York: Columbia, 1945, pp. 123–142. * ''Nuestros contemporaneos primitivos'' (Spanish translation of ''Our Primitive Contemporaries''), trans. by Teodoro Ortiz. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1945. * "Outline of Cultural Materials", rev. ed. ''Yale Anthropological Studies'', II, pp, 1–56. New Haven, 1945 (coauthor with C. S. Ford, A. E. Hudson, R. Kennedy, L. W. Simmons, and J. W. M. Whiting) * "Bifurcate Merging: A Test of Five Theories", ''American Anthropologist'', n.s. 49: 56–68, 1947. * "Family Universals", ''Marriage and Family Living'', 9:39, 1947.


References

* A Twenty-five Year Record: Class of 1919 Yale College. New Haven Connecticut, 1946. * * Andrey Korotayev, Korotayev, Andrey. 2001
An Apologia of George Peter Murdock. Division of Labor by Gender and Postmarital Residence in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Reconsideration
. ''
World Cultures World Cultures is an electronic peer-reviewed academic journal of cross-cultural studies. It was founded in 1985 by Douglas R. White, editor in chief until 1990, followed by Greg Truex 1991, J. Patrick Gray (1992-2014), and Greg Truex (2015-16 ...
'' 12(2): 179–203. * Kryukov, M. V.(1968). ''Historical Interpretation of Kinship Terminology''. Moscow:
Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography The Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography or N.N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (russian: Институт этнологии и антропологии им. Н.Н. Миклухо-Маклая; abbreviated as ИЭА ...
,
USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
. * David H. Price (2004). "Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists

* "George Peter Murdock, cultural anthropologist" (obituary) ''
The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...
'', April 2, 1985, page 7B * Marcello Sorce Keller. “Kulturkreise, Culture Areas, and Chronotopes: Old Concepts Reconsidered for the Mapping of Music Cultures Today”, in Britta Sweers and Sarah H. Ross (eds.) ''Cultural Mapping and Musical Diversity''. Sheffield UK/Bristol CT: Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2020, 19-34.


External links

*
Human Relations Area Files
* ttps://www.semanticafrica.net/africa-peoples-dataset-mapping-contents SemanticAfrica/Anthropology/G.P. Murdock/MindNode Mapping Diagrams of the Index of Tribal Namesbr>SemanticAfrica//Anthropology/G.P. Murdock/Africa. Its Peoples and their Culture History/Index of Tribal NamesSemanticAfrica/Anthropology/HRAF/Outline of Cultural MaterialsSemanticVocabAfrica/Outline of Cultural MaterialsSemanticAfrica/Anthropology/G.P. Murdock/Social Structure
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murdock, George 1897 births 1985 deaths Columbia University faculty Harvard Law School alumni Cross-cultural studies People from Meriden, Connecticut University of Pittsburgh faculty Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Yale University alumni Yale University faculty Presidents of the American Anthropological Association Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American anthropologists