Ward Hunt Goodenough II (May 30, 1919 – June 9, 2013) was an American anthropologist, who has made contributions to
kinship studies,
linguistic anthropology
Linguistic anthropology is the Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past cen ...
,
cross-cultural studies
Cross-cultural studies, sometimes called holocultural studies or comparative studies, is a specialization in anthropology and sister sciences such as sociology, psychology, economics, political science that uses field data from many societies thr ...
, and
cognitive anthropology
Cognitive anthropology is an approach within cultural anthropology and biological anthropology in which scholars seek to explain patterns of shared knowledge, cultural innovation, and transmission over time and space using the methods and theorie ...
.
Biography and major works
Goodenough was born May 30, 1919, in Cambridge Massachusetts, the son of Helen Miriam (Lewis) and
Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough
Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (24 October 1893 – 20 March 1965) was a scholar in the history of religion. He is specifically noted for his study of the influence of Greek culture on Judaism, what some call Hellenistic Judaism.
Goodenough was born i ...
, a scholar in the history of religion, who was then a graduate student at
Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...
. He was a brother to noted solid-state physicist
John B. Goodenough. As a child his family moved between Europe and Germany as his father conducted research on a Ph.D. As a result Goodenough developed an early interest in German and languages in general. He began attending
Groton School
Groton School (founded as Groton School for Boys) is a private college-preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts. Ranked as one of the top five boarding high schools in the United States in Niche (2021–2022), it is affiliated ...
in 1932. In 1937 he began studying 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 ...
. He majored in Scandinavian languages and literature, but was also influenced by the psychologist
Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr. and the anthropologist
Lauriston Sharp
Lauriston Sharp (March 24, 1907 – December 31, 1993) was a Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cornell University. He was the first person appointed in anthropology at the university, and he created its Southeast A ...
. He earned a
B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
in 1940, and decided to pursue graduate study in anthropology. He enrolled in graduate school at
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 ...
, but his studies were interrupted by
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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. During the war, Goodenough worked under
Samuel Stouffer in the Research unit of the Information and Education Division of the War Department, among other positions. During this period he developed expertise in quantitative research methods as well as clinical social psychology.
After the war, Goodenough returned to Yale. There, he was a student of
George Peter Murdock
George Peter ("Pete") Murdock (May 11, 1897 – March 29, 1985), also known as G. P. Murdock, was an American anthropologist who was professor at Yale University and University of Pittsburgh. He is remembered for his empirical approach to ethn ...
, who supervised his dissertation. He also took classes with
Bronislaw Malinowski and
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 ...
. In 1947, Goodenough became part of the team of researchers involved in the
Coordinated Investigation of Micronesian Anthropology, a large-scale project led by Murdock and funded by the
Office of Naval Research
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...
. Murdock's assignment was the study of social behavior and religion.
He did fieldwork on
Chuuk Lagoon
Chuuk Lagoon, previously Truk Atoll, is an atoll in the central Pacific. It lies about northeast of New Guinea, and is part of Chuuk State within the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). A protective reef, around, encloses a natural harbou ...
with Murdock for seven months in 1947. This research was designed to provide the American government basic information about Micronesia, which it had acquired from the Japanese at the end of the war. It also became a central moment in the history of Micronesian studies and became the start of modern ethnography in that area.
Goodenough completed his Ph.D., entitled "A Grammar of Social Interaction" in 1949. It was later reworked and published as ''Property, Kin, and Community on Truk''. Marshall and Caughey describe it as "the premier publication resulting from CIMA, one of the enduring classics of Pacific ethnography".
From 1948 to 1949, Goodenough held a teaching position in Anthropology at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...
. He moved to 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 universitie ...
in 1949, where he remained until his retirement in 1989. In 1951 conducted additional fieldwork in
Kiribati
Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),[Kiribati]
''The Wor ...
, and in 1954 he organized a group of his graduate students on a collaborative ethnographic investigation of
New Britain
New Britain ( tpi, Niu Briten) is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago, part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from New Guinea by a northwest corner of the Solomon Sea (or with an island hop of Umboi the Dam ...
, in
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
. This included anthropologists such as
Ann Chowning
Martha Ann Chowning (born 18 April 1929 in Little Rock, Arkansas; died 25 September 2016 in Auckland) was an anthropologist, ethnographer, archaeologist and linguist known for her work on the peoples, languages, cultures and histories of Oceania.
...
and
Charles Valentine and
Edith Valentine.
In the mid-fifties Goodenough earned a reputation as a key anthropological theorist. In papers like "Componential Analysis and the Study of Meaning" he pioneered a scientifically rigorous study of culture. But he was active on other fronts as well. His long volume ''Cooperation in Change: An Anthropological Approach to Community Development'' (1963) was an important contribution to
applied anthropology
Applied anthropology is the application of the methods and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems. In ''Applied Anthropology: Domains of Application'', Kedia and Van Willigen define the process as a "complex of ...
, and he also completed a textbook entitled ''Culture, Language, and Society'' (1981). In 1968 he was invited to give the Lewis Henry Morgan lectures, one of the highest honors in American anthropology, which were later published as ''Description and Comparison in Cultural Anthropology''. Throughout his career Goodenough continued to produce specialist ethnographic works on Micronesia, most notably a ''Trukese-English Dictionary'' (1990) and a monograph on pre-Christian religious traditions on Chuuk entitled ''Under Heaven's Brow'' (2002).
As he matured Goodenough continued to gain in eminence and received additional honors and awards. He served as the President of the Society for Applied Anthropology in 1963, was the editor of ''American Anthropologist'' (the top journal in American anthropology) from 1966-1970, was elected member of the Anthropology section of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 1971, a member of the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1973, a member 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 1975,
and was also the President of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science in 1987.
He served as the department chair at Penn from 1976 to 1982. Goodenough has also held visiting positions at Cornell University, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, University of Hawaii, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Yale University, Colorado College, the University of Rochester, and at St. Patrick’s College in Ireland.
Main ideas and contributions
An expert on Chuukese kinship, his best known work is the development of a method for applying
componential analysis Componential analysis (feature analysis or contrast analysis) is the analysis of words through structured sets of semantic features, which are given as "present", "absent" or "indifferent with reference to feature". The method thus departs from the ...
to the study of
kinship terminology
Kinship terminology is the system used in languages to refer to the persons to whom an individual is related through kinship. Different societies classify kinship relations differently and therefore use different systems of kinship terminology ...
, and his disagreements with
David M. Schneider
David Murray Schneider (November 11, 1918, Brooklyn, New York – October 30, 1995, Santa Cruz, California) was an American cultural anthropologist, best known for his studies of kinship and as a major proponent of the symbolic anthropology app ...
about the value of formal analyses of Kinship terminology. He also developed
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 ...
's Status/Role theory, also applying a structural componential analysis.
Selected publications
*1951. ''Property, Kin and Community on Truk''. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No. 46.
*1955. "A Problem in Malayo-Polynesian Social Organization." ''American Anthropologist'' 57:71-83.
*1956. "Residence Rules." ''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' 12:22-37.
*1956. "Componential Analysis and the Study of Meaning." ''Language'' 32(1):195-216.
*1957. "Oceana and the Problem of Controls in the Study of Cultural and Human Evolution." ''Journal of the Polynesian Society'' 66:146-155.
*1957. "Cultural anthropology and linguistics". In: Garvin, Paul L. (Hg.): Report of the Seventh Annual Round table Meeting on Linguistics and Language Study. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics No. 9. P. 167–173
*1964. (Editor) ''Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays in Honor of George Peter Murdock.'' New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
*1965. "Yankee Kinship Terminology: A Problem in Componential Analysis." In E.A. Hammel, ed., ''Formal Semantic Analysis'', pp259–297. Special Publication, American Anthropologist, vol. 67, no. 5, pt. 2.
*1963. ''Cooperation in Change: An Anthropological Approach to Community Development.'' New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
*1970. ''Description and Comparison in Cultural Anthropology.'' Chicago: Aldine.
*1971. ''Culture Language and Society.'' Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Modular Publications, No. 7.
*2002. ''Under Heaven’s Brow: Pre-Christian Religious Tradition in Chuuk.'' Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 246. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
*
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodenough, Ward
1919 births
2013 deaths
Cornell University alumni
American anthropologists
Anthropologists of religion
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Presidents of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science
American Anthropologist editors
Members of the American Philosophical Society