Patterns of Culture

Ruth Benedict was a key figure in the field of anthropology in the mid-20th century, influencing generations of students, particularly in the fields of psychological anthropology and folklore studies. Benedict was born in New York in 1887 and attended Vassar College, where she majored in English, a field of study that sustained her lifelong passion for poetry. In 1919, Benedict enrolled in an anthropology course at the New School for Social Science Research. Anthropology quickly became her calling, as it helped provide her with an analytical framework to better understand the human condition. She studied with Elsie Clews Parsons, who strongly influenced Benedict’s research on the Zuñi in Patterns of Culture.

Benedict’s professors recognized her dedication to anthropology and encouraged her to enroll at Columbia University to study with the famous anthropologist Franz Boas and his cohort of students. Under the guidance of Boas, Benedict completed her doctorate in Anthropology and soon thereafter, in 1923, served as a lecturer at Columbia University, where she held a continuous appointment. For three years, from 1925-1928, Benedict did not receive a regular salary from the university; as she was a married woman, it was assumed that she received a sufficient income from her husband. In 1931, after separating from her husband, Benedict was promoted to Assistant Professor at Columbia University, and in 1948 she was promoted to full Professor, two months before her death at the age of 61.

Boas’s intellectual influence on Benedict was immense, shaping her theories of culture early in her career. Like Boas, Benedict treated culture as a mental phenomenon and challenged evolutionary, speculative, and racist theories of human development. Her early publications, “The Vision in Plains Culture” (1922) and “The Concept of the Guardian Spirit in North America” (1923), focus on aspects of religion that foreshadow her later interest in how psychology influences cultural traits. Boas’s students also contributed to Benedict’s intellectual trajectory, especially Margaret Mead, who shared Benedict’s interest in the relationship between personality and culture. After Patterns of Culture, Benedict published further articles and a second monograph, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), while also teaching and giving numerous public lectures. In 1947, she was elected president of the American Anthropological Association, and she also participated as an active member in the American Folklore Society.