Early Civilization; an Introduction to Anthropology
(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Anthropology: An Introduction to Primitive Culture
(Complete digitally restored reprint (facsimile) of the or...)
Complete digitally restored reprint (facsimile) of the original edition of 1937 with excellent resolution and outstanding readability. Illustrated with over 100 drawings, photos and maps. Alexander Alexandrovich Goldenweiser was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1880. He emigrated to the United States in 1900. He studied anthropology under Franz Boas, and earned his AB degree from Columbia University in 1902, his AM degree in 1904, and his Ph.D. in 1910. Professor Goldenweiser taught at the following institutions: Lecturer, Anthropology, Columbia University, 1910–1919; New School for Social Research, NY, 1919–1926; Lecturer, Rand School of Social Science, 1915–1929; Professor, Thought and Culture, Oregon State System of Higher Education, Portland Extension, 1930–1938; Visiting Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1937–1938; Professor, University of Washington, 1923; Visiting Professor of Sociology, Reed College, 1933-1939. He died on July 6, 1940, in Portland, Oregon.
(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Alexander Aleksandrovich Goldenweiser was a Russian-born American anthropologist and sociologist.
Background
Goldenweiser was born on January 29, 1880, in Kiev, Ukraine (then Russian Federation), the eldest of five children of Alexander Solomonovich and Sofia G. (Munstein) Goldenweiser. His father was a prominent lawyer and criminologist and was active in promoting Jewish cultural welfare. The family went to the United States, because his father wanted his children to live in a democracy rather than in autocratic and anti-Semitic Russia. The father returned to Kiev, but Alexander's two brothers, Emanuel and Alexis, also settled in the United States, the former becoming a prominent government economist.
Education
After attending the fifth Gymnasium in Kiev, young Goldenweiser came to the United States in 1900 with his father. After a year as a special student at Harvard University, Alexander Goldenweiser transferred to Columbia, where he received the A. B. degree in 1902, the A. M. in 1904, and a Ph. D. in anthropology, under Franz Boas, in 1910. His studies at Columbia were interrupted by a year of study in Berlin (1905-1906) and by obligatory service in the Russian army in Kiev (1907-1909).
Career
Goldenweiser taught or lectured at numerous institutions, but he never became established as a full-time professor in a department of anthropology, and as a result he played a relatively minor role in the training of anthropologists. Some institutions were, without doubt, disinclined to avail themselves of his unquestioned talents and ability because of his reputedly unconventional standards of conduct and meager sense of responsibility. He was assistant, lecturer, and instructor in anthropology at Columbia, 1910-1919. He lectured at the Rand School of Social Science in New York City, 1915-1929, and at the New School for Social Research in New York, 1919-1926. In 1930 he went to Portland, Oregon, where he taught in the extension division of the University of Oregon as instructor in sociology, 1930-1932, and as professor of thought and culture (on a half-time basis until 1939) until his death. Goldenweiser was one of the prime movers in inaugurating the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, to which he contributed six articles (including one on his father), serving also on the editorial staff, 1927-1928. Goldenweiser did very little field work in anthropology - less than ten months on six trips to the Iroquois on the Grand River reservation in Ontario in 1911, 1912, and 1913 - and is said to have disliked it. He was, however, a stimulating, versatile, and effective popular lecturer. Theory and methodology were his major concern, with folk psychology, religion and magic, and social organization in the forefront of his topical interests. But he wrote and lectured much on race, sex, cultural diffusion, education, and psychoanalysis. Totemism occupied much of his attention in his earlier years; his doctoral dissertation, "Totemism, an Analytical Study, " was followed by some nine articles and three reviews on the same subject. Among his colleagues this was the work for which he was best known. In philosophy Goldenweiser held to the distinction, emphasized by German scholars, between the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) and the social sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). He attacked the theory of cultural evolution in numerous critiques from 1914 to 1937. In 1933 he announced that he was preparing a treatise on the theory of social evolution, but it was never published. Goldenweiser became a naturalized American citizen on November 19, 1936. He died of a coronary thrombosis in Portland, Oregon, on July 6, 1940, and his body was cremated. His principal works are his Early Civilization (1922); History, Psychology and Culture (1933), which contains his principal and previously published articles; and Anthropology (1937), a textbook. He also edited, with William F. Ogburn, a symposium, The Social Sciences and Their Interrelations (1927).
On July 31, 1906, Goldenweiser married Anna Hallow, also of Russia. They had one child, Alice Rosalind. The marriage terminated in divorce, and Goldenweiser married Ethel Cantor of Buffalo, New York, on January 31, 1930; no children were born to this union.