Margaret Mead
In the 20th century period, Margaret Mead (1901-1978), was the most recognized anthropologist of the era. Mead was born in Pennsylvania, and by the time of her demise, she was among three of the most well-recognized women in the US and was also viewed as America’s first woman of science. She went to college at DePauw and Barnard and later on attended the University of Columbia where she received her Ph.D. At the University of Columbia, she studied under the path of Franz Boas (Shankman 1).
As a graduate student, Margaret was able to take a tour to Samoa, where she conducted research that made a comparison of American adolescent girls to Samoan adolescent girls. In her study, she was able to derive that more than genetics and biology, the society that one is brought up in is more responsible in influencing personality. She also observed that before settling down to raise families, Samoan girls, unlike American girls, participated in dating and casual sex without considering the consequences that this would have on their future. She, later on, published her book in which she came up with the theory that social influences create gender roles and not anything biological (Shankman 1).
Margaret Mead