Ruth Benedict
| Ruth Fulton Benedict | |
|---|---|
Benedict in 1937
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| Born |
Ruth Fulton June 5, 1887 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | September 17, 1948 (aged 61) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Education | Ph.D. in anthropology, Columbia University (1923) |
| Occupation | Anthropologist |
| Spouse(s) | Stanley Benedict |
| Parent(s) | Frederick Fulton and Beatrice Fulton |
Ruth Fulton Benedict (June 5, 1887 – September 17, 1948) was an American anthropologist and folklorist.
She was born in New York City, attended Vassar College and graduated in 1909. She entered graduate studies at Columbia University in 1919, where she studied under Franz Boas. She received her Ph.D and joined the faculty in 1923. Margaret Mead, with whom she may have shared a romantic relationship, and Marvin Opler, were among her students and colleagues.
Franz Boas, her teacher and mentor, has been called the father of American anthropology and his teachings and point of view are clearly evident in Benedict's work. Ruth Benedict was affected by the passionate love of Boas, her mentor, and continued it in her research and writing.
Benedict held the post of President of the American Anthropological Association and was also a prominent member of the American Folklore Society. She became the first woman to be recognized as a prominent leader of a learned profession. She can be viewed as a transitional figure in her field, redirecting both anthropology and folklore away from the limited confines of culture-trait diffusion studies and towards theories of performance as integral to the interpretation of culture. She studied the relationships between personality, art, language and culture, insisting that no trait existed in isolation or self-sufficiency, a theory which she championed in her 1934 Patterns of Culture.
Benedict was born Ruth Fulton in New York City on June 5, 1887, to Beatrice and Frederick Fulton. Her mother worked in the city as a schoolteacher, while her father pursued a promising career as a homeopathic doctor and surgeon. Although Mr. Fulton loved his work and research, it eventually led to his premature death, as he acquired an unknown disease during one of his surgeries in 1888. Due to his illness the family moved back to Norwich, New York to the farm of Ruth's maternal grandparents, the Shattucks. A year later he died, ten days after returning from a trip to Trinidad to search for a cure.
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