Ruth Landes
| Ruth Landes | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
October 8, 1908 New York City, New York |
| Died | February 11, 1991 Hamilton, Ontario |
| Education | Ph.D., Columbia University (1935) |
| Occupation | Anthropologist |
Ruth Landes (October 8, 1908, New York City – February 11, 1991, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) was an American cultural anthropologist best known for studies on Brazilian candomblé cults and her published study on the topic, City of Women (1947). Landes is recognized by some as a pioneer in the study of race and gender relations.
Ruth Schlossberg was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Her father was Joseph Schlossberg, a co-founder and long-term secretary-general of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Landes received her B.A. in Sociology from New York University in 1928, and a master's degree from The New York School of Social Work (now part of Columbia University) in 1929, before studying for her doctorate in anthropology at Columbia University. She earned her Ph.D. in 1935 under the mentorship of Ruth Benedict, a pioneer in the field of anthropology and student of Franz Boas. Benedict had a profound influence on Landes. She was enthralled by the way in which Benedict taught her classes, and with the way she forced the students to think in an unconventional way. Landes also stated that she was never as happy studying anthropology as when she was studying with Benedict and Boas. Landes has recorded that the friendship between herself and Benedict was one of the most meaningful friendships of her life; it was a friendship that encouraged her to expand her thoughts about anthropology and question the social norms of society.
Landes began researching the social organization and religious practices of marginalized subjects with her masters thesis on Black Jews in Harlem. Seeking to enhance her analysis of this group, she contacted Professor Boas, who suggested she move into the field of anthropology. Under Benedict's tutelage, Landes shifted her focus toward Native Americans - the more traditional anthropological subjects. Between 1932 and 1936, she undertook field work with the Ojibwa of Ontario and Minnesota, the Santee Dakota in Minnesota, and the Potawatomi in Kansas. Using her notes from these trips, Landes produced a large body of written research, including the landmark texts Ojibwa Sociology (1937), Ojibwa Woman (1938), and, much later, Ojibwa Religion and the Midewiwin (1968) and The Mystic Lake Sioux (1968). In Ojibwa Sociology and Ojibwa Woman, Landes provides notes on kinship, religious rites and social organization, and in the latter, through the tales of chief informant Maggie Wilson, reported how women navigated within gender roles to assert their economic and social autonomy. In Ojibwa Religion and The Mystic Lake Sioux, Landes discussed her subjects' strategies to maintain religious and cultural beliefs and practices, while also responding to rapid changes in their cultural and political environment.
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