A Maverick Boasian: The Life and Work of Alexander A. Goldenweiser 1496233484, 9781496233486

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Illustrations
Series Editors’ Introduction
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Russian Beginning and the Early American Years
2. Early Scholarship, the Iroquois Fieldwork, and Columbia
3. The New School, Academic and Popular Writing, and a Devastating Divorce
4. The West Coast Exile
5. The End
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

A Maverick Boasian

Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology Series Editors

Regna Darnell Robert Oppenheim

A Maverick Boasian The Life & Work of Alexander A. Goldenweiser

Sergei Kan

University of Nebraska Press  |  Lincoln

© 2023 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska Portions of the book previously appeared in “Alexander Goldenweiser’s Politics,” Histories of Anthropology Annual 5 (2009): 182–­99; and “The Falling-­Out between Alexander Goldenweiser and Robert Lowie: Two Personalities, Two Visions of Anthropology,” in Corridor Talk to Culture History: Public Anthropology and Its Consequences, ed. Regna Darnell and Frederic W. Gleach, Histories of Anthropology Annual, vol. 9 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 1–­31. All rights reserved The University of Nebraska Press is part of a land-­grant institution with campuses and programs on the past, present, and future homelands of the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe-­Missouria, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Kaw, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Peoples, as well as those of the relocated Ho-­Chunk, Sac and Fox, and Iowa Peoples.

Publication of this work was assisted by the Murray-­Hong Family Trust, to honor and sustain the distinguished legacy of Stephen O. Murray in the History of Anthropology at the University of Nebraska Press. Publication of this work was also assisted by the Dean of Faculty Office at Dartmouth College. Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Kan, Sergei, author. Title: A maverick Boasian: the life and work of Alexander A. Goldenweiser / Sergei Kan. Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2023] | Series: Critical studies in the history of anthropology | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2022020610 isbn 9781496233486 (hardback) isbn 9781496234414 (epub) isbn 9781496234421 (pdf) Subjects: lcsh: Goldenweiser, Alexander, 1880–­1940. | Anthropologists—­Russia (Federation)—­Biography. | Ethnologists—­Russia (Federation)—­Biography. | Racism in anthropology—­United States. | United States—­Race relations—­ History. | bisac: biography & autobiography / Educators | social science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social Classification: lcc gn21.g65 k36 2023 | ddc 305.80092 [B]—­dc23/eng/20220519 lc record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov​/2022020610 Set in Questa.

To the memory of my teachers Raymond D. Fogelson (1933–­2020) George W. Stocking Jr. (1928–­2013) who inspired me to pursue history of anthropology and taught me a lot about doing it And to the people of Ukraine (Goldenweiser’s birthplace) who have been fighting courageously for their freedom and sovereignty

Contents

List of Illustrations  |  ix Series Editors’ Introduction  |  xi Acknowledgments | xv Introduction | 1 1. The Russian Beginning and the Early American Years  |  7 2. Early Scholarship, the Iroquois Fieldwork, and Columbia  |  19 3. The New School, Academic and Popular Writing, and a Devastating Divorce  |  81 4. The West Coast Exile  |  139 5. The End  |  187 Notes | 201 References | 213 Index | 229

Illustrations

Following page 80 1. Engagement announcement of Alexander Solomonovich Goldenweiser and Sophia Grigor’evna Munshtein 2. Alexander Solomonovich Goldenweiser, 1910 3. 13 Reitarskaia St., Kiev 4. Alexander Goldenweiser as a student at St. Vladimir University, 1900 5. The Goldenweiser siblings, 1904 6. The Goldenweiser family on the beach at Norderney (?), late 1890s 7. Alexander Goldenweiser and Anna G. (Hallow) Goldenweiser, 1909 8. Alexander Goldenweiser and his daughter Alice Rosalind, ca. 1918 9 Alexander Goldenweiser with fellow students of Franz Boas, ca. 1910 10. Franz Boas and his graduate students, ca. 1910 (?) 11. Alexander Goldenweiser and family in Kiev, 1909 12. John Arthur Gibson 13. Alexander A. Goldenweiser, 1930s 14. Goldenweiser at suny Buffalo, summer 1936 15 Alexei Goldenweiser, 1930s (?) 16. Emmanuel Goldenweiser, 1930s ix

Series Editors ’ Introduction Regna Darnell and Robert Oppenheim

In Alexander Goldenweiser author Sergei Kan takes on a tricky and troubled figure whose career has received little attention in previous writings on the history of American anthropology. This is in part due to issues of language in considering an anthropologist whose identity in significant aspects remained that of a Russian intellectual throughout his life. Yet the judgment of Goldenweiser’s mentor, Franz Boas, hangs over both the relative historiographical silence and Kan’s response to it. In Boas’s view Goldenweiser squandered his potential out of his own personal indiscipline. While some in the Boas circle were more positive—­ Ruth Benedict, whom Goldenweiser advised at the New School early in her career, had kind words for him as a teacher—­others, including some former friends, doubled down on Boas’s assessment, describing Goldenweiser explicitly as a “failure” (Robert Lowie) or as invested in theoretical broad strokes at the expense of fieldwork and data (Margaret Mead). One can imagine earlier potential biographers of Goldenweiser looking over this record and concluding, in essence, why bother? Kan contests Boas’s summary posthumous dismissal and aims to correct our notions of Goldenweiser’s accomplishments and contributions to the past and present of anthropology on several points. But Kan also understands, and at moments channels, Boas’s frustration with his early student. Why indeed was Goldenweiser not more central to the development of American anthropology in the twentieth century? It is true that contingency—­or, if one prefers, luck—­played a role in his failure to secure an institutional position fully reflective of his talents, xi

and at the present moment, when it certainly cannot be said that all anthropologists get the employment they deserve, historians would do well not to overrationalize this factor out of existence when considering the disciplinary past. However, for Kan, as for Boas, Goldenweiser to a great extent made his own fortune, or lack thereof. By the 1920s Goldenweiser had developed a personal reputation for hedonism and irresponsibility, in the form of extramarital affairs, unpaid debts, and a penchant for sticking colleagues and students with bills, that spilled over into professional assessments of him. The culmination was the scandal of his divorce from his first wife, which brought a host of romantic, financial, and legal ramifications and essentially made Goldenweiser persona non grata in New York. Boas would lend Goldenweiser support in extricating himself from the mess that he had made, but this was also the moment at which his esteem for his former protégé was terminally broken. While Columbia University’s president of the early twentieth century, Nicholas Murray Butler, was certainly anti-­Semitic, Kan argues that it was Goldenweiser’s personal chaos rather than the anti-­Semitism of the university that was decisive in losing him a shot at lasting employment there. A divorce played out in the papers, with loud recriminations and threats to Goldenweiser’s person and liberty, was similarly more than the New School could stomach. Goldenweiser thus cost himself the two best opportunities that he ever had for institutional stability and potentially broader scholarly impact. If one needs a reminder of the sort of externalities that make it impossible to reduce the history of anthropology, or of any field, to a history of ideas, here it is. Beneath Goldenweiser’s somewhat earned obscurity, Kan finds several significant intellectual achievements. Along with such scholars as Warren Shapiro, Ray Fogelson, and Robert Brightman, Kan regards Goldenweiser’s dissertation on totemism as thoroughly original and insightful, if also recognizably within the Boasian tradition. Goldenweiser sought to refute the unitary nature of totemism, and he did so in a way that profoundly anticipated Claude Lévi-­Strauss’s structuralist approach to the same topic decades later; the same work might have suggested the idea of “pattern” to Ruth Benedict. Goldenweiser’s facility with the social sciences beyond anthropology, as well as his knowledge of philosophy and literature, made him something of a pioneer of interdisciplinarity, and his framing of courses around such topics as colonialism was novel xii | Series Editors’ Introduction

for the time. There were other contributions as well, although Kan also notes that Goldenweiser’s writings on women and sex were risible in a way that suggests the intrusion of his personal preoccupations. Kan also credits Goldenweiser with a strong degree of political acuity, especially when it came to the affairs of his native Russia and the early Soviet Union, about which his depth of knowledge had few equals among U.S. anthropologists of the era. Although he held a variety of liberal, socialist, and pacifist sympathies, Goldenweiser was a self-­proclaimed individualist and was clear-­eyed, for example, about the toll that the October Revolution was having on his fellow Russian intellectuals. He navigated the shoals of leftist American opinion in the 1930s and the test posed by the Soviet show trials of that decade as a strong critic of Stalinism, even as many colleagues, notably including Boas, were much more muted. In a similar vein, Kan argues, Goldenweiser was quick to shift toward advocacy for U.S. involvement in an antifascist alliance after the events of 1939, whereas it took the rupture of Nazi-­Soviet nonaggression and Pearl Harbor for Boas to make the same transition. The Goldenweiser that Sergei Kan offers us is ultimately a worthwhile subject. Looking past Goldenweiser’s marginality, we see what he did accomplish. Meanwhile, the intertwinement of the personal, professional, and political that Kan describes outlines a person with insight into many things, except perhaps himself.

Series Editors’ Introduction | xiii

Acknowledgments

Many individuals deserve my most sincere words of gratitude for their help and encouragement through this project. As always Regna Darnell showed great interest in my research in the history of anthropology and offered valuable suggestions, especially on the subject of Goldenweiser’s relationship with Edward Sapir. As one of the editors of the University of Nebraska Press’s Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology, she also read the entire manuscript and offered useful comments. The other editor of this book series, Robert Oppenheim, also carefully read the manuscript and suggested ways of strengthening it. Two of the press’s external reviewers, Robert Brightman and Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt, deserve very special words of thanks. Both carefully read the entire opus and shared numerous insightful comments, criticisms, and suggestions. Rosemary’s expertise on Franz Boas’s life and scholarship enabled her to identify a few errors of fact in my work, while her comments on the book’s organization were equally welcome. Rob Brightman, with his long-­standing interest in the scholarship of the Boasians, including Goldenweiser, actually read the manuscript twice and offered extremely thoughtful comments on it. He also shared several fascinating anecdotes about the book’s protagonist from Reed College lore. A very special role in my work on this book project was played by the press’s senior acquisitions editor Matthew Bokovoy. Besides strongly encouraging my work on this project, Matt read the entire manuscript and, drawing on his own scholarly expertise, made major suggestions on how to better contextualize Goldenweiser’s views within a larger discussion of American intellectual life of the 1910s–­30s. He also persuaded me to provide a more detailed historical background for Goldenweiser’s field research on the Six Nations reserve in Canada. Among the other colxv

leagues of mine who have commented on and encouraged this project over the years, I would like to mention the late Raymond D. Fogelson, the late Ira Jacknis, Herbert Lewis, Michael Harkin, David Dinwoodie, Igor Krupnik, Joshua Smith, Jack Glazier, Dmitry Arzyutov, Oleg Butniskii, and Maxim Shrayer. My exploration of Goldenweiser’s personal life and character has benefited enormously from many years of friendship and constant communication with his granddaughter Leslie English. She not only shared family stories and anecdotes related to her grandfather, grandmother, and mother but also encouraged me to use her mother’s correspondence with Goldenweiser as well as a large body of family photographs, which have greatly enhanced this book. Leslie’s cousin Ellen Davies, a granddaughter of Alexander’s brother Emmanuel, also shared some interesting family history and photographs with me. Finally, useful information about Alexander’s youngest brother, Alexei, was provided by independent Russian German historian Elena Solominski. My research has also benefited greatly from the kind assistance of the staff of several archives, including that of Reed College; the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Chicago; the University of Washington; Columbia University; the University of Michigan; Harvard University; the New School for Social Research; the Tamiment Library and the Robert F. Wagner Archives of New York University; and the Archive of the City of Kiev (Ukraine). At the latter I was greatly assisted by my good friend Olena Martysh. Part of the research on this book was supported by the Claire Garber Goodman Fund of the Anthropology Department, Dartmouth College. During the exploration of several West Coast archives in 2006, my sojourn in Seattle was made more comfortable and enjoyable by my gracious hosts and dear friends Katherine and Peter Klein. Last but not least, my work has been consistently encouraged and supported by the members of my loving family: my wife, daughter, mother, and stepfather as well as my brother and sister.

xvi | Acknowledgments

A Maverick Boasian

Introduction

“Isn’t it sad to think of the life of a gifted man wasted on account of self indulgence? He was never able to meet the hard facts of life or science when they ran counter to his mental comfort” (Boas to Benedict, July 19, 1940, cited in Mead 1959, 418). These were the words written by Franz Boas in July 1940 upon learning of the death of Alexander Goldenweiser. It was certainly a harsh verdict on the life and scholarly career of someone considered by his contemporaries to have been Boas’s most brilliant and most favored student. Was Boas’s assessment fair? At first blush it might have been. Thus, if one compares Goldenweiser’s professional career and scholarly production with that of his major peers—­Alfred Kroeber, Edward Sapir, and Robert Lowie—­a conclusion of his relative failure could be drawn. Unlike these men he could never find a fully satisfactory (and well-­ paying) teaching position and left behind quite a few research projects that never materialized. His scholarly output paled somewhat by comparison with that of another peer of his, Paul Radin, whose checkered professional career resembled his own. This situation explains the fact that most histories of American anthropology mention Goldenweiser and his work only in passing, and that to this day no biography of him exists, while the lives and work of several of Boas’s other major students have been rather well documented (see Steward 1973; Murphy 1972; Darnell 1990; Stocking 2000, 2004; Glazier 2020; Mead 1974; Schahter 1983; Caffrey 1989; Young 2005; Howard 1984; Grosskurth 1989; Gershenhorn 2004; Mattina 2019).1 Even the few existing references to his seminal ideas on the relationship between the individual and his or her culture, the concept of involution, and the limited possibilities in the development of culture do not explore them 1

in any depth (e.g., Sahlins 2004; Yengoyan 2009). The only exception is his pioneering work on totemism, but even that requires further elaboration (Shapiro 1991; Fogelson and Brightman 2002).2 Moreover, due to Goldenweiser’s complicated life, marked by a series of misfortunes, brief accounts of and references to his biography contain a number of myths and factual errors. For example, the fact that, after a decade of successful teaching, Columbia University administration let him go, despite Boas’s valiant efforts to keep him, is erroneously attributed entirely to the school president’s anti-­Semitism. Then there is a widely accepted notion, first introduced by Margaret Mead, that Goldenweiser did not like fieldwork (Mead 1940). Even his major contribution as a gifted teacher of anthropology who mentored several generations of prominent American anthropologists at Columbia University, the New School for Social Research and Reed College is rarely acknowledged, with the exception of the mentoring of his most renowned student, Ruth Benedict (Schahter 1983; Caffrey 1989; Lapsley 1999; Banner 2003; Young 2005). There has also been little attention paid to Goldenweiser’s role as a public intellectual, whose unique progressive views on such key issues of the day as immigration, peace, and gender, among others, attracted a good deal of notice at the time, particularly in the 1920s, when he published numerous articles in popular periodicals and gave frequent public lectures. The only subject of his nonacademic writing that has been commented on is race and the plight of African Americans in the United States, but even that has not been fully explored (Diner 1977; Baker 1998; Anderson 2019). Completely ignored has been Goldenweiser’s original and penetrating critique of mainstream Marxism and of Stalinist Russia, even though his commentaries on these important subjects were not only original and very thoughtful but also prefigured some of the major subsequent ideas of the anarchist socialists and other representatives of the anti-­Stalinist Left. Moreover, very little attention has been paid to Goldenweiser’s Russian Jewish background and his public pronouncements on the subject of Jewish identity, assimilation, and anti-­Semitism. The influence on him of his father, one of Russia’s leading lawyers and juridical scholars, and the cult of Leo Tolstoy in the Goldenweiser family have not been acknowledged, either. 2 | Introduction

Having long been interested in the history of Russian and American anthropology in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, I decided to explore the life and work of this brilliant and complicated man (see, e.g., Kan 2006, 2009a, 2009b, 2015a, 2015b, 2019, 2021a, 2021b; Kan and Arzyutov 2016; Arzyutov and Kan 2017). To do so I examined all of his published scholarly works, rather than a handful of his well-­known publications. To assess his contribution as a teacher and mentor to a whole generation of prominent American anthropologists, I have explored the records found in the archives of the main institutions where he taught (i.e., Columbia University, the Rand School, the New School for Social Research, and Reed College). Additional information was found in the archives of Goldenweiser’s colleagues, who corresponded with him, located at the University of Chicago and several other depositories. To fully understand Goldenweiser’s relationship with his mentor, Franz Boas, as well as relationships with his major peers and younger scholars, I examined his correspondence with them, most of it unpublished, from the Robert Lowie and Alfred Kroeber Papers at the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley; Edward Sapir’s Correspondence at the Canadian Museum of History; the Ruth Benedict Papers at Vassar; and the Melville Jacobs Papers at the University of Washington. As for assessing his role as an important American public intellectual, I have searched for and analyzed his writing for a variety of nonacademic publications, from the Nation and the New Republic to the Menorah Journal and the Urban League Bulletin. Finally, I have tried to reconstruct the course of the first twenty years of Goldenweiser’s life, which took place in Russia, and explored his relationship with members of his family, including his father, two brothers, wife, and daughter. In 2019 the search for this information has taken me to Kiev, his birthplace, where I found some valuable documents pertaining to his life in the Kiev City Archive, as well as to the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University, a leading depository of Russian émigré documents, which contains Alexander’s correspondence with his youngest brother Alexei (Alexis). Finally, I have been very fortunate to discover and befriend several of Goldenweiser’s descendants, especially his granddaughter Leslie English and his great-­niece Ellen Davies, who have generously shared with me a large body of family photographs and Introduction | 3

letters, as well as bits of oral history. As far as these letters are concerned, the most valuable ones are those sent by Goldenweiser to his daughter Alice Rosalind (Leslie English’s mother) in the 1930s (lefa). The story of Goldenweiser’s life and scholarship, which emerged from this multisited research, is complex and exciting as well as frustrating. We see a man who had come to America in his early twenties and spent the next forty years here, but nevertheless remained a European intellectual who never felt entirely at home in the New World. We see an American anthropologist of Jewish descent, who mastered the English-­language prose, yet was always fond of quoting Russian proverbs and remained deeply rooted in and concerned with Russian culture and politics throughout his entire life. We see a brilliant scholar who made significant theoretical contributions to anthropology, particularly to culture theory, anthropology of religion, psychological anthropology, and anthropology’s relationship to other social sciences, but whose overall publication record was somewhat limited, at least compared to that of his major peers. We also see a public intellectual who passionately defended the rights of the individual and kept his faith in liberal democracy but had serious misgiving about America’s economic and political system. And finally, we see a talented ethnographer who managed to develop excellent rapport with his Native American consultants but had to cut his successful fieldwork short due to the lack of funds and the need to earn money teaching, as well as a personal indiscretion. Along with Goldenweiser’s numerous accomplishments we witness a series of failures: from job opportunities missed to scholarly projects contemplated but never realized. As far as these failures are concerned, it is difficult not to blame Goldenweiser himself. An individualist and an anarchist in politics, he deeply resented having to compromise any of his ideas and freedoms for the sake of professional success. A dedicated friend, he could also be vain and selfish. A brilliant and sophisticated conversationist, he could at times sound like an elitist condescending to his interlocutors. A charming man, he could risk his career and stable family life for the sake of satisfying his immediate needs and wants, whether these had to do with romancing women, playing pool, gambling, or accumulating debts without ever trying to repay them. At the same time, his employers and colleagues also bear some responsibility for his failure to secure a more satisfying and long-­term academic position. As 4 | Introduction

Robert Brightman points out, bourgeois puritanism and fastidiousness also worked against a man like Goldenweiser (personal communication, February 20, 2021). What could the history of anthropology gain from a detailed intellectual biography of such a man? To begin with an anthropologist’s biography is in itself a source of rich anthropological data. As Lohmann (2008, 96) argues, “In the case of biographies of anthropologists, particularly those written by anthropologists or scholars in related disciplines, the portal opens upon anthropological social culture from an individual’s point of view. Biographies of anthropologists at their best are rich, person-­centered ethnographies of anthropological cultures in fine temporal contexts. They are, by implication, data on humankind comparable to any other data in the anthropological record.” Secondly, a reconstruction of an important scholar’s life helps place his or her scholarly contributions into a proper historical and cultural perspective. Thirdly, as I have argued in the biography of a prominent Russian anthropologist, Lev Shternberg, “by closely examining a particular scholar’s life, a historian of anthropology can demonstrate the relationship between his or her ethnographic practice and ethnological theory, on the one hand, and his and her personal background, political views, and larger worldview, on the other” (Kan 2009b, xvii). Most importantly, Goldenweiser’s academic and popular works deserve careful examination because of his major contributions to both scholarship and America’s major public debates of the 1910s–­30s. Thus, his dissertation on totemism delivered a powerful blow to the prevailing notion of this being a unified cultural phenomenon and even a separate stage in the evolution of religion. His papers on the limited possibilities in the development of culture, on cultural involution, and on the role of the individual in culture and society exerted a major influence on a number of anthropologists of subsequent generations. His critical evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of Freudian psychology from the point of view of anthropology, which he developed in dialogue with Kroeber and Sapir, was also a significant contribution to the social sciences. His two anthropology textbooks, especially the 1922 one, offered a fresh look at culture as understood by the Boasians for several generations of students. Finally, a number of his papers on the relationship between anthropology and the other social sciences helped foster an Introduction | 5

important interdisciplinary conversation, which continued for decades after his death. As an educator he presented anthropology in an exciting and illuminating way to several generations of undergraduates and also nurtured an entire cohort of future professional American anthropologists, including such luminaries as Ruth Benedict, Mel Herskovitz, Leslie White, Alexander Lesser, Irving Hallowell. Melville Jacobs, Gene Weltfish, and Abram Kardiner. When it comes to Goldenweiser’s publications and unpublished presentations on such burning issues of his day as race, anti-­Semitism, immigration, education, pacifism, gender, and the rights of the individual, his was a major voice in a chorus of progressive Boasians who applied the insights of their discipline to a variety of questions that were on the American public’s mind in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Equally important was Goldenweiser’s consistent opposition to both fascist dictatorships and the Stalinist regime. Unlike many of his peers, he was never seduced by the promises of the latter, even though he did share the leftists’ critical view of the American economic and political system. Many of the battles he fought are still with us today. Ultimately, I simply believe it is high time to tell the whole story of the life and work of a brilliant scholar who was an important figure in American anthropology of the first four decades of the last century and whose ideas as well as actions intersected with those of its other key figures and continue to inspire some of the key anthropological debates of today.

6 | Introduction

1 The Russian Beginning and the Early American Years The future American anthropologist Alexander Goldenweiser was born to Jewish parents on January 29 (January 17 Old Style), 1880, in the Ukrainian city of Kiev, a major commercial and cultural center of the Russian Empire and of Jewish life. Small groups of Jews had resided in the city since the Middle Ages, but their presence there was not fully formalized until the late eighteenth century, when the Kiev province was included into the so-­called Pale of Settlement, which restricted Jewish residence in the empire to a number of western provinces. Due to a series of successful early nineteenth-­century petitions sent to the government by Kiev’s Christian merchants, Jews were forced out of the city in 1827. However, after the ascension to the throne of a more liberal tsar, Alexander II, in 1855, Jews were readmitted to Kiev. Under his reforms some categories of Jews were permitted to settle outside the Pale, as well as in Kiev and other previously restricted cities. Kiev’s Jewish population then grew from about three thousand in 1863 to fourteen thousand in 1872. By 1897 it reached thirty-­two thousand, representing 13 percent of the total population. Most of the city’s Jews engaged in trade, crafts, and carting and tended to settle in the two of Kiev’s poorest neighborhoods, although some Jews lived throughout the city. Some of the city’s wealthiest residents were Jewish merchants and industrialists. These men played a major role in municipal as well as Jewish communal and philanthropic life. The city’s St. Vladimir University and other institutions of higher learning were attended by a large number of Jews, many of whom settled in the city and formed a relatively small but significant Jewish middle class composed of lawyers, engineers, doctors, and other professionals (Meir 2008, 892; Meir 2010). 7

Alexander (referred to by his relatives with the informal diminutive “Shoora”) came from a family of well-­to-­do merchants and lawyers. His paternal great-­grandfather was a man named Israel Goldenweiser. A watchmaker and the first person in the family to assume the last name “Goldenweiser,” he was born in Uman’, a medium-­sized town located in the Kiev region, and became one of the founders of a Jewish agricultural colony in Bessarabia (today’s Moldova). His son Solomon (Khaim-­Shlioma) Goldenweiser was born in 1815 (d. in 1881). In 1851 he was listed as a merchant residing in the town of Uman’. Sometime in the 1850s he advanced to the second merchant gild and moved to a much larger city of Ekaterinoslav (Dnipropetrovsk, Dnipro), another major center of Jewish life in both Ukraine and the Russian Empire as a whole. He was a wealthy man who also owned a two-­story house in the city of Minsk (in later years, the capitol of Belarus). Solomon Goldenweiser, who died sometime in the 1870s, was married to Esther Eihenbaum (1820–­86). Esther’s father, Iakov Eihenbaum (1796–­1861) was a talented mathematician, poet, translator, and pedagogue. For the last decade of his life, he served as the official inspector of the rabbinical school in the city of Zhitomir. Solomon and Esther Goldenweiser had five sons: Moisei (Moishe, 1837/1838–­1903), Boris (Rudolph, Ruvim, 1839–­1916), Vladimir (1853–­ 1919), Alexander (Israel, 1855–­1915), and Iakov (1862–­1931). With the exception of Vladimir, all of them became practicing lawyers. In addition these well-­educated men pursued a variety of interests. For example, Moisei was a well-­known bibliophile and a scholar of literature and history, who owned one of the largest private libraries and collections of rare books in Russia. Solomon and Esther also had three daughters: Dora, Sophia, and Elizabeth. According to Ellen Davies, Elizabeth was one of the first female doctors in Russia (Ellen Davies, personal communication, November 30, 2018). Boris’s son, Alexander (1875–­1961), was a well-­known Russian composer, pianist, and professor of the Moscow Conservatory. He was a friend of Tolstoy, for whom he frequently played piano, and his memoirs focus on his frequent encounters with one of Russia’s greatest writers (Alexander B. Goldenweiser 1923, 2009). Following Tolstoy’s death in 1910, Alexander Borisovich took part in preparing a special edition of his previously unpublished works (see Aleksandr B. Goldenweiser 2009; Gladkova 2016; Gritsenko 2016). 8 | The Russian Beginning

Alexander Solomonovich (1855–­1915), Alexander’s father, was born in Ekaterinoslav and studied law at St. Petersburg University, graduating in 1876. For a while he worked in Moscow as an assistant to his bother Moisei. In 1877 a prominent Kiev lawyer and a family friend, Lev Abramovich Kupernik (1845–­1905), convinced him to move to that city and join the bar there. Soon thereafter Alexander became the most prominent among Kiev’s lawyers and earned a reputation as one of the leading civil lawyers in the country. According to his son, “He won his early fame in criminal cases, but finding the human tragedies attending this practice unendurable, he soon abandoned it, devoting himself henceforth to civil law” (Goldenweiser 1931a, 693). A Jew living in a city known for the presence of strong anti-­Semitic sentiments, Aleksandr Solomonovich attracted clients from all three of Kiev’s major ethnic groups: the Russians, the Poles, and the Jews. In addition to extensive legal work, he also authored numerous works on civil and criminal law. Alexander Solomonovich was a liberal who admired Western European and American political and legal systems and was also a follower of Georg Hegel and Herbert Spencer. In fact one of his books, published in 1904, was titled The Ideas of Freedom and Law in Herbert Spencer’s Philosophical System. In addition he published major studies of the social legislature in Germany and Great Britain. He was the chairman of the executive committee of Kiev lawyers and also headed a society for assisting the persons released from incarceration. His articles on legal matters appeared in such prominent liberal Russian publications as Moskovskie Vedomosti, Severnyi Vestnik, Vestnik Evropy, Vestnik Prava, and others. In 1907 he met Leo Tolstoy through his nephew Aleksandr and became an adherent of Tolstoy’s philosophy of nonviolence. In fact, his best-­known legal publication, Crime as Punishment and Punishment as Crime (1908/9), was based on Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection, at the center of which is a trial of an innocent down-­and-­ out woman. Prefaced by Tolstoy himself, it was translated into several European languages.1 Tolstoy in turn thought very highly of Alexander Solomonovich, and there was a virtual cult of Tolstoy in the entire extended Goldenweiser family. Alexander Solomonovich participated in a number of political trials and was also well known in Kiev as a defender of the Jews persecuted by the authorities. He was a strong opponent of the death penalty and of the Siberian exile system. In his reminiscences The Russian Beginning | 9

about Alexander Solomonovich, Maksim Vinaver (1863–­1926), another prominent Russian Jewish lawyer, called him a “positivist-­dreamer” and characterized him as both a jurist-­sociologist as well as “a thinker and writer as much as a lawyer,” for whom “the freedom of the individual was a matter of faith and any pressure upon the individual was felt by him almost as physical pain” (Vinaver 1926, 212, 215–­16). All those who knew Alexander Solomonovich well commented on his great personal charm. As Vinaver also wrote in his memoirs: There was a special quality in his entire life, his views, his relations with people, and even in the nobility and dignity of his bearing, which attracted everyone who came into contact with him. There are such people: they do not merge with the crowd, however huge and varied it might be. They seem to bear a stamp of the elect on their brows. And every gesture, every word reveals that everything about them is their own, individual, unique. (214) A European, as far as his customs and sympathies were concerned, he viewed the cultural values and accomplishments of the West with a truly religious piety. . . . On the wall of his office, there hung two documents: the original printed edition of the French “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” and a photographic copy of the original American constitution. Everything that inspired him came from these two charters and from their development throughout an entire century of Western thought. And next to these charters, there hung two portraits: Herbert Spencer’s and Leo Tolstoy’s, a truly unusual combination. (215–­16) Like several of his brothers, Alexander Solomonovich was an avid book collector who owned a large personal library. His son Alexander clearly inherited his father’s strong concern with the rights of the individual as well as his combination of interests in sociology and high European culture. He also shared his father’s affection for Tolstoy as a writer and a humanist philosopher as well as his love of books. Alexander Goldenweiser’s mother, Sophia Grigor’evna (Girshevna) Munshtein (1856–­1926), was the daughter of Grigorii (Girsh) Aleksandrovich and Emma Leont’evna Munshtein of Ekaterinoslav. Like Alex10 | The Russian Beginning

ander Goldenweiser’s paternal grandfather, Grigorii Munshtein was a merchant.2 Alexander Solomonovich and Sophia Grigor’evna became engaged on June 17, 1878, and were married on April 10, 1879, in Ekaterinoslav’s synagogue. Unlike his brothers, several of whom married non-­Jewish women and preferred not to have much to do with Jewish traditions,3 Alexander Solomonovich did retain some connection to Judaism, which explains the fact that he never converted to Christianity like some of his brothers and had his sons circumcised.4 At the same time, it seems that his family led a life typical of highly assimilated Russian Jews of the late nineteenth century for whom high-­brow Western European and Russian-­language-­based cultures had replaced their ancestors’ Yiddish-­based culture rooted in Judaism and traditional Jewish folk customs. For many years the Goldenweiser family lived in a spacious apartment at 13 Reitarskaia Street. Located in a well-­to-­do section of Kiev, the building had once been owned by Feodor Tereshchenko, a member of the family of the city’s wealthy sugar merchants. Shoora and his brothers spent many hours playing in the building’s courtyard and riding their bicycles along a nearby unpaved Georgievskii Street. The neighborhood around Reitarskaia 13 was known as a “professorial” one: a number of Kiev’s esteemed professors lived there (Alexei Goldenweiser 2005, 361). Alexander’s early education began at home, as was often the case among middle-­class Russian and assimilated Russian Jewish children. As he reminisced years later, “As a small boy I used to rise at 7:30 a.m. in a cold and dark Russian winter and study my geography by the light of two candles. Thus, I studied the names of African rivers which I could recite without error—­from East to West” (1928a, 44). This home education was followed by attending Kiev’s Fifth gymnasium, or high school (also known as the Kievo-­Pecherskaia gymnasium), between 1896 and 1900, graduating with a gold medal. Like other classical gymnasiums, the one attended by Alexander offered courses in German and French as well as ancient Greek and Latin. Gymnasium students also studied algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, geography, history and literature. Alexander’s Harvard University application mentions that as a gymnasist he read Homer, Plato, Cicero, and Virgil among other ancient Greek and Roman authors. It also states that he was fluent in The Russian Beginning | 11

both German and French. According to David French, one of his Reed College students, Goldenweiser used to tell a story that Russian was not his first language. Instead it was French, thanks to a French nursemaid who looked after him at an early age. Thanks to his tutor, who mentored him as he got older, German became his second language, with Russian coming in as the third (cited in Dobbin 1986, 3). We also know that he studied piano with Kiev Conservatory professors and enjoyed playing the instrument his entire life (Goldfrank 1978, 113). Reminiscing years later about his upbringing, Goldenweiser described it as “heavy and pedantic” as well as “German . . . and of a taste that might be described as Hegelian” (1937a, viii–­ix). As a teenager Alexander traveled extensively throughout Western Europe with his family. In many respects Goldenweiser remained a nineteenth-­century gentleman for his entire life. A good-­looking and urbane man, he was fond of good food and wine, loved the game of pool, and was a ladies’ man. After a few glasses of wine, he liked to recite his favorite German poem: “Lass uns unsere Weiber tauschen! Lass uns uns mit Wein berauschen! Vodka! Vodka!” (Let’s exchange our wives! Let’s intoxicate ourselves with wine! Vodka! Vodka!; Paul Radin to Edward Sapir, December 25, 1913, esc, my translation). Thus he was known to have difficulties with such modern technological devices as the typewriter and the automobile (Dobbin 1986, 5). Moreover, there was something very Russian about his manners and tastes. He greatly valued the old style of intense conversation over superficial chatting, which he identified with American culture. As he describes in his book Robots and Gods: Such was the conversation of nineteenth century Russia, a country in which the verbal exchange of ideas and attitudes (behind closed doors) was the only normally possible form of self-­expression. But that one was cultivated with zest and virtuosity. In the United States, where the accredited forms of conversation are either “shop talk” or “small talk,” there is little knowledge or understanding of the humanity, richness and warmth of these semi-­intimate confabs, around the gurgling samovar, which rolled on and on, to evaporate at last into thin air, leaving nothing to posterity but meaning much to contemporaries. (1931c, 109) 12 | The Russian Beginning

Upon completing his gymnasium education, Goldenweiser enrolled in Kiev’s St. Vladimir University. He chose the faculties of physics and mathematics of the natural science division. However, after only a few months, he withdrew. Despite the privileged position enjoyed by the Goldenweisers, due to their education, professional affiliation, and financial security, they were not immune to the threat of anti-­Semitism, which raised its ugly head during the reign of Russia’s last two tsars (1881–­1917). It was particularly strong in Kiev, the site of the infamous Beilis trial, which began with the arrest in 1911 of a Jewish man accused of killing a Christian child so as to use his blood for making Passover matzah (Weinberg 2013; Levin 2014). In order to protect his oldest child from anti-­Semitism, Alexander Solomonovich sent him to the United States in August 1900. Two years later his second son, Emmanuel (1883–­ 1953), followed the same route. Emmanuel Goldenweiser obtained his bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and PhD from Cornell and went on to become a prominent economist. He spent many years working in a senior position at Federal Reserve, where he had a major influence on U.S. monetary and banking policies. As the youngest of the three Goldenweiser brothers, Alexei (1890–­1979), wrote to Leslie White in the 1950s, “My brother’s immigration to the United States was the first step in the fulfillment of my father’s plan to give all his children the possibility to live in a democratic country. My father resented the unliberal Czarist regime and especially the discrimination against the Jews in Russia. On the other hand, he did not hope that a revolution would do much good and proved to be a good prophet” (Alexei Goldenweiser to Leslie White, March 3, 1956, lawp). Besides two brothers Alexander also had two twin sisters, Nadezhda and Elena (188?–­1944), who were educated in Western Europe and spent most of their lives there (see below). Upon arrival in America, Alexander enrolled as a special student at Harvard, where he focused on English, mathematics, and philosophy. We know that he attended lectures by the great philosopher William James. According to a note written by Alexander himself on May 6, 1901, an illness prevented him from taking his spring examinations. Instead he traveled back to Kiev, only to return to the United States in September 1901. He then decided not to return to Harvard but to transfer to Columbia instead. According to Harvard University’s alumni records for 1929, he “entered Columbia as a senior on the basis of the same RusThe Russian Beginning | 13

sian gymnasium certificate that Harvard refused to give him any credit for” (20). At Columbia he became interested in anthropology, completing his bachelor’s degree in 1902 and writing a thesis on the subject of fetishism. He then immediately enrolled in Columbia’s medical school, but dropped out toward the end of the first term, spending the rest of the academic year studying philosophy and ethics. In 1903 he enrolled in the master’s program in anthropology while also pursuing minors in psychology and sociology. Goldenweiser’s 1904 master’s thesis was titled “The Rites of New Religions among the Native Tribes of North America.” That same year he entered the PhD program in anthropology under Franz Boas, while continuing with the two minors of sociology and psychology. The latter two disciplines remained of great interest to Goldenweiser for the rest of his life. We do not know what sparked Shoora’s interest in anthropology, but it is clear that from early on he combined that interest with a broader concern with the social sciences. In 1904 both Alexander and Emmanuel came back to Kiev for a festive celebration of their parents’ twenty-­fifth wedding anniversary. In the fall of 1905, Alexander left Columbia for one year to study anthropology in Berlin. This course of study was proposed to him by Boas, who maintained close ties with German anthropologists (see Goldenweiser’s letter to Boas, June 27, 1905, fbp). Writing to Alfred Kroeber on May 24, 1906, Boas explained his decision to send Goldenweiser to Germany: “I sent him there because his mental make-­up was such that he tended to develop very broad theories on slim material, and because he had difficulty in concentrating his attention upon special problems. I thought it best for him to take up detail work in a special region. . . . He is a very bright and promising man, and personally I should be quite willing to risk giving him work that requires some independence of mind” (Boas to Kroeber, May 24, 1906, fbp). A detailed letter Shoora sent to Robert Lowie, his close friend and a fellow anthropology graduate student, contained his impressions of Germany and Berlin as well as the work he did there. It appears that he resented Germany’s conservative political atmosphere, while enjoying his time being affiliated with Berlin’s Ethnological Museum. There he worked on the various collections from South America under the direction of Karl von den Steinen (1855–­1929), a prominent German ethnologist and explorer who specialized in the Indigenous cultures 14 | The Russian Beginning

of Central Brazil (Goldenweiser to Lowie, September 29, 1905, rhlp). While in Berlin Goldenweiser tried to continue his graduate work under Boas by sending his “reports” to his mentor via Lowie (Goldenweiser to Boas, June 7, 1905, fbp). It was also in Berlin that Shoora must have developed a passionate for playing pool, which lasted his entire life. He also kept a close watch on the exciting news from Russia where the country’s very first parliament opened in 1905 soon to be disbanded by the government. Shoora’s letter to Lowie, dated August 21, 1906, contained detailed description of the tumultuous events of the Russian Revolution of 1905–­6 (Goldenweiser to Lowie, August 21, 1906, rhlp). Having spent 1906–­7 doing graduate work at Columbia, Goldenweiser returned to Russia some time in 1907 to fulfill his military duty, which took him over a year.5 This suggests that he was not yet certain whether to stay in the United States permanently or return to his birth country upon completing his doctoral work. Boas was not happy about this interruption of Goldenweiser’s studying (see Boas to Goldenweiser, May 6, 1907, fbp). Back in Kiev Goldenweiser tried to combine military service with continuing his anthropological education. He wrote to Boas in late fall of 1907: Dear Professor Boas, I am sending you the translation of Mr. Jochelson’s chapter on the social life of the Yukaghir. This work, as well as everything else I am doing, is being interfered with by my military service, although reduced to four hours a day of actual work in the barracks, is an unspeakable nuisance. So far, there is little hope of my getting free before next autumn. However, I have plenty of time to read. “The Ethnographic Review” published in Moscow gives me much interesting although non-­systematized material, especially in the line of Folk-­lore.6 Surprisingly little is being done in the line of Russian popular art; so far, I have not been able to discover any work of serious value on the subject. I have recently read the somewhat phantastic [sic] but interesting and original work by Kurt Breysig: Die Volker ewiger Urzeit and have written a criticism of it for the “Ethnographic review.”7 (Goldenweiser to Boas, November 30, 1907, fbp) The Russian Beginning | 15

While studying with Boas, Goldenweiser also served as his assistant on several projects. One of them was the translation of the work of Vladimir Bogoras and Vladimir Jochelson, the Russian contributors to the Jesup Expedition, for which he received a modest remuneration of $2.25 per one thousand words. Boas described this work in a letter to Jochelson dated September 27, 1907: My dear Dr. Jochelson, When you complete your next chapter of your Yukaghir paper, within a short time will you please write to Mr. A. A. Goldenweiser, Vladimirskaya 48, Kiev, and ask him whether he can undertake to translate it into English, setting a rather short time when you want to have it back; and if he accepts, please send it to him. Mr. Goldenweiser translates very well. He has done the last chapters of your book, but it is necessary to keep after him in order to get the material back on time. (Boas to Jochelson, September 27, 1907, fbp) Another project undertaken by Boas that Goldenweiser took part in was the measurements of immigrants in New York City (see Boas to Goldenweiser, July 2, 1909, and Goldenweiser to Boas, August 29, 1909, fbp). On July 31, 1906, Shoora married Anna G. Hallow [Golovchiner] (1878–­ 1952).8 Born in Brest, Belarus (Russian Empire), she immigrated to the United States in 1891. For many years she owned a small boutique specializing in designing women’s hats. Anna’s younger sister Sophie married Shoora’s brother Emmanuel.9 On September 19, 1914, Shoora’s daughter Alice Rosalind was born. Theirs was a passionate but also very tumultuous marriage, with Anna being very jealous of her husband’s numerous amorous liaisons.10 According to Goldenweiser’s descendants and the information contained in an article in the October 12, 1926, issue of the New York Times, while serving in the Russian army he got seriously involved with a local woman, which prompted his father to encourage his wife to come to Kiev to break that relationship up. As a graduate student at Columbia, Goldenweiser was part of the cohort of Boas’s brilliant students, such as Edward Sapir (1884–­1939), Paul Radin (1883–­1959), Herman Haeberlin (1890–­1918), Thomas T. Waterman (1885–­1936), and Robert Lowie (1883–­1957). He became particularly close to the latter. In addition to Shoora himself, Robert and 16 | The Russian Beginning

his sister Risa (1886–­1960), an educator, befriended Shoora’s wife, with that relationship persisting even after the Goldenweisers divorced in the 1920s. As Goldenweiser wrote to Lowie from Berlin, “Upon my return to New York, I intend to work very hard next winter to see what comes of it. Hope that we shall be able to do a good deal of intellectual work together for ‘my stomach is heavy with longing for intellectual companionship’ (as the Jungle Book put it)” (Goldenweiser to Lowie, August 21, 1906, rhlp). This “intellectual work” the two young anthropologists shared included a common interest in the work of psychologists such as Wilhelm Wundt and positivist philosophers such as Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Oswald, Henri Poincaré, and Karl Pearson (Lowie 1956, 1011–­12).11 In fact, while still a graduate student, Goldenweiser founded and presided over several discussion groups (“circles”), which brought together Columbia graduate students in anthropology and other disciplines. One of these groups, called the “Pearson Circle,” was dedicated to the study of philosophy, psychology, and social science theory. Lowie and Radin were among its most active members, as was Morris R. Cohen (1880–­1947), a prominent American philosopher and legal scholar. A few years after the circle’s founding, anthropologists Pliny E. Goddard (1869–­1928) and Elsie Clews Parsons (1875–­1941) joined it (Lowie 1956, 1012; Deacon 1997, 99–­101). Lowie and “Goldie,” as he came to be known among his American friends and colleagues, also shared similar literary tastes and political orientation. Both were left-­leaning liberals, critical of the American nationalism and jingoism that was rampant during and after World War I. Both were sympathetic to the women’s suffrage movement and other progressive causes, and both belonged to Greenwich Village’s Liberal Club (1913–­18) and the Feminist Alliance. Goldenweiser and especially Lowie published articles and book reviews in such left-­leaning, liberal journals as the New Republic, the Liberal Review, the Freeman, the Dial, and the New Masses. Fellow Europeans, they viewed each other as being more sophisticated than their less cultured American-­born anthropologists. Thus, as Lowie wrote years later, he was once shocked by Ruth Benedict’s reference to Goethe as “stodgy.” He contrasted Benedict’s “unenlightened” view with Goldie’s who “periodically read Faust and by no stretch of the imagination” defined Goethe as “stodgy.” As Lowie went on to say, “That he [Goldenweiser] and Radin and Kroeber and I feel The Russian Beginning | 17

alike on this point doubtless fixes us all in time and space; but it means that despite all differences we have some bearings in the universe in common; we do not have to grope in one another’s company toward a common language, as though encountering a Botocudo or Andamanese or the semi-­literate younger anthropologists” (cited in Kan 2015a, 25). In the relationship between Goldenweiser and Lowie, the latter tended played the role of a student and the former as a mentor. In an unpublished paper, composed years later, Lowie admitted that he owed Goldenweiser a great deal. According to Lowie, as his senior in anthropology at Columbia, Goldie taught him “some elementary techniques of anthropology” and helped clarify his grasp of the views of Boas and of other anthropologists. He also freely lent Lowie books on psychology and philosophy from his excellent personal library. Moreover, Lowie greatly appreciated being able to take part in the various discussion groups organized by his friend. As Lowie put it, He gave me a much-­coveted consciousness with a company of serious, youthful, fellow-­thinkers. As a book companion he had few peers; it was a joy to beguile with him at Monquin’s, settling the outstanding issues of philosophy, science, art, and politics between us.12 . . . Goldenweiser not only read [books in foreign languages] but spoke about them readily, he was conversant with many literary masterpieces, which he appraised with nice discrimination. He could play Beethoven with spirit, was up on the latest exhibit in Paris, could pass lightly in conversation from William James’s Pragmatism to Herbert Spencer and Tolstoy and Heine and Guy de Maupassant.13 (cited in Kan 2015a, 18–­19) Unfortunately, a few years after Goldenweiser received his PhD, a falling out between these two friends and colleagues took place (see chapter 2).

18 | The Russian Beginning

2 Early Scholarship, the Iroquois Fieldwork, and Columbia

The Dissertation and Subsequent Papers on Totemism By choosing totemism as the subject of his doctoral dissertation Goldenweiser took on a major subject of evolutionist anthropology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thus, in a series of articles published in the late 1860s, John F. McLennan linked primitive fetishism (derived from E. B. Tylor’s animism), which he defined as a belief in the existence of life in animate objects, to three social phenomena: the idea that there was one fetish for each tribe; that the idea of a hereditary transmission of the fetish through the maternal line preceded transmission through the paternal one; and the idea of the fetish was associated with marriage law through the principle of exogamy (McLennan 1869; Stocking 1995, 49). For McLennan all of humankind had at some point gone through a totemic stage in the evolution of its religion and culture as a whole. As Stocking (1995, 49) points out, “Loosely conceived as a principle of both religious belief and social organization, and never systematically investigated, totemism was thus bequeathed by McLennan to later generations of evolutionary anthropologists . . . as a problematic concept that was to trouble scholars throughout the decades around the turn of the century.” Andrew Lang (1899), another British anthropologist and scholar of religion, advocated a nominalist meaning for totemism—­namely, that local kinship groups, in selecting totemic names from the realm of nature, were reacting to a need to be differentiated. If the origin of the names was forgotten, there followed a mystical relationship between the objects, from which the named had once been derived, and the 19

groups that bore these names. Lang tried to explain the relationship by means of myths about nature, according to which animals and natural objects were considered to be relatives, patrons, or ancestors of the respective social units. He thought that these beliefs eventually led to taboos, and that group exogamy first originated in the formation of totemic associations. The most comprehensive theory of totemism was offered by James G. Frazer (1899), who presented a detailed compilation of ethnographic data on the subject from around the world. Drawing particularly heavily on data from Australia and Melanesia, Frazer saw the origin of totemism in the interpretation of the conception and the birth of children, a belief he called “conceptualism.” According to him this belief held that women became impregnated when a spirit of an animal or a spiritual fruit entered their wombs. Since children therefore participated in the nature of the animal or plant, these plants and animals took on great significance. Thus explanations of conception led to the notion that a kinship group’s totem originated from a particular natural being. Émile Durkheim, the founder of the French school of sociology and anthropology, (1915), explored totemism from a sociological and theological viewpoint. In his search for the origin of religion in the very ancient forms, he concluded that it actually originated in totemism. For Durkheim the sphere of the sacred was a reflection of the emotions that underlay social activities, and the totem was, in his view, a reflection of the kinship group (clan) consciousness, based on the conception of an impersonal power. The totemic principle was thus the clan itself, and it was permeated with sanctity. According to him such an “elementary form” of religion reflected the collective consciousness that was manifested in the identification of an individual member of the group with an animal or plant species and was expressed outwardly in taboos, symbols, and rituals based on this identification. In his dissertation Goldenweiser analyzed the “symptoms” of totemism on the basis of a detailed comparison of two regions in which totemism was a conspicuous and recognized feature: Australia and British Columbia. This discussion was followed by a somewhat different analysis of the same “symptoms” on the basis of wider and more heterogeneous material. He concluded that “exogamy, taboo, religious regard, totemic names, descent from the totem—­all fail as invariable characteristics of 20 | Early Scholarship

totemism. Each of these traits, moreover, displays . . . striking independence in its distribution” (1910, 266). This conclusion, he argued, would inevitably “lead us to reconsider the current conceptions of totemism, and to apply the resulting methodological point of view to a critique of the theories advanced to account for the origin of totemism, and of the attempts to represent totemism as a universal stage in the evolution of religion” (266). As anthropologist Warren Shapiro (1991, 600) notes, Goldenweiser’s dissertation demonstrated “that the alleged unitary character of totemism was an analytical concoction” and thus represented a “Boasian deconstruction of Victorian [i.e., evolutionist] theories of totemism.” Shapiro also argues that the young scholar’s interpretation of totemism was remarkably modern, representing what he called a “proto-­structural view” of this phenomenon. He points to a particular passage in Goldenweiser’s dissertation as the one “foreshadowing the entire structuralist project” (601): “The peculiarity of totemic phenomena is not to be found in the sum of totemic elements in any given tribe, not in any individual element, but in the relation obtaining between the elements. . . . That the process is an association, and not a mere juxtaposition, is indeed apparent. True, each of the elements is question is complex historically and psychologically, and variable; but in each totemic combination forces are at work which tend to correlate the several heterogeneous elements. Thus, it happens that the totemic phenomena assume the character of an organic whole” (Goldenweiser 1910, 270). In his work Goldenweiser proposed a new definition of totemism that emphasized its psychological significance. As he put it, “Totemism is the tendency of definite social units to become associated with objects and symbols of emotional value” (1910, 275). The method used by Goldenweiser to analyze totemism was thoroughly Boasian. As Sapir wrote in his very positive review of the published version of the dissertation, this method involved “the analysis of a cultural phenomenon into its constituent elements and the historical interpretation of the phenomenon as an association” (1912, 461). In an important article that revisits the subject of totemism a century later, Fogelson and Brightman (2002, 306) assert that “in slightly over 100 tightly argued pages, Goldenweiser took issue with the enormous literature that regarded totemism as a unitary phenomenon. He Early Scholarship | 21

maintained that the assumed totemic complex did not cohere, could not be essentialized, that it was an artificial anthropological construct, a snare, an illusion.” In his subsequent works on totemism, published in the 1910s, Goldenweiser (1911a, 1912a, 1912f, 1918a) subjected the theories of Lang, Frazer, and Durkheim to further criticism, arguing that totemism had nothing to do with religion. He held instead that human beings did not view the totem as being superior to themselves but as a friend and an equal. He also rejected Frazer’s theory of conceptualism as an explanation of totemism. In these works Goldenweiser also further developed and refined his theory of totemism. Thus, in his 1912 article on the subject, he made the following very interesting observation: “I am very far from making far-­fetched attempts at finding differences where similarities are essential, or from denying the fundamental unity of the totemic problem, notwithstanding the generic heterogeneity of totemic complexes” (1912a, 384). The “unity” Goldenweiser had in mind consisted of the following: “The specific content of the features of each clan is different, but the form they assume is strictly identical in all the social unites of the group, which units may thus be described as equivalent totemic units” (1912a, 384). As Shapiro (1991, 601) notes, a half century later Lévi-­Strauss (1963, 149) would express the exact same idea with the well-­known observation that “it is not the resemblances, but the differences, which resemble each other.” Further developing his interpretation of totemism in his paper “Form and Content in Totemism” (Goldenweiser 1918a), the young American scholar, in Shapiro’s words (1991, 604), “liberated the notion of totemism from exclusive association with clan organization and extended it so as to include other forms of metaphorical connection between human and animal taxonomies,” including mascots of sports teams and animal metaphors used in colloquial speech to refer to specific human characteristics and behaviors. Once again, in this respect, Goldenweiser’s view clearly prefigured those of Lévi-­Strauss. Not surprisingly the Boasians applauded Goldenweiser’s work. Thus, Sapir (1912, 461) hailed it as “the most notable . . . contribution to ethnological method yet produced by an American anthropologist,” while in a letter to an American anthropologist Wilson D. Wallis (1886–­1970) he stated, “I believe the strong point of Goldenweiser’s thesis is that 22 | Early Scholarship

it is so definitely analytical in character and yet at the same time does not overlook the fact that the elements obtained by analysis must be understood and studied historically as well as psychologically” (Sapir to Wallis, March 5, 1913, esc). Lowie also praised this work, concluding his review with the statement that “this paper constitutes a landmark in the history of totemic study,—­the prolegomena to all positive attempts at a sane interpretation of ‘totemic’ institution” (1911a, 207). And six years after the publication of Goldenweiser’s work, Boas, drawing on Goldenweiser, himself proclaimed that totemism was “an artificial unit, not a natural one” (1916, 321). In his view totemism exhibited no single psychological or historical origin. Since totemic features could be linked to a variety of types of social organization and appeared in different cultural contexts, it would be impossible to fit totemic phenomena into a single category. Thus, to Goldenweiser’s mentor, it made no sense to search for the single origin of totemism (321). Goldenweiser’s published dissertation and his subsequent papers on the subject of totemism (1910, 1911a, 1912a, 1912f, 1918a) attracted wide attention from European anthropologists: after all, totemism, as I have already indicated, was a very popular topic of research in Victorian anthropology (Stocking 1995). In 1911 Goldenweiser attended a meeting of the Anthropology section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (presided over by W. H. R. Rivers, a prominent British anthropologist and psychiatrist), where he presented a paper on totemism, which generated a lot of attention. Andrew Lang sent a series of friendly letters to its author despite their disagreement on the subject (Goldenweiser 1912a, 1915/16b), while Durkheim (1909–­12) penned a rather favorable review of the young American anthropologist’s work.1 In addition, in 1914–­16, Anthropos, a major European anthropological journal, invited Goldenweiser to reiterate his theory of totemism by joining a debate on the subject, which featured such luminaries of the discipline as Wilhelm Wundt, Fritz Graebner, and P. W. Schmidt. The journal also featured a young British anthropologist by the name of Alfred Radcliffe-­Brown (1914), whose own essay on totemism (surprisingly) did not even mention Goldenweiser’s contribution. In his later works on the same subject, this prominent British anthropologist did not give Goldenweiser much credit either (Radcliffe-­Brown 1931, 1952). This underappreciation of Goldenweiser’s seminal contribution Early Scholarship | 23

to the study of totemism by Radcliffe-­Brown and Lévi-­Strauss (1963) is surprising and must be acknowledged as a serious flaw in their work on the subject. Boas was clearly very impressed with his Russian student. In a letter to Frederick W. Hodge of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Boas to Hodge, February 7, 1910, aps), he characterized him as a man of very great ability whose principal difficulty has been until recently failure to concentrate [on] definite problems. During the last year or two he has, however, developed in a very satisfactory manner; and in ethnological problems dealing with social customs, religion, and the like, he will probably be one of the best among the younger men. He is completing now his thesis on totemism, which I believe will be a very important advance in our understanding of this intricate subject. He is also to a certain extent familiar with statistical methods and linguistic methods, so that he is a very good all-­around man, so far as my knowledge of the young men goes, one of the best to tackle purely ethnological subjects.2

The Iroquois Research Goldenweiser’s only ethnographic field research took place under the auspices of the Anthropology Division of the Geological Survey of Canada and was designed and directed by Edward Sapir, a fellow Boasian and a friend, who headed the division as its chief ethnologist starting in 1910.3 In 1911, when Goldenweiser undertook his first fieldwork season among the Iroquois, he was part of Sapir’s eastern Canada research team, which also included Marius Barbeau (1883–­1969), Cyrus MacMillan (1882–­1953), William H. Mechling (1888–­1953), Frederick Waugh (1872–­1924), and Francis H. S. Knowles (1886–­1953). Despite the fact that Goldie was known for his preference for social science theory, Sapir thought highly enough of him to entrust him with the Iroquois research. As he wrote to Wilson D. Wallis (1886–­1970) on March 15, 1913, “He [Goldenweiser] may have had the tendency, up till recently, to devote too little attention to mere hard facts, but I believe that he is very rapidly getting over that tendency since he has spent so much time on field work among the Iroquois. I am certain that he is getting excellent material, and that he will handle it well. One thing I 24 | Early Scholarship

like about his work, as far as I have been able to see it, is the feeling for form and sense of perspective” (Sapir to Wallis, March 15, 1913, esc). Sapir’s plan for the Iroquois research assigned Goldenweiser to study social organization, while Waugh was to focus on material culture, and Knowles’s job was to conduct research in physical anthropology. All three worked mainly on the Six Nations Reserve located on the Grand River in Ontario. These anthropologists arrived in the field by train and found room and board with the Wright family, which operated a hostel for visiting scholars (Fenton 1986, 228). The Wright house was located not far from that of John A. Gibson, who became Goldenweiser’s key consultant and interpreter and eventually a good friend as well. To better contextualize Goldenweiser’s Iroquois research, an overview of the nineteenth-­to early twentieth-­century history and culture of the Six Nations Reserve at Grand River is presented here. The reservation was established in 1784 following the American Revolution when Joseph Brant, a prominent Mohawk war chief and a British ally, led some 1,843 Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Loyalists from New York State to the land granted to them in Ontario by the British in restitution for their land losses in New York state as a result of the war. The original tract, an estimated 675,000 acres, lay six miles deep on each side of the Grand River from its mouth to its source.4 The group included all six tribes of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Most of the population was dispersed along the tract on small farms, cultivating an average plot of 20 acres. Farming practices tended to be similar to those of the surrounding whites. On the small farms, women cultivated mainly Indian corn and potatoes with a hoe, but on the larger farms (50–­200 acres) men grew wheat, oats, and peas, preparing the land with plow pulled by oxen. Many of the Mohawks and Oneidas had adopted Christianity (mainly Anglicanism) even before they migrated to Ontario. By the 1840s many of the Tuscaroras became Baptists. These three tribes became collectively known as the Upper Tribes because of their location upriver; they also became associated with “progress” by the Indian administration. The Cayugas, Onondagas, and Senecas were collectively referred as the “Lower Tribes,” because of their original location downriver, and their subsequent location “down below” on the reserve. They had retained more of their traditional religious beliefs and gradually adopted the rapidly spreading Handsome Lake movement. The Anglican Church engaged Early Scholarship | 25

in major missionary activities on the reserve, establishing schools for Haudenosaunee children. Many of the parents were reluctant to have their children attend the Christian schools, since they viewed them as a threat to their traditional cultural values and way of life. Throughout the nineteenth century, the growing Canadian town of Brantford kept encroaching on Native lands. With pressures to sell scattered portions of their land, the Crown became concerned that no single contiguous tract would remain in Native hands. Consequently, in 1841, at the suggestion of the government, the chiefs formally surrendered to their Crown their remaining lands of some 220,000 acres in return for a reserve of some 20,000 acres in addition to the lands they already had under cultivation along the river. Six Nations band funds, created from land sales, were originally managed by three white trustees appointed originally by the Haudenosaunee and later by the Crown. But their management proved a disaster and did not satisfy either the Native people or the government. By 1840 the Crown took direct control of the funds, but not before the money was largely depleted by the trustees’ mistaken investment in the Grand River Navigation Company. Created to make the river more navigable by building a system of locks and canals, the company’s efforts failed due the advance of the railroad and roads transportation. When bankruptcy occurred in 1861 the Six Nations lost their entire investment. That loss became a major source of grievance and, in the 1920s, the subject of unsuccessful claims action against the Canadian government. In the spring of 1847, the Haudenosaunee chiefs were asked by the Crown to assign land on the reserve to the male head of each household. Each male head of a nuclear family was allotted a one-­hundred-­acre parcel of land intended for farming. By this time the nuclear family had become the main residential and economic unit. While lineage and clan affiliations continued to function in other spheres of life, the distinction between the two units, as established by Goldenweiser (1913a, 1914a), became blurred by the end of the century. The lineage and clan were more prominently retained within the social organization of the conservative Longhouse people than the Christian ones. The patrilineal basis of legal Indian status and tribal affiliation established by federal stature in 1869 further undermined tribal affiliation, which had traditionally been matrilineal. 26 | Early Scholarship

Despite these problems the Six Nations reserve established in 1847 became the most populous reserve in Canada and the largest Haudenosaunee reserve in Canada and the United States. After migrating to the Grand River, the chiefs established a league that duplicated the original American league in New York State. However, unlike its American counterpart, the Canadian league controlled only a single reserve, a fact that led to its unique adaptation as a municipal government. The Confederacy councils of the mid-­nineteenth century were responsible for the corporate interests of the band, such as road construction and maintenance, ownership and use of natural resources, land surrenders, and band membership. Gradually the council assumed many of the powers of the traditional lineage, clan, and tribe. The council continued to be composed of hereditary chiefs numbering over fifty. The Crown made no attempt to interfere with the appointment or dismissal of these chiefs, who met in the Onondaga council house several times a year and deliberated matters of communal interest in a traditional fashion. In 1860 the transfer of Indian administration from the imperial to the provincial government led to a greater Indian Department supervision of local affairs. From that time on the “progressives” (many of them educated Mohawks) began petitioning for an elected government on the reserve. However, with the Indian Department not supporting their petitions, these efforts to drastically change the form of the local government subsided until 1890. The Indian agents active in the second half of the nineteenth century aggressively pushed education and modern agriculture as the means to “civilize” the Indians. The Upper Tribes became more open to these newer Euro-­ Canadian-­style agricultural methods. The Lower tribes were reluctant to accept them and particularly leery of education, which they viewed as a serious threat to their way of life. During this period the number of Christians on the reserve continued to increase, but the conservative adherents of the Longhouse religion also remained strong. Both religious traditions promoted their own set of social activities and networks of kinship and friendship. Social interaction between the two was limited, and intermarriage tended to be frowned upon by the leadership of both sides. The Christian community continued to be more open to non-­Native middle-­class cultural values and beliefs, while still determined, like the Longhouse adherents, to maintain Indigenous sovereignty. Early Scholarship | 27

According to Weaver (1978, 530), “The major economic and political patterns established in the 1880s continued to develop until World War I.” By the 1880s brick houses became more common on the reserve than log ones. Productive farming and cattle herding reached its peak in the last decade of the nineteenth century. By the turn of the century the average farm was about sixty acres; the largest was over three hundred acres, and its owners employed hire hands. Surplus products were marketed in the nearby towns of Brantford and Hamilton, and the money earned was used for farm improvement and for clothing and furniture. With the expansion of farming came more wage labor and craft division of labor. A small number of Indigenous men began working as farm hands and women as domestic help outside the reserve. A few families were able to establish small businesses, stores, and mills on the reserve itself. The late nineteenth century was the time when political pressures on the chiefs intensified with the passage of the various amendments to the Indian Act, which were aimed at expanding the duties of the local band councils and encourage the creation of elected governments on Indian reserves. During that era the Grand River council had to struggle to clarify its domain of power and traditional style of decision-­making. The old ideal of consensus proved difficult to maintain in some of the most controversial issues of the day, such as whether the council would consent to abide by the Indian Act. Many of the chiefs argued that the act did not apply to the Six Nations because they were a sovereign nation with their own political system rooted in the teachings of Deganawi’da. Not surprisingly the Canadian government completely disagreed with that position. Becoming increasingly apprehensive about its freedom to govern, the council members repeatedly reaffirmed their insistence on local self-­determination in their speeches and statements sent to the Canadian authorities. An example of this reaffirmation was Seth Newhouse’s preparation in 1885 of the classic version of the constitution of the league. A self-­appointed codifier of the laws of the Confederacy, Newhouse recorded his own views of its proper composition and functioning. However, his request to the chiefs to sanction his version of the constitution in 1899 was denied. Instead the council appointed its own committee, which produced the “official version” in 1900. This was largely the work of Chief John Arthur Gibson, and it was the one ratified by the council and eventually published. 28 | Early Scholarship

According to Fenton (1998, 93), the council’s efforts to codify the traditional law in their struggle against some elements of the reserve population who advocated the replacement of the council with an elected form of government might explain the willingness of the traditional chiefs, including Gibson, to have the “Great Law of Peace” recorded and even share it with interested outsiders. Thus in 1899 Gibson dictated it in the original Onondaga to J. N. B. Hewitt (1859–­1937), an anthropologist and linguist of Tuscarora descent. Hewitt’s phonetic transcription ran close to two hundred pages, but he never published it. The last decades of the nineteenth century witnessed additional political pressures both from within and without the reserve. A division developed between the Christian members of the council, who tended to come from the Upper Tribes, and the chiefs who remained staunch adherents of the Longhouse religion, who tended to be recruited from the Lower Tribes. The former were not particularly interested in the rituals of the Confederacy, including the condolence ceremony for the installation of new chiefs. In Weaver’s words, “Their interests lay in the streamlining of the council’s business procedures, establishing the committee structure, and enhancing its success as a local government” (1994, 234). By the 1890s the Upper chiefs actually held the balance of power in the council. By 1900 three quarters of the chiefs in the council were Christian, which reflected the general religious composition on the reserve. The conservative faction was led by Chief John Arthur Gibson and several other Onondaga and Cayuga chiefs. As Weaver points out, despite the fact that the Christian and the Longhouse chiefs held different views on how the council was supposed to operate, routine business proceed rather smoothly. Council attendance was very high, and vacancies in titles caused by death were easily filled without major disputes. As she puts it, “Although the council was still more conservative than successful farmers wished, and more innovative than the traditional Longhouse followers desired, the chiefs collectively steered a successful course through these conflicting pressures” (235). Still, despite the council’s ability to adapt to the local demands of a farming community, an increasing number of Upper Tribes members found the pace of change to be too slow and advocated for more extensive laws to protect the farmer and a higher standard of education. A reform of the 1890s was organized by a group of young men from the Upper Early Scholarship | 29

Tribes who were educated at the Mohawk Institute (a residential school), spoke and wrote English, operated large farms, and were leaders in their churches. Few of them could claim hereditary chieftainship titles, and most of them argued that Western education had to be a requisite for council office. In 1890 they drafted a petition signed by some 20 percent of the male adults of the entire community, urging the Canadian government to apply the elected system to the reserve. In 1906 these men, referred to as “the Progressive Warriors” or “the Dehorners,” formed the Indian Rights Association, which began a concerted campaign to remove the chiefs from power. However, they could not muster more than 25 percent of adult male support for the memorials they sent to the Canadian authorities in 1907 and again in 1910, articulating their position, and for that reason the government did nothing until after World War I. At the same time, there were quite a few young Haudenosaunee men who continued to support the council of hereditary chiefs. According to Hill (2017, 287), particularly important among these supporters was a group called the Mohawk Workers. In the years immediately preceding World War I, the views of conservative Longhouse leadership and the “progressives” increasingly clashed, leading to the decline of the effectiveness of the council. The more immediate factor in the breakdown of its operation, Weaver (1994, 245) notes, was the loss of the old council leadership caused by the death of such influential chiefs as John Arthur Gibson in 1912 (see below) and Josiah Hill in 1915. For decades these men acted as a moderating force on the council, mediating disputes between factions and tempering extreme positions. Their successors tended to be younger, more radical men representing both the Christian and the Longhouse factions. Into this complicated sociopolitical and cultural scene stepped the young Columbia anthropologist. With his research interested being clearly focused on the older, traditional culture of the Haudenosaunee, it is not surprising that Goldenweiser sought out such highly respected expert on this subject as John Arthur Gibson. The fact that this man had already shared his knowledge with several anthropologists must have also made it easier for Goldie to establish an excellent working relationship with him. John Arthur Gibson was born in 1849. His mother was a Seneca of the Turtle clan and his father an Onondaga chief. Gibson was multi30 | Early Scholarship

lingual: he was equally fluent in Onondaga and Cayuga, and he also spoke Seneca, Oneida, and some Tuscarora. He sometimes performed rituals in Mohawk, and his English was fluent (Fenton 1962, 286). He held an important Seneca title in the Confederacy Council (Woodbury in Gibson 1992, xii). Gibson became blind at the age of thirty-­one as a result of a lacrosse injury. For many years he served as the speaker at the Onondaga Longhouse on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, where he was well known for his oratorical skills. In addition, he was a preacher of the Code of Handsome Lake, which he periodically gave at the Six Nations and other Iroquois reservations in the United States and Canada (Woodbury in Gibson 1992, xii). Fenton (1962, 286–­87), who worked with John Gibson’s son Simeon and other members of the Gibson family, described him as “unquestionably the greatest mind of his generation among the Six Nations . . . [who] became the greatest living source of Iroquois culture at the turn of the century.” As an authority on the ancient traditions of the Iroquois, Gibson was consulted by several anthropologists prior to his encounter with Goldenweiser. Thus Horatio Hale observed him chanting portions of the Condolence Council as early as 1883. Gibson was also regularly consulted by officials of the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs, who valued highly his cultural knowledge and wisdom and sought his advice on issues concerning Canada’s various First Nations. He even assisted them in settling disputes between some of these nations. Edward Sapir himself worked briefly with him on the Seneca and Mohawk languages and asked for his assistance in building up the Iroquois collections at the Victoria Memorial Museum (now Canadian Museum of History). Gibson was highly regarded by his own people and, precisely for that reason, was appointed a member of a committee of chiefs that undertook to codify the League Tradition in 1900 (Woodbury in Gibson 1992, xii). Having just completed his study of totemism, Goldenweiser was very interested in both the Iroquois social organization and the totemism based on it. He first fieldwork season lasted six weeks from July 6 to August 20, 1911, and was spent mainly at Tuscarora in Brant County, Ontario. In view of the limited time at his disposal, he concentrated on social organization by collecting clan and individual names as well as genealogies. In fact he managed to obtain a complete list of clans for the five nations of the League: the Mohawks, the Onondagas, the Senecas, Early Scholarship | 31

the Oneidas, and the Cayugas. His tentative analysis of the clan names seemed to indicate that “although most of the clans were named after animals, these names were not used except on a few special occasions. The clan names in constant use were generally expressed by a collective term referring to some characteristic of the eponymous animal” (Goldenweiser 1912e, 386). He also studied the function of the Iroquois moieties, the two groups into which the clans were organized. The number of personal male and female names collected by him from each of the five tribes of the Nation was quite impressive: eight hundred in total. In addition, the names of the fifty chiefs (sachems) of the League were collected as well. Genealogical data amassed by Goldie was also quite rich: all in all, a record of four hundred marriages was secured with the help of John Gibson. These genealogies covered roughly a century, most of them extending 150 years back. Moreover, a list of classificatory terms of relationship was secured and partly verified by genealogies. Going beyond the Sapir mandate, Goldenweiser also recorded several myths and a description of part of the Bean festival. He even purchased twenty-­five specimens for the Victoria Memorial Museum, including “one false face [mask] of unusual merit” (1912e, 386–­87). Goldenweiser was clearly able to establish good working relations with a number of Six Nations Iroquois and especially with Chief John Gibson and his family. John’s son Simeon, who knew Goldenweiser well, described him to Fenton years later as “the smartest white man . . . from among all those who had studied among our people” (Fenton 1986, 230). Chief Joseph Logan also recalled working with Goldenweiser with fondness and remarked: “Truly there was a man! He sang with us, he danced, and he learned to speak some Iroquois!” (230). Oneida chief John Danford, who shared numerous genealogies with Goldenweiser, referred to him affectionately as “Goldenwissla” (Fenton n.d., 7, wnfp). Danford clearly trusted Goldie, since also shared with him a personal experience with a False Face (a masked medicine society member), which was a rare occurrence (Goldenweiser to Sapir, October 23, 1912, esc). The Long House people interviewed by Fenton in 1939–­45 also cherished Goldie’s memory (Fenton n.d., 7, wnfp). Fenton explained Goldie’s success in the field: “It was probably a combination of the man’s sincere respect for his Indian informants plus his open desire to share his own culture with them which most delighted the Indians” (7–­8). 32 | Early Scholarship

Goldenweiser had rented a piano and had it transported to the little house on the reservation where he lived and gave impromptu concerts of classical music, which his Iroquois friends enjoyed a great deal. He also took several of them to Niagara Falls to hear operas (Fenton 1986, 230). In addition he might have benefited from John Gibson’s (and other knowledgeable Iroquois chiefs’) determination to preserve traditional Iroquois culture for posterity. As Loyer (2013, 197) suggests, “Perhaps some of Chief Gibson’s ideas about the future of traditionalist Onkwehonwe culture resonated with elements of salvage ethnography. Like Goldenweiser, he too may have feared the loss of cultural knowledge with the passing on of himself and other elders. His fears may have been grounded in changes Gibson would have seen happening in his community around the time he was working with Goldenweiser and the Victoria Museum. Such changes were connected into tensions between factions in the community.” It should be mentioned that, as a man of his times, Goldenweiser approached fieldwork with some trepidation and a set of preconceived notions about the Native people. Thus, according to Fenton (1986, 230), he confessed to the Gibsons that he had initially carried a revolver to protect himself from the “wild Indians.” Also, his habit of signing his postcards to his wife sent from the field with the name Mowgli (of the Jungle Book) suggest an inclination to exoticize his field research a bit. Goldenweiser was surely impressed with the amount of data he was able to collect in just six weeks of his field research. A letter to Sapir, written immediately after the completion of the field season, speaks of his ambitious plans, which went far beyond the reports he was supposed to compose for his superior: I think there is material for four or at least three monographs. The personal names ought to yield one. I have over 800 now. When the number is increased to some 1500 or so, with detailed grammatical analysis, the batch could be written up very nicely; of course, with an introduction on the naming ceremonies, the significance of names among the Iroquois, etc. The fifty hereditary lord names, in the five languages, including a general discussion of the names, could be treated either separately or together with the other names. Then would come the clans, clan names, grouping of clans before Early Scholarship | 33

and after the Confederacy, the function of the phratry and clan, in feast, game, ceremony and council. Considerable material on all of these points is already in my hands and more could be obtained. I am confident this lends itself first rate for monographic treatment. Finally, the genealogies. Over 400 marriages are recorded. I should like to bring the number up to a thousand (this could be easily done) and then discuss the results. . . . The marriage records tabulated and analyzed, ought to furnish a spicy monograph. (Goldenweiser to Sapir, August 20, 1911, esc) Goldie’s plan was to come back to the field in the winter for six or at least four weeks correcting and supplementing the summer’s work. He also had ambitious plans for the next summer: to spend it entirely at Tuscarora, New York, recording the description of the various ceremonies (e.g., Strawberry, Raspberry, Corn). He was also hoping to witness the Mid-­Winter Ceremony in February and to work on the songs and the various societies, such as the False Face, Rattle, Corn-­husk, Otter, and Bean (Goldenweiser to Sapir, August 20, 1911, esc). Like most of the ethnographers of his era, Goldenweiser clearly saw his work as salvage ethnography; as he put it, “In view of the present disintegration of Iroquois culture, the only way to get at whatever is still to be gotten, is to analyze with all possible care that side of their culture which has remained relatively intact. The lost details of the clan organization may then—­perhaps!—­be read between the lines.” His more ambitious plan was a “massive” book on the Iroquois that would be, in his words, “like Morgan’s—­covering social and political organization, ceremonies, societies, religion and mythology.” To accomplish this monumental task, Goldenweiser proposed to begin by making “a general reconnaissance of the field, spend some four months in scout work on the various reserves (eight or nine in all), so as to see superficially what is left, and where and what can be counted upon in the way of informants and interpreters. Such a survey would bring practically no immediate return in the way of actual material but would be of great help for future work and I am sure save some mistakes” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, August 20, 1911, esc).5 Goldie asked Sapir’s opinion of his intentions, which he wished to hear before committing a significant portion of his time to this project. 34 | Early Scholarship

While making those grandiose plans, he was in no hurry to submit an official report and the financial records related to his summer 1911 fieldwork. Therefore, as late as mid-­November 1911, there was still no report.6 That undoubtedly gave Sapir pause. Not surprisingly he advised his friend to submit a couple of papers based on his Iroquois research for publication instead of undertaking the writing of monographs (Sapir to Goldenweiser, November 16, 1911, esc). On December 22, 1911, Goldie was back among the Iroquois, settling once again in the town of Tuscarora in Brant County, Ontario, and staying there until December 31. He came back to the Six Nations reserve on January 1, 1912, and stayed until February 9; his next stint of fieldwork there took place between May 20 and July 2, 1912; on September 7 he was back there again, staying until November 12, making the total length of his stay in Haudenosaunee country in 1912 about seven months (Goldenweiser 1912e, 387). The 1912 field research was once again focused heavily on social organization. However, information on ceremonies, religious societies, and mythology was also collected. Once again Gibson served as his main informant. In addition Goldenweiser worked with several other prominent Haudenosaunee chiefs and elders (male and female) representing all of the nations of the league. All in all Goldenweiser’s 1912 field research was very productive. For example, aware of the fact that many of the younger people no longer remembered many of the traditional names, he made a special effort in that area and managed to record some two thousand names. He also recorded descriptions of several major festivals and ceremonies in the Onondaga language, including the very important Mid-­Winter Ceremony. The origin myths of four major medicine societies, including the False Faces, were recorded either in Onondaga or in English. Finally, a dozen myths were recoded as well, some in Onondaga and some in English. Besides recording accounts of traditional culture, Goldenweiser relied on his own participant observation. Therefore, during his winter visit, Goldenweiser witnessed the important Mid-­Winter Festival. Around that time he told Chief Gibson about his dream of being chased by a pig. Gibson advised him to put up a feast at the Long House for the Onondaga Medicine Men’s Society, which, according to Fenton, “allowed Goldenweiser to gain entrance to the most restricted aspects of the medicine societies, to record its songs, and to acquire a song of his own that became Early Scholarship | 35

his signature each time he came out and renewed his ceremonial obligation” (1986, 230). He was also able to observe the carving of False Face masks and took some notes on their different styles. When it came to Haudenosaunee material culture, he also secured valuable information on the construction of the old-­style “bark house,” which he witnessed; he also recorded an account of the building process in Oneida language. Despite the success of his Iroquois field research, which was generating a good deal of valuable data, Goldenweiser continued to harbor even more ambitious plans. This time his gaze extended all the way to the Pacific Northwest Coast. In a December 27, 1912, letter to Sapir, he wrote about the Indigenous cultures of that region and especially the Bella Coola, which interested him a great deal; after all, he had already examined the literature on those cultures in detail in his doctoral dissertation. As in his Iroquois studies, he was particularly interested in the social organization of the Northwest Coast peoples. In his words: “To try my hand at the N.W. Coast tribes is the one great wish of all my fieldwork aspiration. I may add that I should be willing to sacrifice a good deal by way of positions in Columbia or elsewhere, if I were given an opportunity to spend a year or so in Totem Land” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, December 27, 1912, esc). While conducting his 1911–­12 research, Goldenweiser was developing an interest in Haudenosaunee language. In a letter to Sapir outlining his plans for the summer 1912 fieldwork, he explained the need to focus on the language as a way “to give a respectable analysis of the names and texts,” which were to appear in his book on the Iroquois social organization. He was even planning to extend the scope of his fieldwork to several Iroquois reservations in the United States, although that plan did not materialize. He also was hoping to collect some data on the material culture, which, as he pointed out to Sapir, “is so intimately interwoven with their social customs, ceremonies and even mythology.” Because of his interest in the latter, he asked Sapir to allow him to be the sole ethnographer at the Six Nations reserve, so as not to have Waugh duplicate his work (Goldenweiser to Sapir, March 21, 1912, esc). Sapir’s answer to the latter request was negative. In his opinion Waugh had a “definite bent for technological work” and should have been given an opportunity to continue with it at Six Nations. Neither was he enthusiastic about Goldie’s plans to devote a lot of his time in 36 | Early Scholarship

the field to the study of Iroquois linguistics (Sapir to Goldenweiser, March 28, 1912, esc). In July 1912 Goldenweiser informed Sapir about a major accomplishment: his having recorded John A. Gibson’s rendition of the complete “Deganawi’da [Deganawi:dah] myth” in Onondaga as well as his plan to “take down the Handsome Lake Doctrine” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, July 1, 1912, esc). He was hoping to have both of the texts ready for publication in 1914. What Goldenweiser referred to as the “Deganawi’da myth” was the message of the Peacemaker or the origin legend of the League of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee). This epic is still enacted today in the Condolence Council for the mourning and installing new chiefs and is regarded by its adherents as a kind of constitution, otherwise known as the Great Law of Peace (see also Fenton 1998, 51). According to Hanni Woodbury, who between 1978 and 1990 reelicited the Gibson-­Goldenweiser text from contemporary speakers of Onondaga in order for it to become fully intelligible and prepared this the manuscript for publication, “This is the only primary source in an Iroquois language which includes a complete set of rituals of the Condolence Council, a ceremony at which the death of a Confederacy chief is mourned, and his successor is ‘raised up’ to take his place. In addition, it is the only native language version of that ceremony that includes specific instructions for conducting the rituals” (cited in Gibson 1992, xi).7 Moreover, this was Gibson’s last attempt to document the most important League Tradition, and in Woodbury’s view, it “represented his most mature understanding of the subject” (xix). Today the text recorded by Goldenweiser is considered to be “the most extensive of any written versions of the Great law because of the original detail as well as the skilled translating collaboration of Woodbury” and her Haudenosaunee consultants (Hill 2017, 28–­29). More exciting news shared with Sapir in the same letter was about Goldenweiser having just been adopted into the Onondaga Medicine Society. As a preliminary he was adopted into the Wolf Clan of the Senecas and given a hereditary name of that clan, which in English meant “Great Sky.” He was in the process of rehearsing with Chief Gibson his own special song, which he was supposed to perform at the next meeting of the society. He was also able to record some of the society’s songs, which he found to be beautiful. Goldie was “elated” over the adoption, Early Scholarship | 37

saying that it was supposed to raise his standing on the reserve a good deal (Goldenweiser to Sapir, July 1, 1912, esc). In the fall of 1912, Goldenweiser was busy working with an Oneida elder by the name of John Danford who shared some 350 Oneida names and 500 marriages, as well as information about clans with him. What troubled Goldenweiser at the time was his feeling that he would not be able to submit an adequate report on the Iroquois social organization by the spring of 1913. With the amount of data he had already accumulated and the duties of teaching at Columbia, he simply did not have enough time to complete that major task. His plan was to publish the “Deganawi’da myth” first and then proceed with the publication of his data on social organization, ceremonies, and societies as small monographs. The one limitation of his field research that Goldenweiser faced constantly was the need to teach full time at Columbia (including during the summer session, discussed below). Hence, being very excited about the success of his 1912 ethnographic research, he even considered resigning from Columbia to spend an entire, consecutive year in the field. This year-­long stint was supposed to include work on a number of reservations in Upstate New York as well as a trip to Oklahoma and Wisconsin to visit the Iroquois residing there. To carry out this plan, Goldenweiser needed Sapir to make a commitment to cover his salary for an entire year, which would have allowed him to resign from Columbia (Goldenweiser to Sapir, October 23, 1912, esc). Sapir’s response was not entirely encouraging: all he was able to promise was funding for six months of fieldwork in 1913–­14 and another six months in 1914–­15. Moreover, he insisted on the following condition: Goldenweiser was to be paid a salary of $100 a month, of which $50 would be paid down, and $50 withheld until the manuscript was submitted. He also made it clear that he could not guarantee a full-­time appointment for Goldie upon his completion of the field research, since Radin had already been recommended should a full-­time position become available. Finally, he rejected Goldie’s proposal to be paid a salary while writing up his data (Sapir to Goldenweiser, October 29, 1912, esc). It appears that Sapir’s conditions did satisfy Goldenweiser. After all, he never considered working for the Geological Survey on a permanent basis. However, the fact that he never resigned from Columbia suggests that Sapir could not offer him enough money to support himself and his family.8 38 | Early Scholarship

Then, on November 1, 1912, a terrible tragedy struck: John A. Gibson died suddenly. This was a huge blow to Goldenweiser both as an ethnographer and a human being; he considered Gibson a good friend. He described the tragedy to Sapir: Gibson’s death came with great suddenness. I had left him and chief Danford at a quarter to six, to come back after supper to take phonograph records. At 7 pm I was called across and he was already dead and cold. An apoplectic stroke did away in a few seconds with what had been a mighty personality, a powerful brain and great knowledge. I do not think I shall soon forget his face, as he lay on the familiar couch, now his death bed, while I was applying hot compresses to his heart and doing other useless things. Well, he is gone away now, and he died in a way in which we all should wish to die. The question is: what next? (Goldenweiser to Sapir, November 1, 1912, esc) This loss was so significant that it prompted Goldenweiser to publish an obituary of Gibson in the American Anthropologist. It included the following statement: In his death the Iroquois tribes lose one of their strongholds and ethnologists a well-­nigh inexhaustible storehouse of information on practically every side of Iroquois culture. . . . The writer of these lines was fortunate enough to work with Gibson for several months in the course of the last year of his life. While his Iroquois researches will suffer greatly through this sudden cutting off of their main source of information, he also regards the death of the straight-­ mannered, noble-­hearted, big-­minded Indian chief with the sense of a keen personal loss. (1912c, 693–­94) Twenty-­five years later Goldenweiser reminisced about Gibson in his anthropology textbook: “I regard this Indian parliamentarian as one of the truest friends I ever had, and I shall never forget the dignity and wisdom of the man and his tragic faith in Iroquois culture. Tragic because futile—­and he knew that too” (1937a, 335–­36). After John Gibson died, Goldenweiser brought his wife to visit with his son Simeon. The Early Scholarship | 39

Gibsons served corn soup, while their guests made tea Russian-­style in a samovar, which impressed their hosts immensely (Fenton n.d., 7, wnfp). Like his father Simeon Gibson became very fond of Goldie. Years later he reminisced with pleasure how he helped him operate a gramophone and watched him paddle a canoe, which he had purchased, on the Grand River (Fenton 1944, 231–­32).9 Throughout the fall and early winter of 1912, Goldenweiser persisted in delaying submitting his report to Sapir. He blamed the delays on his wife’s serious illness as well as a “fuss of all varieties and descriptions” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, December 16, 1912, esc). When his report was finally published, it turned out to be much more detailed than the one for the previous year. The list of consultants, which prefaced the 1912 report, included elders from all of the nations of the league. The report itself contained a detailed discussion of the various aspects of the Iroquois social organization including the moieties, the clans, and the families. Given Goldenweiser’s concern with totemism, most important was his discovery that, among the Iroquois, no prohibition existed on the killing or eating the eponymous animals of the clans; this animal was also not viewed as the clan’s guardian. Moreover, individual names did not refer to these animals (1913a, 467). Another valuable piece of data he reported on was the ritual of raising of chiefs and the key role of women in it (and in other key domains of the Iroquois social organization), the nature of names, the kinship system, and the ancient puberty ceremonies. He also documented the major annual ceremonies and the role of the various societies, including the most influential medicine ones (Goldenweiser 1913a). In the spring of 1913, in anticipation of another stint of fieldwork, Goldenweiser outlined his plans for a monograph on Iroquois social and political organization, which he hoped to have ready for printing by April 1, 1914. The monograph was to include “a systematic account of the social and political system of the Iroquois based on all available literature” as well as Goldenweiser’s own field data, an analysis of genealogies and of individual names, and a detailed analysis of the classificatory system of relationship (Goldenweiser to Sapir, May 22, 1913, esc). By April 1, 1915, he expected to prepare the Deganawi’da text for publication as well. Eventually another monograph, this one dealing with the ceremonies and societies, was to be written and published. To carry out all of these 40 | Early Scholarship

projects, he estimated having to undertake two seasons worth of field research for the total of eight months. In that same letter, Goldenweiser hedged his bets by arguing that if the Geological Survey administration expected him to complete all of this work by 1915, that would not be possible. Instead he now proposed a deadline of 1919 (Goldenweiser to Sapir, May 22, 1913, esc). While I have not been able to locate Sapir’s response to this ambitious plan, it does not seem feasible that he would have agreed to it, especially given the fact that Goldie was always late in submitting his reports to his superior. As to his 1913 field research, it lasted from July 15 till October 1 and involved a number of consultants from several nations of the league, including John A. Gibson’s younger brother George. Among them was a ninety-­six-­year-­old Tuscarora woman by the name of Helen Beaver, who became his source of some fifty Tuscarora names (Goldenweiser 1914a, 365). Several hundred additional Tuscarora names was obtained from a knowledgeable elder by the name of Josiah Hill and his wife. Once again Goldenweiser’s research focused on names and kinship terms as well as the nature of the matrilineal families and clans. In his report on those findings, Goldenweiser added a discussion of whether a “totemic complex” existed among the Iroquois. His answer to the question was a negative one (Goldenweiser 1914a; Fenton n.d., 9, wnfp). Thus field research led him to rethink his model of totemism developed in his dissertation and a series of articles published in the 1910s and conclude that the Iroquois system did not fit the pattern of totemism he had established based on library research (see also Fenton n.d., 9, wnfp). As he wrote to Sapir, he was “exceedingly satisfied” with his 1913 fieldwork. Among other things he was able to collect a good deal of linguistic data, which prompted him to envision a separate monograph on the “comparative grammar and dictionary of the Iroquois dialects.” In addition the new data he obtained on the election of chiefs “brought to light many interesting irregularities, and variations in the different tribes.” He wrote Sapir, “While Gibson taught me the great truths, this summer’s work revealed some of the realities” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, July 16, 1914, esc). He was also fortunate to obtain some five hundred Mohawk names from John W. Elliott and his wife. It appears that quite a few of Goldenweiser’s consultants were members of the Confederacy Council, whom he referred to as “chiefs.” Thanks Early Scholarship | 41

to their cooperation he was able carefully verify the list of the present chiefs and their predecessors, secured from Gibson, and then submit that list to the council, with twenty chiefs present. In the course of a lengthy discussion, that list was corrected and amplified by them (Goldenweiser 1914a, 365–­66). Goldenweiser’s ethnographic research, which illustrates the importance of the multisited, survey-­type fieldwork for Boasian anthropologists, enabled him to get a good grasp of the main principles of the traditional Haudenosaunee social organization. As Fenton (1998, 197) points out, he was the first who “analyzed Iroquois society into vertical levels ascending from the fireside family up through the kindred, lineage or maternal household, clan, moiety, tribe or nation, and the league itself.” It appears that he was eager to share his findings with colleagues by presenting papers on Iroquois social organization at several professional meetings, such as the 1913 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association and the 1912, 1913, and 1914 meetings of the American Ethnological Society. Given Goldenweiser’s very good grasp of Haudenosaunee culture and the amount of valuable data he had collected as well as his enthusiasm about turning it into articles and monographs, one might legitimately ask why this never happened. To begin with one has to keep in mind Sapir’s reluctance to renew his contract, given the brief nature of his preliminary reports, the constant delays in the submission of the final ones, and the fact that the government was cutting Sapir’s budget for ethnographic research as a war was engulfing the world (Sapir to Goldenweiser, October 28, 1914, esc; see also Darnell 1990, 69). Additionally, Goldenweiser undermined his own future fieldwork among the Iroquois by his risky conduct. According to Fenton (n.d., 6, wnfp), while Goldenweiser worked with the traditional Longhouse consultants, he lived in Middleport. At the nearby village of Ohsweken, located on the Six Nations Reserve, he came in contact with the elite Anglican and Baptist Indians who resented so much attention to the traditionalists. What really shocked them was that he consorted with an Iroquois woman, not a longhouse adherent, but ‘from one of our best families.’ Characteristically, Goldenweiser was not content to see her surreptitiously, 42 | Early Scholarship

but he organized parties to attend opera and plays in Niagara Falls and Toronto. It was these open actions that ultimately led to his censure. The elite Iroquois complained to council and superintendent, and he to Ottawa where Indian Affairs called on the National Museum to recall their scientist.10 Goldenweiser’s reaction to this scandal was expressed in a 1914 letter to Sapir. In it he confessed that being “excommunicated from Grand River” caused him “much irritation.” He was particularly annoyed by having “to suffer this through the vendetta of an irate priest, [which] is most unworthy of a well meaning (albeit somewhat irresponsible) Hebrew” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, June 9, 1914, esc). Given Goldenweiser’s controversial conduct, it is even more understandable why Sapir chose not to renew his contract with the Geological Survey. Added to this problem was Goldenweiser’s perennial need of money, which forced him to teach at several institutions as well as give frequent public lectures (see below).11 As a result he never published any major articles or monographs based on his Iroquois field notes.12 While in the late 1910s he was still telling his students that a book on the Iroquois was indeed in the making,13 by the 1930s he had lost interest in it and, responding to an inquiry by Fenton, turned most of his field notes over to him.14 It is conceivable that, being unable to conduct additional field research among the Haudenosaunees, he concluded that there were still gaps in his data, which prevented him from producing any major publications on the subject. It is also possible that eventually theoretical anthropological subjects became of greater interest to him, and so he set his ethnographic materials aside. Ultimately we will never know for sure why Goldie decided not to publish any monographs or even major papers based on his Iroquois data. Given what we know about Goldenweiser’s fieldwork, what are we to make of the following statement by Margaret Mead, which she included in his obituary, that “Goldenweiser did not like fieldwork. In fact, he did not like raw data at all” (1940, 33)? I believe that the material I have presented here demonstrates clearly that Goldenweiser did enjoy field research and was actually good at it. As Fenton has argued on several occasions, the quantity and quality of his ethnographic data was very impressive. It is clear from Goldie’s correspondence with Early Scholarship | 43

Sapir that, if not for the need to earn money by doing a great deal of teaching, he would have continued with his Iroquois fieldwork. One should also keep in mind that Mead met Goldenweiser years after he undertook this research—­that is, at a time when he was no longer as interested in it as he had been in the 1910s. As he wrote to Fenton in the mid-­1930s, I have received your interesting letter and have read it with concentrated attention. Upon thinking the matter over I have decided to turn all of my field notes over to you. I fear that what you might regard as a stroke of good fortune will prove a source of considerable vexation in the end. The reason being that my field notes are, as they stand, most incomplete, disorganized, and in part, I fear, would prove incomprehensible to an outsider, as indeed they have become to the author. To put the matter bluntly, as a field worker I have proved a good philosopher. (Goldenweiser to Fenton, May 14, 1934, wnfp) Fenton’s own opinion about these field notes as being “minutely well organized, perceptive and timely” was much more positive than Goldenweiser’s own self-­deprecating evaluation (Fenton n.d., 4, wnfp). Finally, Mead must have been comparing her own field research with that of Goldenweiser and judged herself to be a much better fieldworker, even though subsequent analyses of her fieldwork indicate that some of it was not particular deep or extensive. It is my hope that I have been able to dispel the myth of Goldenweiser as a fieldworker manqué. To conclude this discussion, I would like to quote from Sapir’s 1913 letter to Kroeber, in which he recommended his friend for a position of instructor in anthropology at the University of California: He has done two summers’ field work for us in Iroquois and I know from conversations that I have had with him as well as from correspondence, that he is going into the whole project in a very thorough manner. Now that he has had considerable experience in field work, I believe the purely theoretical interest that he started off with has been considerably sobered, so that taking it all in, I hardly know of anyone who could be considered a more excellent 44 | Early Scholarship

in America, that is among the younger men. I believe he also makes an excellent lecturer, having a very decided feeling for both logical arrangements and outward form. If you really decide to try to secure his services, I think you may have to offer him as much as $2000 a year, but I think it should be well worth the University’s while if it could only be managed. As far as I am personally concerned, I should almost rather not have him go out West, as I am very eager to see him continue undisturbed on his Iroquois work. (Sapir to Kroeber, January 15, 1913, cited in Golla 1984, 79–­80) In another letter to Kroeber, Sapir described Goldenweiser and Radin as “the cream of the younger anthropologists in this country” (Sapir to Kroeber, May 15, 1913, alkp). Kroeber might have shared Sapir’s high opinion of Goldenweiser as a scholar and teacher, but he was well aware of his irresponsible behavior when it came to deadlines and record-­ keeping. Therefore, when in the summer of 1918 he and Sapir discussed the various candidates for the next editor of American Anthropologist, Kroeber was totally opposed to Goldie’s candidacy, saying that he would run the journal into the ground. In his words: “Goldenweiser is impossible in correspondence and his business ability is, of course, zero” (cited in Golla 1984, 278). Having explored Goldenweiser’s field research, we can now turn to his other main activity on the 1910s: teaching anthropology at Columbia University.

Teaching at Columbia Boas was so impressed with his Russian student that, upon completing his PhD, Goldenweiser was hired to teach anthropology at Columbia. In the last decade of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth century, Columbia underwent fundamental changes. These began during the presidency of Seth Low (1890–­1901), who changed the name of the institution from Columbia College to Columbia University and initiated the move from its downtown site to a much larger campus on Morningside Heights in Upper Manhattan. The new campus matched Low’s vision of a civic university integrated into the city. A new curriculum was introduced at that time as well. During the 1890s a number of very prominent scholars were hired by Columbia to serve as its leading senior faculty members; Franz Boas was one of them. Early Scholarship | 45

Low’s policies continued under his successor Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–­1947), who presided over the university for over four decades, the longest tenure of any American university president. Butler had been at Columbia since the mid-­1880s, first as a professor of philosophy and psychology and, since 1890, as the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, which included several departments. As Columbia’s president Butler did a great deal to transform it into one of the greatest universities in the United States and the world (Rosenthal 2015, 134–­35). Thus, by 1915, Columbia became by several measures the biggest university in the country, overperforming other American universities in the production of PhDs, especially in the social sciences. At the same time, Butler was also responsible for turning Columbia into a highly bureaucratic and hierarchically organized institution, where faculty voices became subordinate to the will of the president and the trustees. When Butler became Columbia’s president in 1902, many faculty members were optimistic about him. He was considered highly erudite and talented, which prompted his friend Teddy Roosevelt to call him “Nicholas Miraculous.” Butler was indeed a very skillful fundraiser who was not particularly interested in either teaching or research but relished “the higher arts of university administration and institutional governance” (McCaughey 2003, 214). He also preferred the company of the university trustees (most of them mainline Protestants) as well as other rich and powerful people to that of the true intellectuals; among the former were such notorious figures as Kaiser Wilhelm II and Benito Mussolini (McCaughey 2003, 215). Moreover, in the words of Sokal (2009, 92), Butler turned out to be “a pompous man who enjoyed power and as he grew into his presidency he left behind his scholarship in philosophy, which had never been his forte.” He was also obsessed with making Columbia an internationally recognized university rather than an institution of higher education serving the needs of the city of New York. As Veysey (1965, 366) points out, “Nicholas Murray Butler probably came closest of any university executive to the role of corporate manager as it was just then becoming defined in American industrial enterprise.” For example, he significantly reduced the faculty role in the administration of the university by replacing the election of deans by their peers with the president appointing them. The ones he appointed were expected to be fully loyal to him. 46 | Early Scholarship

Butler, an arrogant man, was responsible for the dismissal of several prominent faculty members, from the great classical scholar Harry T. Peck (1856–­1914) to Elias Spingarn (1875–­1939), an English literature professor and a pioneer of civil rights as well as an active participant in various Jewish causes. Dismissal of rebellious and free-­thinking faculty accelerated once the United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917. Prior to that Butler was a staunch supporter of American neutrality and even harbored pro-­German sympathies. However, once America intervened in the “war to end all wars,” he changed his tune completely and announced to the Columbia faculty and students that from now on he would not tolerate any dissent as far as the country’s war effort was concerned. In his words: “What had been tolerated before becomes intolerable now. What had been wrongheadedness is now sedition. What has been folly is now treason” (cited in Sokal 2009, 103; see also Summerscales 1970). In other words, any student or faculty member who criticized America’s engagement in the European conflict would now be found guilty of treason and promptly dismissed. This obvious curtailment of academic freedom, which Butler toyed with even before 1917, became notorious once America entered the war. Several prominent faculty members who opposed the war, such as psychologist James K. Cattell (1860–­1944) and English professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (1881–­1950) were indeed dismissed.15 Protesting their dismissal two prominent Columbia historians, James H. Robinson (1863–­ 1936) and Charles Beard (1874–­1948), who did support the Allied cause, resigned (Summerscales 1970, 72–­102). Deeply disappointed by Cattell’s dismissal, Boas composed a passionate and eloquent letter to Butler in his defense (Boas to Butler, September 19, 1917, aps). Butler was not only a political conservative, a staunch opponent of communism and Bolshevism, but also an anti-­Semite. As Rosenthal (2015, 332–­33) notes, his anti-­Semitism was not the virulent kind displayed by such figures as Henry Ford; it was more discreet, “the kind found in the proper drawing rooms and the poshest clubs, where men of refinement thought the insistent, unscrupulous behavior of the Jews sadly offensive and who took pains to avoid encountering them socially” (see also McCaughey 2003, 266). Having moved to Morningside Heights, Columbia soon found itself surrounded by a very substantial Jewish population. Many young men from these neighborhoods as well as from Early Scholarship | 47

all over the city were applying to the university. Butler shared Columbia trustees’ concern that the school was gradually turning from a “Christian institution” into a “Hebrew one,” and that this development was discouraging the offspring of good wasp families from applying. Like many elite educators of his time, Columbia’s president was willing to tolerate the more assimilated German-­born Jews who spoke proper English and whose conduct conformed to the prevailing norms of the “proper” upper-­class American culture. It was the new cohort of Russian-­ and East European–­born Jews whose public conduct “stood out” that bothered him. To limit their presence at the university, Butler instituted new admission policies, which included a form inquiring for the first time about the applicant’s parents’ occupation and religious affiliation. He also relied on the so-­called Thorndike admission test, which, while ostensibly aimed at measuring an applicant’s intelligence, was clearly biased against those who were born abroad or at least not yet fully Americanized (Rosenberg 2004, 138–­39). Thanks to these innovations in admission, the Jewish presence at Columbia declined somewhat to about 15 percent of the total student body. Given his views and his style of dealing with faculty, what was Butler’s attitude toward Franz Boas and Boas’s protégé Alexander Goldenweiser? As far as Boas himself was concerned, Butler’s feelings seem to have been mixed. On the one hand, he did appreciate Boas’s high stature in academic circles at home and abroad. On the other hand, he was clearly not happy about the anthropology professor’s liberal, leftist views and especially his open anti-­war stand. While I have found no direct statements by Butler about Boas’s anthropology, it does not seem to have been highly appreciated by Columbia’s conservative and autocratic president. Boas’s initial appointment at Columbia actually took place in 1896–­97, when he was still also employed by the American Museum of Natural History. He was hired as a lecturer to teach physical anthropology in a department of psychology and anthropology. Such a title and its modest salary did not satisfy Boas, who had a fairly large family to support. Thanks to his uncle Abraham Jacobi, who (secretly) underwrote half of his salary, Boas’s professorship was finally established in 1899. His teaching was supposed to be split between Columbia and Barnard College, which catered to a female student body. While Boas’s initial appointment had been supported by Butler, who at that time was an influential dean of 48 | Early Scholarship

the Philosophy Faculty (which included psychology and anthropology), it appears that he was unwilling to provide Boas with sufficient funds to create a robust anthropology program. As Rosenberg (2004, 134) observes, “Squeezed into three tiny rooms at the top of the journalism building, Boas carried out his mission far removed from the academic center of the university.” At the time of Boas’s hiring, the only anthropology instructor at Columbia was Livingston Farrand (1867–­1939), a psychologist and physician and an anthropologist, who had been teaching a single cultural anthropology course since the mid-­1890s.16 Boas persisted in building up anthropology at Columbia, with the discipline finally gaining some recognition by being granted its own department in 1903. In the mid-­1900s two archaeologists were added to the department’s faculty: Marshall H. Saville (1867–­1935) and Adolph F. Bandelier (1840–­1914). In addition Clark Wissler (1870–­ 1947) was hired to teach cultural anthropology on a part-­time basis as an instructor, a position he held until 1909, when he became a full-­time curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Despite these limitations, in the 1900s–­1910s, Boas managed to train a bright cohort of anthropology PhD students, starting with Alfred Kroeber (1876–­1960) in 1901, Albert B. Lewis (1867–­1940) in 1907, Frank G. Speck (1881–­1950) in 1908, Robert H. Lowie in 1908, Edward Sapir (1884–­1939) in 1909, Goldenweiser in 1910, Paul Radin (1883–­1959) in 1911, Thomas T. Waterman (1885–­1936) in 1914, Fay-­Cooper Cole (1881–­1961) in 1914, Laura Watson Benedict (1861–­1932) in 1914, Herman K. Haeberlin (1890–­1918) in 1915, and Martha Warren Beckwith (1871–­1959) in 1919. It is clear that Boas badly needed a talented young cultural anthropologist like Goldenweiser to create a strong institutional presence for anthropology at Columbia. Goldie’s first appointment was as an assistant instructor, but a year later in 1911 he was promoted to lecturer. He taught a variety of courses, both undergraduate and graduate. In 1911–­12 he taught a course on “primitive social organization” and in the summer of 1912 a general introduction to anthropology and a “problems and methods” course. In 1913–­14, in addition to a course on primitive social organization, he taught one on “primitive religion” as well as a joint introductory course with Boas. Like his mentor Goldenweiser also taught courses at Barnard. Boas characterized his Barnard teaching in a letter to Butler: “I hear indirectly from Barnard that Goldenweiser’s Early Scholarship | 49

course is well liked, and that the students feel particularly that he has a firm grasp of the subject” (Boas to Butler, April 10, 1910, cua). In 1914–­15 Goldie’s range of courses broadened to include such topics as Technology and Primitive Art, Primitive Man and His Physical Environment, and a course with the intriguing title Ethnographic Basis of History. In 1915–­16 he added two area courses to his menu—­Ethnography of Africa and Ethnography of America and Siberia—­as well as a graduate colloquium (in 1916–­17 titled Modern and Primitive Culture). In 1916–­17 he also taught a new course on the ethnography of Australia and Oceania and in 1917–­18 History of Anthropological Theories. Goldenweiser took his teaching very seriously, even though it did not always go smoothly, especially when he really had to stretch to cover unfamiliar subjects. He also incorporated his new scholarly interest in his lectures. As a detailed letter from him to Boas illustrates: I am giving my eight lectures per week. It is not an unmitigated good. I do not enjoy lecturing on a subject I know nothing about, and under the circumstances, the necessity to do so arises not infrequently. I find the lectures on Religion (in Farrand’s class) particularly hard to prepare. The subject per se is hard to present, and the material for Australia is poor and for the South Seas wretched. I do not know whether you are fully aware of just how bad and vague and thin the data are, on the soc. org. and the religious beliefs of the South Sea islanders! (Goldenweiser to Boas, April 4, 1912, fbp) In that same letter, Goldenweiser went on to inform Boas that his recent reading drew his attention to “primitive law,” and that he was hoping to do some work in that area, particularly as far as the “standardization of customs” and the “history of punishment” were concerned. (Could it be that his father’s lifelong concern with “crime and punishment” prompted this new interest?) He was planning to give twelve lectures on these subjects in one of his next year’s courses, which would pave the way to a separate course on “primitive law.”17 He was even hoping to bring such a course to the attention of Columbia’s law faculty, who, in his words, “might favor a plan of thus acquainting the students of modern law with the content and concepts of primitive legal institu-

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tions and that this might possibly improve his chances of advancement at the university” (Goldenweiser to Boas, April 4, 1912, fbp). As Goldie described his teaching to Kroeber at the end of the school year 1916–­17: “The season’s grind is over! Well, perhaps it is not quite sincere for me to put it thus: for I do enjoy lecturing, the preparatory work, the systematizing and also the process of ‘putting it over’ itself. However, the fact remains: it is over now” (Goldenweiser to Kroeber, May 31, 1917, alkp). It appears that, early on in his teaching career, Goldenweiser was already entertaining ideas of coordinating the anthropology curriculum with that of the other social sciences, something he would write about at length in the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, given Boas’s and his anthropology department’s somewhat marginal position at Columbia, these ideas of Goldie’s were never put into practice. He wrote on this subject to Kroeber in 1917: I am getting sick of my work here (or rather by its limitations). I am bound hand and foot. Most of the things I’d like to try (such, for instance, as a closer coordination of the departments with anthropology) has already been tried; and—­failed, under such condition of friction and mutual resentment, that it would be suicidal and quite hopeless to try again (particularly for a “junior officer”). I do not see that there is anything else for me to do than to stick to it, but if a stray job did come my way (even a museum one!), I’d simply quit and grab it. (Goldenweiser to Kroeber, May 31, 1917, alkp) Money for the anthropology department seems to have been a perennial problem, with Boas repeatedly appealing to Butler for an increase in funding in order to retain Goldenweiser. In one such letter, Boas wrote, “Professor Farrand wrote to me that you did not see your way clearly to advancing Goldenweiser’s position. I should be sorry to lose him, because he has a very clear and mature head. On the other hand, a year or so in California might be of great advantage to him, because his whole training has been in the atmosphere of Columbia. Still, I do not think, he needs the change as much as many other young men might do and I wish a way could be found to retain him” (Boas to Butler, February 2, 1912, cua).18 Boas also pleaded with Columbia administration to have

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Goldenweiser’s salary increased. He wrote to the university’s dean of faculty Frederick J. E. Woodbridge (a Butler supporter) on November 21, 1917: I also wish that the salary of Dr. A. A. Goldenweiser could be increased considerably. It is hardly possible for a married man with a child to get along on the income that he has at the present time. I do not know exactly whether statutory limitations would prevent a considerable increased but recommend it strongly. Dr. Goldenweiser is a good instructor, particularly for graduate students. I find that the students get a good deal out of his courses, and that they are stimulated in every way. He gives this year a course on history of anthropological theories, which I think is particularly good. (Boas to Woodbridge, November 21, 1917, fbp) In a letter to Butler a week later, Boas wrote: Dr. A. A. Goldenweiser is poorly paid for his services, which are very satisfactory. He receives $1,500 the present year, and in accordance with the statutory increase, he would receive $1,600 next year. He has a wife and a child, and besides this, on account of the war conditions, his wife’s sister has to be looked after by him.19 Furthermore, his widowed mother, who lives in Paris, has been deprived of her income, which, until the Russian Revolution, came from Kiev, so that he is compelled to contribute to her support also.20 (Boas to Butler, November 28, 1912, cua) Boas’s voluminous 1918 correspondence with both Woodbridge and Butler reveals the senior administrators’ determination to get rid of Goldenweiser. While budgetary restraints of the war period as well as Boas’s own radical anti-­war statements made during World War I (and support for Professor Cattell) as well as his protests against the rise of the anti-­German hysteria in the United States must have contributed to Butler’s unwillingness to increase the Anthropology Department’s budget, there was something about Goldie that seriously irked Columbia’s president (Hyatt 1990, 122–­41; Weiler 2008). Goldenweiser’s Russian Jewish identity and his known pacifist views must have contributed 52 | Early Scholarship

to Butler’s dislike of the man.21 However, contrary to the prevailing view among scholars that anti-­Semitism was primarily behind Butler’s decision to let Goldie go, my own research has uncovered a somewhat different picture. It appears that it was Goldenweiser’s own conduct that was largely responsible for his downfall. He was known to borrow books from the Columbia Library and not return them (see below). He also failed to pay his dues at the Columbia Faculty Club. In a letter to Sapir, Radin wrote: Of Goldie I can tell you nothing per letter. Orally I might be able to tell you a good deal that would not reflect particular credit upon him. He has been on a moral vacation recently of a particular skunky kind and is just at present indulging (for it is a pleasure to him undoubtedly) in the Katzenjammer [hangover] that generally follows such vacations. I do not think he is in a condition to write his accounts just now. If you really want him to do it, drop a line to Boas.22 I believe he can stir him up. Don’t of course tell Boas that I told you (or for that matter Goldie), for we are not on intimate terms any more due to his escapade and a number of other things. (Radin to Sapir, December 1914, esc) The “hangover” referred to by Radin, which was most likely the result of an extramarital affair, was clearly making Goldie feel miserable. His November 27, 1914, letter to Sapir reflects his statement of mind quite clearly: I am intolerable, am I not? Well, everyone else with half my troubles would be worse. You are quite right, by the way, that I feel so miserable because “I want something I cannot have.” That is so . . . [unclear handwriting] I am determined to have it. And I shall have it, although it will cost me dearly. In time you will know. Such matters cannot be read and discussed in letters. Were you here, I would have talked to you sincerely about it all, as it seems to me, we have of late developed that mutual appreciation and understanding which is so rare, especially between two men, and which makes sincerity easy. I am chafing under the weight of insincerity, for I am forced to be insincere with practically everyone around me. Early Scholarship | 53

So life is almost an intolerable burden to me now. Well, I suppose I have given you enough of this mysterious and gloomy business! (Goldenweiser to Sapir, November 27, 1914, esc) Some years later William Fenton (1908–­2005), drawing on his conversations with Radin and others who had known Goldie, offered the following characterization: He was most casual about debts. Paul Radin once told me that of all Boas’ students, Goldenweiser was the old man’s favorite and he might have gone far at Columbia. He was the very antithesis of Boas’ puritanism, and in a way Boas’ unconsciousness. But he kept doing the most outrageous things, such as buying an encyclopedia on credit and ignoring the payments, until the publisher wrote to the president of Columbia. . . . President Butler, autocrat that he was, called in Boas and told him to get rid of his protégé. (Fenton n.d., 5, wnfp) Thus, Goldenweiser, with his idiosyncratic behavior and willingness to violate the norms of academic propriety, offended Butler’s ideal of a gentleman professor whose conduct was beyond reproach. By the beginning of spring 1918, Goldenweiser’s fate as anthropology instructor appears to have been sealed. As Dean Woodbridge wrote to Boas, “President Butler has informed me that he has reached the definite conclusion that Mr. Goldenweiser ought not to be offered a new appointment when his present term of service expires” (Woodbridge to Boas, March 1, 1918, fbp). Still Boas continued advocating on behalf of his favorite protégé. In a letter to Woodridge, dated March 20, 1918, Boas expressed his conviction that not reappointing Goldenweiser would be a wrong step to take. He went on to say that from the point of view of anthropology his former student represented “a certain line of thought which is exceedingly important for the development of our science” (Boas to Woodridge, March 20, 1918, fbp). In his words, We have so many investigators who are simply accumulators of facts, and who cannot attain the point of view that makes facts 54 | Early Scholarship

really useful for scientific inquiry, that as a balance, those who have theoretical interests are very much needed. Goldenweiser is pre-­eminently a man of this type, and the work that he has done in these directions has always proved stimulating and highly useful, even where, according to my taste, it becomes too dialectic in form. The very fact that the scientific aspects of anthropology take a systematic form in his mind makes him a very suggestive [graduate] teacher; and it has been my experience that during the last few years a good many valuable investigations have been the fruit of his instruction. (italics mine) Boas’s emphasis on the significance of Goldie’s theoretical interests for creating a truly comprehensive program of graduate education in anthropology at Columbia challenges the prevailing views in American anthropology past and present that Goldie’s mentor was primarily interested in empirical research rather than in asking the big questions.23 At the same time Boas admitted that when it came to undergraduate teaching, Goldenweiser had so far not been as successful because he “carried the critical dialectic form of thought too much into all his speaking.” Still, he was making steady progress in that type of teaching as well. Boas’s final verdict was clear: “So far as the interests of anthropology as a whole are concerned, the dropping of Goldenweiser from the ranks of productive scientists would be a serious loss.” In the same letter Boas alluded to some troubles Goldenweiser had had in the past but argued that his conduct had improved: The personal question to which you referred the other day, and to which I made a reference at an earlier time, ought not to be a deciding factor at the present time. It is true that a little more than two years ago I doubted very much whether we ought to keep Goldenweiser here; but since that time his personal conduct has been such that there is no cause for complaint of any kind. On the contrary, he is conscientious in his work, and has been trying his level best to set out of the troubles into which he put himself at the time to which you refer. (Boas to Woodridge, March 20, 1918, fbp) Boas’s letter to Butler of May 4, 1918, made a similar argument: Early Scholarship | 55

Goldenweiser is a married man, who has a child about three years old. He is devoted to his family, and supports, besides his wife, his wife’s sister. Goldenweiser is a man of very high intellectuality and a clear thinker. His unusual ability in this direction brings it about that his method of work differs considerably from that of other anthropologists. The theoretical questions are always uppermost in his mind; and when he takes up a piece of special research, it always broadens out into a theoretical question. I think his ability is acknowledged throughout the University; and men like Robinson, Giddings, Shotwell, who know about his work, appreciate his value.24 (Boas to Butler, May 4, 1918, aps; italics mine) Boas went on to say that there existed a certain amount of personal prejudice against Goldenweiser, which had to do with the fact that about three years earlier his financial affairs were a mess, and he had had to borrow money from various Columbia faculty members. When Boas learned about the matter, he was “somewhat in doubt” about what to do but resolved to try to straighten out Goldie’s affairs; after accomplishing that, he told Dean Woodbridge what had happened and shared his impression that Goldenweiser’s conduct had much improved. As he put it, “I have never regretted having taken the course I did, because he has extricated himself to a very great extent from the difficult position in which he was, and there is no indication whatever that an incident of that kind would recur. Since that time the child was born, and the family position has had a most stabilizing effect upon him. It seems to my mind that under these conditions, it would not be right to hold up against him an incident that should be closed” (Boas to Woodridge, March 20, 1918, fbp). In a letter to Alfred Tozzer (1877–­1954), Boas complained about funding for the anthropology department being cut and spelled out the reason Butler and company did not wish to have Goldenweiser reappointed: The Goldenweiser case is still worse. They have not cut off the instructorship, but reduced the salary to the initial salary, and asked for the appointment of a new man in place of Goldenweiser. I do not believe for a moment that this is due to a desire to save the

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difference of $400, but is a personal matter, which is due partly to the fact that about three years ago Goldenweiser was in very serious financial difficulties—­partly of his own making, partly due to conditions over which he had no control. (Boas to Tozzer, April 27, 1918, fbp) In the same letter, Boas praised Shoora as instructor in graduate courses but also admitted that he was not equally successful as an undergraduate teacher because his interests were “essentially theoretical.” At the same time the man was very much liked as what might have been called an “extension lecturer.” Thus, he was often asked to speak to women’s clubs and not only for single lectures but for whole courses, and he had given successful lectures on a variety of subjects in special courses for working class students. Boas concluded his comments: Of course, his whole trend of mind is different from that of most of our American anthropologists. While it would be wrong to say that he is not in touch with the data, his chief interest lies in the theoretical side. I venture to say that if he lived in England or France, he would be one of the greatest lights in anthropology. Anyway, there is not the slightest doubt that his work is of very great use; and that from the standpoint of anthropology, it is wrong to cut him off. I made this particular plea with the University authorities, but evidently, they are not interested in the interest of science as against what they suppose to be the interest of the University. (Boas to Tozzer, April 27, 1918, fbp; italics mine) Boas’s suggestion that Goldenweiser, with his theoretical concerns, would have had a much higher stature as a scholar in Europe is remarkable: Was he suggesting that American anthropology was still insufficiently theoretical? In the spring of 1918 Columbia graduate students who had taken Goldenweiser’s courses learned about the plans not to reappoint him and began circulating letters on his behalf. They gave their most enthusiastic endorsement of his talent as a university instructor. Martha W. Beckwith (1871–­1959), a 1918 Columbia PhD in anthropology, wrote:

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In the course of work at Columbia University for the doctorate in Anthropology, I have registered at two different times for courses with Dr. A. A. Goldenweiser, and have been delighted with the scholarly grasp he has shown of the subject he handles, the emotional flexibility of his mind, and his ability to organize and present the theoretical questions so difficult for students to formulate. In giving his time for personal interviews he is most generous and painstaking, and he brings to bear upon such discussions a specifically critical mind, but without intolerance or prejudice. She added that she had seldom witnessed so marked a professional advance in the mere technique of teaching as in the case of Goldenweiser during the three years she had come in contact with his work (Beckwith to Boas, April 2, 1918, fbp). Emily Green Balch (1867–­1961), who took courses with Goldenweiser while already a professor of economics and sociology at Wellesley, echoed Beckwith. According to her letter to Boas, she had been very much struck by the degree to which Goldenweiser managed to unite “the often rather opposed qualities of the scholar and the teacher.” In her view, he combined “accuracy and detail with breadth, and a penetrating and subtle analysis with balance of judgment. He interprets psychological phenomena without reducing them to something flat and shallow, and at the same time without loss of objectivity” (Balch to Boas, March 1, 1918, fbp). And then there was a thoughtful letter from a doctoral candidate in anthropology Theresa Mayer (Durlach, 1891–­1981): As one who in a long course of study at Columbia University has found Dr. Goldenweiser a most stimulating instructor, I wish to express my earnest appreciation of his worth. The student, when he first takes up the study of anthropology, is in danger of being overwhelmed by a mass of unintelligible and unrelated facts. In his presentation of the subject, Dr. Goldenweiser brings order out of chaos, but not by the usual method of presenting an artificially simplified system, where no system can be really said to exist. He conducts his courses mainly along theoretical lines 58 | Early Scholarship

and draws upon the facts of primitive life to show in how far any of the theories may be said to be valid. This, to my mind, constitutes the chief value of his work, for thus the student not only becomes acquainted with the various types of culture,-­for Dr. Goldenweiser draws his illustrations from all the known areas—­but he learns to appreciate the significance of the facts of primitive life. (Mayer to Boas, April 3, 1918, fbp) Mayer additionally pointed out that by presenting theories and facts in an objective and absolutely undogmatic way Goldenweiser placed upon the student the burden of drawing his or her own conclusions, of thinking for themselves. Moreover, his efforts on behalf of his students continued outside the classroom. He was at their disposal whenever they so desired. In fact he encouraged them to discuss with him all of their academic work, whether in anthropology or other fields, and gave them what aid he could. His broad outlook made him eminently fit for the task (Mayer to Boas, April 3, 1918, fbp). Finally, a number of Columbia students praised the breadth of Goldenweiser’s erudition—­that is, his interest in and knowledge of the fields outside anthropology. In the words of Clarence H. Northcott (1880–­1968), a PhD student in sociology, “As primarily a student of Sociology, I have been struck by the wide range of Dr. Goldenweiser’s mind, which extends over the fields of Sociology and Psychology with the same accuracy and assurance as over Anthropology” (Northcott to Boas, n.d., fbp). These letters from students as well as Boas’s own efforts must have had an effect: Goldenweiser was reappointed for another year, but nonetheless terminated in 1919.25 The dismissal of Cattell and the “Goldenweiser affair” convinced Boas that Columbia was “developing into a model of bureaucratic machinery, the equal of which it would be hard to find in any part of the world” (Boas to Tozzer, April 27, 1918, aps). He was “disgusted with the whole situation” in which the president and the trustees controlled everything while the faculty remained largely powerless. He was now convinced that the trustees saw the university as “a kind of club, the welfare of which was in charge of the Trustees, who have to watch carefully over the character, opinions, and deeds of the men who have joined” (Boas to Tozzer, April 27, 1918, aps). Early Scholarship | 59

Goldenweiser’s own deep disappointment with Columbia’s decision not to rehire him was captured in a letter sent to Robert Lowie by his sister Risa and is worth citing in its entirety: The Goldenweiser case is serious enough but may be a blessing in disguise. He of course feels that he should accept any possible out of town offer . . . , but Anya [his wife] dreads leaving New York. I tried to show her how necessary that would be. I suppose she’d yield if it became urgent. She is all on his side now and resents any distrust of his good intentions or powers, forgetting how she had once trumpeted aloud his failings. It is natural, of course, that she should now sympathize with him, since he has really been perfectly straight and perfectly earnest for years. He is deeply hurt, not at the present suspension, but at all the long years of hoping for a real Columbia job, seem to have been in vain. He says he had been working whole heartedly and had been feeling he was really making his mark. . . . He spoke openly about the past,—­says Boas is incapable of ever trusting him since that time although his conduct since has been irreproachable. But he seems more manly and determined than ever before, so perhaps the present trouble really is a good thing. (Robert Lowie to Risa Lowie, March 25, 1918, rhlp)

The Rand School To supplement his meager Columbia salary and gain additional opportunities for teaching subjects of interest to him Goldenweiser also taught at New York’s Rand School, between 1915 and 1929. Envisioned as a “school of social science,” it was established in 1906 in a brownstone at 112 East Nineteenth Street by a group of intellectuals (most of them from Columbia University) who were adherents of the Socialist Party of America or at least sympathized with its ideology. The school’s founders, who called themselves the Board of Directors of the American Socialist Society, included Morris Hilquit (1869–­1933), Algernon Lee (1873–­1954), William James Ghent (1866–­1942), and Charles Beard. All four of them were members of the left liberal “New York X” men’s dinner and discussion club that had been started by Ghent in 1903 (Recchiuti 2007, 45). Three of these founders were prominent socialist intellectuals and 60 | Early Scholarship

activists of the Socialist Party, and the fourth, Charles Beard (whom we have already encountered as a radical Columbia historian), sympathized with socialism but never joined the Socialist Party. One of the most prominent American historians of his time, Beard had previous experience with organizing a “workers’ college” for the study of the social sciences when he was a graduate student at Oxford University. Beard and Goldenweiser knew each other during the time both of them spent at Columbia. According to historian John L. Recchiuti (1995, 152), the social scientists who founded the Rand School were centrist members of the Socialist Party who preferred to work within the electoral process to achieve gradual, nonviolent, international revolution. They also believed that education rather than coercion would best foster social change. “Sharing with progressives the view that the state itself must be expanded to rein in the power of business,” Recchiuti writes, “they urged fundamental reforms, and a reevaluation of competitive capitalism itself.” The school’s goal was to provide a broad education to workers, imparting a politicized class-­consciousness; it also served as a research bureau, a publisher, and the operator of a summer camp for socialist and trade union activists. Soon after its establishment, the school was teaching its version of the social science of society to hundreds of laborers, mechanics, office employees, and homemakers. As students and as graduates these men and women worked in the Socialist Party itself or in various trade unions and cooperative societies as well in the labor press. The school maintained a reference library, a reading room open to the public, a bookstore, a student clubroom, and even a gym. Goldenweiser joined a distinguished group or professors, which besides Beard included James Harvey Robinson and James Shotwell from Columbia’s History Department, Franklin H. Giddings from the Sociology Department, and William P. Montague (1873–­1953) from the Philosophy Department (Case of the Rand School 1919, n.p.).26 A number of women scholars, who could not join most full-­time social science faculties, were welcome at the Rand School. Best-­known among them was Charles Beard’s wife, historian and women’s suffrage activist Mary Ritter Beard (1876–­1958), who not only taught at the school but served in its administration. All of these professors knew Goldie as a popular and sophisticated Columbia anthropology instructor. Early Scholarship | 61

As Recchiuti (1995, 153) notes, the members of the school’s board of directors “sought alliances with others in the intellectual class. To further legitimize their endeavor by sharing in the growing prestige and authority of the social scientific culture they reached out to the informal network then flourishing in the universities and professional societies.” While classes on socialist theory and practice always predominated in the school’s curriculum, it also offered its working-­class students an education in the social sciences as well as the humanities. The Rand School recruited a significant number of progressive era intellectuals from the leading universities, not all of whom were necessarily socialists themselves. One of the school’s most popular courses, The Principles of Sociology, was taught by Franklin H. Giddings, who was well acquainted with Goldenweiser as a student and teacher of anthropology. Giddings, a political maverick, at some point supported socialist candidates in national elections. The fact that Goldenweiser became involved with the Rand School tells us something important about his political views in the 1910s and, more specifically, his ideas about the role of the social sciences in making the American political and economic system more progressive and humane. Based on Boas’s letter cited above as well as Goldenweiser’s correspondence and future scholarly cooperation, we can conclude that while a PhD candidate and then an anthropology instructor at Columbia he associated precisely with those social science faculty members who, in the words of Recchiuti (2007, 2) “shared the view that the state need restrict its agency to mere laissez faire rule-­setting to ensure competitive markets. Unlike conservative social scientists, they believed that government might properly become a powerful regulatory force and a public service provider for the American people.” According to Recchuiti, these civically engaged public intellectuals represented one of the leading forces in the Progressive-­era reform movement in New York City, which had a major impact on the country as a whole. Goldenweiser’s great admiration for Randolph Bourne (1886–­1918), a progressive writer who became a spokesman for the young radicals during World War I, also speaks volumes about his political views during the first decade of the twentieth century. He shared Bourne’s pacifism as well as his criticism of the notion that all immigrants should be assimilated to America’s Anglo-­Saxonism (Bourne 1977).27 Moreover, Goldie’s 62 | Early Scholarship

publications in liberal magazines (see below) revealed his progressive views and his ability to think critically about American society and its government’s policies. At the Rand School, Goldenweiser broadened the scope of his course offerings, teaching not only courses in anthropology (such as Theories of Cultural Progress; and Science, Morality, and Progress) but psychology as well. Thus, having become interested in Freudian psychology (see below), he offered a course titled Freudian System of Psychoanalysis, in addition to Elements of Psychology. Finally, he contributed ten lectures to a team-­taught course on Soviet Russia (Boxes 59 and 63, tl and wla). Short on cash, he even taught a course at the Rand School’s Tamiment Camp in Pennsylvania, established in 1919. The Rand School experience allowed Goldie to broaden the scope of his teaching by moving beyond anthropology to other social sciences. It was also here, I believe, that he sought to establish intellectual connections between these different disciplines—­something he was not allowed to do at Columbia. As Goldenweiser told Kroeber, he enjoyed teaching at the Rand School. As he put it, “I have just finished my twelve lecture course at the Rand school, which, I must say, was in all ways the most satisfactory lecturing experience I ever had. The attendance throughout wavered between 120 and 150, and the discussions were decidedly interesting and brought more than usual evidence of attention and mental acumen on the part of the group. I enjoyed it hugely, even though the experience tore my voice to shreds” (Goldenweiser to Kroeber, May 31, 1917, alkp). It should be mentioned that the Rand School and its staff did experience problems due to their leftist political orientation. In the initial months after America’s entry into the world war, its administrators, teachers, and students came under surveillance by the government’s secret service agents. Angered by newspaper accounts of the Rand faculty’s and administration’s opposition to President Wilson’s war plans, off-­duty military men joined with civilians on the night of November 25, 1917, and rampaged through the school’s building, destroying property and records. Several similar mob actions followed. A number of the school’s instructors were taken to court for publishing anti-­war pamphlets, and as a result, the American Socialist Society had to pay hefty fines (Recchiuti 1995, 157). At the same, the school’s leadership issued a strong public defense of its right to continue teaching. As Recchiuti Early Scholarship | 63

points out, “Though the dream of creating a socialist commonwealth (and gaining control of the state) was not realized, the directors of the Rand School persevered in the view that socialism was the legacy of the social sciences. They believed in revolution through education, and in technocratic control of the educational process” (159). Goldenweiser also espoused such views as witnessed by his writing throughout his entire life. While we do not know exactly how much of that socialist ideology was shared by Goldenweiser, it does seem reasonable to assume that the experience of teaching at the Rand School and interacting with its administrators, teachers, and students did move his general progressive-­liberal political orientation further to the left. When his Columbia employment came to an end, he at least had his Rand School students to share with his social science theorizing and his understanding of the human society. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Goldenweiser also produced a number of significant academic papers.

Major Scholarly Work Goldenweiser’s most important paper published in the 1910s was “The Principle of Limited Possibilities in the Development of Culture” (1913b). Its main argument was first presented at the Pearson Circle in New York in 1910 and later developed in the course of conversations with Boas, Radin, and Lowie. In this paper he was concerned with “genuine convergence,” by which he meant an appearance and development of psychologically similar cultural traits from dissimilar or less similar sources in unconnected cultural complexes. This concept, borrowed from biology, “posed a crucial problem to the emerging debate between deterministic social evolutionism and deterministic diffusionism” (Leaf 1979, 168). Here Goldenweiser argued that institutions and objects with a limited number of forms were almost certainly contrived independently by societies located at a great distance from each other. A nautical oar would be a good example of such a limited possibility, since there are only several versions of it in existence in cultures throughout the world. Goldenweiser also argued that when cultures met, there was no automatic assimilation of ideas and practices from one to another, and whether or not any new items would be incorporated depended on the receptivity of the society, which in turn depended on several psychological and 64 | Early Scholarship

social factors. Many areas of the social sciences have found his principle valuable. This idea helps explain those cases in which convergence provides a much better solution than diffusion (see also Harris and Morren 1966). This concept also helped to illuminate what has been referred to as “independent invention,” and as Dobbin (1986, 13) notes, “It dealt with issues of a more psychological nature than had been previously seen in the independent invention versus diffusion debate.” Several of Goldenweiser’s works of this period, including reviews of other anthropologists’ publications, dealt with “primitive mentality” and “primitive religion.” In his detailed and thoughtful review of Lucien Lévi-­ Bruhl’s 1910 Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures, while giving the French scholar credit for his anti-­evolutionist position and his strong opposition to the Tylorian rationalistic interpretation of beliefs, he focused mainly on Lévi-­Bruhl’s idea that because human mentality is in the main a social or a collective product and since the social environment of the “primitive” differed from that of the “civilized” person, the mentality of the two had to be different. Goldenweiser criticized the author’s idea that for the “savage” all reality is mystical, and hence his mentality, unlike that of the civilized person, is “prelogical.” In Goldenweiser’s view the so-­called primitive peoples were just as capable of practical thinking as the so-­called civilized ones (1911b, 125). In contrast to Lévi-­Bruhl, Goldenweiser argued that “collective representations” had as much influence on our own views of reality as they did on that of the “primitive” person (127). As he put it, “The profoundly socialized character of our mental life is not given due weight” by Lévi-­Bruhl, “nor is the logical element of the savage’s mental make-­up” (128). In the end, according to him, “the psychic unity of mankind extends beyond the domain of psycho-­physical structure, to the fundamental processes of logical thinking” (128). Goldenweiser revisited the question of “primitive mentality” in a brief but suggestive article titled “The Knowledge of Primitive Man” (1915d). In it he criticized most studies of primitive mentality for their almost exclusive attention to those domains of “primitive thinking,” which differed most from the Western one and hence appeared to the Westerners is irrational. In the meantime, “another vast realm of primitive mentality is almost completely neglected, namely the positive knowledge of the savage, the domain of his concrete experience, his familiarEarly Scholarship | 65

ity with beings, things, relations, processes, actions” (241). In his view ethnographic data from around the world clearly demonstrated that such a domain definitely existed. He went on to offer examples of the ingenuity of what today would be called “ethnoscientific” and “ethnomedical” knowledge and practices of the non-­Western peoples, while not denying the fact that some aspects of primitive mentality were spiritually rather than naturally based. He concluded by rejecting the evolutionist arguments about the “intellectual progress from savagery to civilization” being an evolution of mentality itself. Instead, he proposed to view this process as a “continuous accumulation of positive knowledge and a correlated advancement in the degree to which such knowledge determines thought” (244). In his detailed review of Durkheim’s work Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Goldenweiser rejected the French sociologist’s notion that the “savage” lacked the notion of the “supernatural.” As he put it, “Without in the least suspecting the savage of harboring the conception of a natural order, we nevertheless find him discriminating between that which falls within the circle of everyday occurrence and that which is strange, extraordinary, requiring explanation, full of power, mystery” (1915e, 721). In Goldenweiser’s view “the realm of the supernatural, of which Durkheim would deprive the savage, is precisely that domain which harbors infinite potentialities of emotional thrill and religious ecstasy” (721). He also criticized Durkheim for not “giving proper weight to the emotional and individual aspects in religion, the aspect which united religious experiences of all times and places into one psychological continuum” (725). Goldenweiser further criticized the great French scholar for identifying totemism with the most primitive form of religion. Finally, he rejected Durkheim’s “theory of thought,” arguing that it “suffers from an exclusive emphasis on socio-­religious experiences as the source of mental categories, to an all but complete exclusion of the profane experience of the savage and the resulting knowledge of the concrete facts and processes in Nature” (735). At the same time, he did give Durkheim credit for his “psychological interpretation of ritual,” while pointing out that it suffered from being narrowly behavioristic and naturalistic (730). In a 1917 article titled “Religion and Society: A Critique of Émile Durkheim’s Theory of the Origin and Nature of Religion,” Goldenweiser 66 | Early Scholarship

further elaborated his 1915 critique. He was particularly skeptical about Durkheim’s sharp distinction between the experience of the sacred and the profane. In addition he criticized his failure to do justice to the contribution of the individual, and particularly an outstanding or unusual one, to the religious experience of his or her group. In the end, according to Goldie, “Durkheim’s theory of religion does not bear out the expectations aroused by the wisdom, scholarship, and noted brilliance of the author” (1917b, 124). While criticizing the recent works of Western European scholars on “primitive religion,” Goldenweiser offered his own suggestions on how to make sense of this phenomenon. In two articles published in the first decade of the twentieth century, he objected to the tendency by many of his contemporaries to draw a sharp distinction between magic and religion (1915f, 1919). However, his most important contribution to the anthropological study of religion, in my opinion, was the introduction of the notion of “religious thrill,” which he defined as a “heightened emotional tone” of a religious experience, and argued that this “thrill” constituted a central aspect of religion in general (1915f). Thus, Goldenweiser’s writing on the subject clearly points to his growing interest in the emotional and more broadly psychological aspects of human cultural experience. This explains his generally positive review of Wilhelm Wundt’s magnum opus Elemente der Volkerpsychologie. Despite his disagreement with some of Wundt’s interpretations of the development of culture as a whole, he praised him for his argument that the ultimate source of social change had to be unconscious as well as his insistence on the importance of emotion as a source of cultural phenomenon (1914b). In the first decade of the twentieth century, Goldenweiser was also developing a strong interest in the role of the individual in culture. Another important contribution he made to theoretical anthropology during that era was his critique of Kroeber’s theory of culture as “superorganic.” In his 1917 paper Kroeber argued that “anthropology dealt with a level of phenomena not covered by the sciences dedicated to studying organic or inorganic phenomena” (Darnell 1997, 45). Kroeber insisted that culture was not biologically based, which entailed that society did not operate at the level of the individual, despite being a product of human mental activity (Kroeber 1917). Hence the study of the individual was outside the realm of anthropology. Sapir (1917) opposed Kroeber’s Early Scholarship | 67

position for its separation of the autonomous cultural level of analysis from the actions and understandings of individual members of society. Goldenweiser’s brief response to Kroeber appeared alongside Sapir’s in the American Anthropologist. Like Sapir he argued that the particularities of history invalidated Kroeber’s cultural determinism in any particular case. The events of history could not be predicted—­in part because of the role of individual agents in history. “Civilization”—­a term Goldenweiser preferred to “culture”—­was “not only carried but also fed by individuals”; indeed, “the biographical individual” constituted a “historic complex sui generis . . . [and] composed of biological, psychological and civilizational factors” (1917a, 448). In a lengthy letter to Kroeber dated October 17, 1917, Goldenweiser further elaborated the argument presented in his brief published response. His first point was that one could not leave out the individual in interpreting culture. If the individual were a passive carrier of culture, he could be overlooked, for then he would stand to culture in the relation of microcosm to a macrocosm. But such was not the case. The individual, he argued, partakes of culture under three actively restrictive or modifying factors: 1) he participates only in a part of the culture; 2) he imbibes the cultural values with a thoroughness and intensity dependent on his psychic disposition (gifts, inclinations, limitations); and 3) he is unlike any other individual insofar as he reflects culture in the light of the biographical equation—­that is, what he takes of culture and how he takes it, what he gets out of it, depends on his personal history, the order and kinds of experiences he has had. That is what makes him an historical complex sui generis. He simply cannot be left out, for just as he cannot be understood without the culture which he absorbs, so the culture cannot be understood without him, the specific absorber and reflector. Secondly, the individual, as he put it, “reappears as the carrier of accidental happenings.” An event in culture is always in some way bound up with an individual; there “accidental” events are legion, and their consequences are beyond computation. Here, then, the individual is, in a way, an incidental accessory—­it is the accidental event that counts. By “accidental” Goldenweiser meant unforeseeable events, independent of the recipient culture (as in diffusion), and subject to multiform causation. In his words, “Historically speaking it is the event that wins 68 | Early Scholarship

the day and what is of cultural development can be derived (are, in fact, being derived) from the contemplation and analysis of historic processes, but it is a far cry from such principles to a deterministic philosophy of culture” (Goldenweiser to Kroeber, October 17, 1917, alkp). Thirdly, there was what he called the “invention” puzzle. In Goldenweiser’s view, when it came to invention, Kroeber had “misunderstood himself or at least had made his position much weaker than it needed to be.” Citing Kroeber’s statement that “the next step is foreordained by the elapsed stream of civilization,” Goldenweiser argued the following: This is not history, not culture. . . . Now, this is what makes history in its purely temporal aspect of a chain of events (as contrasted with the interpretation of historic situations) so elusive and indeterminate and complex a thing. I do not doubt at all that certain principles horribile dictum!—­[have to do with] psychology. Not pure psychology, to be sure. Of course, the content of inventions is a cultural matter, but the determinateness of succession of inventions is a psychological, nay, in some respects, even logical matter. It could—­speaking hypothetically, be reproduced artificially. Take an inventor, place him in favorable surroundings for experimentation, and he could reinvent the entire series of inventions in any particular domain and level. He could do that because there certainly is a psychological, logical determinateness as to the order of which inventions must proceed (although even here multiple possibilities at many stages preclude perfect determinism). But this is not history, not culture! The history, the culture-­history of a science is oh! so different from the logico-­psychological derivation of its successive theories and generalizations. (Goldenweiser to Kroeber, October 17, 1917, alkp) He concluded his argument by stating that he felt very strongly about this point and was quite sure that Kroeber had gone astray, as far as it was concerned. Nothing seemed more certain to Goldie than that “the relation order of the next invention and of those that follow” was a case of “psychological-­logical determinism,” not of cultural (or historical) determinism. Moreover, according to him, even the psychological-­logical determinism held only for mechanical inventions, for science, for art, Early Scholarship | 69

in its technical aspects, in short wherever the links in the chain of progress were based on knowledge and on thought flowing directly from knowledge. On the other hand, he argued that as far as “the disorderly rising and falling, jerky and capricious ‘advance’ in the domains of religion, art, ethics, . . . social customs (those enfants terribles of ethnology!), we behold the complete breakdown of all deterministic creed, cultural, logical, or psychological” (Goldenweiser to Kroeber, October 17, 1917, alkp). One has to admit that Goldenweiser did not clearly explain the distinction he was drawing between the “culture-­history” constitution of inventions and the “logico-­psychological” determination of invention sequences (Robert Brightman, personal communication, October 13, 2021). Nonetheless he was clearly searching for a new approach to the role of the individual in cultural history, which he shared with Sapir but not with Kroeber, and that became central to much of American anthropology of the 1920s–­40s. As Darnell (1997, 47) points out in her discussion of this debate between Kroeber and Goldenweiser, “The consequence of Goldenweiser’s argument was that the individual had to be inserted into history. This was particularly challenging for the anthropologist, however, because societies without written history did not provide biographical documentation for historical events. Undaunted by the problem of access to individual actions in the societies normally studied by anthropologists, Goldenweiser simply took it for granted that the processes of cultural change through the actions of individuals were the same in an American Indian tribe or a modern nation-­state.” Goldenweiser ended his response to Kroeber by suggesting that the reason anthropologists believed individuals lacked agency was the lack of accounts of individual lives in non-­Western societies. This position makes sense, given Goldenweiser’s lifelong commitment to the rights and autonomy of the individual as well as the fact that he was one of the few anthropologists of his generation to publish an (emotionally charged) obituary of his consultant (see also Brightman 2017). In his book Apologies to Thucydides, Marshall Sahlins cited approvingly Goldenweiser’s emphasis on this “concrete individual of historic society” and suggested that his view was similar to the way Sartre later “insisted on the singular ways that persons live the culture, its ruling forms and mentalities . . . by virtue of filtering of such generals in and through 70 | Early Scholarship

interpersonal relations and particular experiences, especially through family life. Living the culture in a specific way, a person will also uniquely express it, which is as it were a going-­beyond-­it while still being-­in-­it” (Sahlins 2004, 151–­52).28 Sometime in the 1910s, Goldenweiser, like Kroeber and Sapir, developed an interest in psychoanalysis. It appears that during this time he was reading voraciously in the field, which was rapidly gaining adherents among American scholars, including some of the anthropologists (see Hale 1971). This is not surprising, given his interest in the psychological aspects of culture. As Darnell (1990, 137) notes, “The emerging field of psychoanalysis was part of the intellectual milieu of Boasian anthropology.” In a letter to Sapir, Goldenweiser mentioned that he was intrigued by the anthropologists’ resistance to psychoanalysis. In his words, “After we shed our deep-­grained prepossessions, Freud’s position tends to become more and more feasible” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, August 2, 1922, esc). In a letter to Elsie Clews Parsons, Goldenweiser characterized psychoanalysis: “While psychoanalysis is in a measure a science, it is a largely an art, and its adherents derive their conviction and their dogmatism from a little more [than?] science. However, they are a jolly lot and credit must be given them for stirring things up. So, let us be charitable and, if we demolish them let us do it on the instalment plan” (Goldenweiser to Parsons, 1914, ecpp). While Shoora’s critique of Freud’s writing on the subjects dear to anthropologists had to wait until the 1920s (see chapter 3), the fact that he taught a course on psychoanalysis at the Rand School speaks for itself. In the meantime some of his 1910s writing spoke to the importance of taking psychological factors into consideration while analyzing human culture (Goldenweiser 1918b, 1918c). In his long essay “History, Psychology, and Culture,” he divided the analysis that was done in history and the social sciences into eight categories that were based on considerations of what he called “level” (objective versus psychological), “time” (historical or contemporaneous), and “linkage” (deterministic or accidental). Here, as in his other articles, “Goldenweiser sought out the foundations and interrelations of these subjects (history, psychology, and the social sciences), and especially the interrelation of their realms of theory and subject matter, as extricated from the mass of human behavior” (Dobbin 1986, 15–­16). Early Scholarship | 71

While anthropology dominated Goldenweiser’s attention as a scholar, there is evidence that Russian affairs continued to fascinate him. He was clearly very interested in the events taking place in Russia in 1917 and was undoubtedly a supporter of the democratic February Revolution that overthrew the monarchy (see Goldenweiser 1917c). However, judging by his subsequent writing on the 1917 events in his country of birth, the Bolshevik coup and the subsequent suppression of liberties by the Leninist regime gave him pause. The September 1918 issue of the Dial carried a list of books in the social sciences to be published in the fall, which included a work by him titled The Present Situation in Russia and Its Economic and Social Background to be published by Carnegie Institution. In 1917 Goldenweiser was also planning to spend some time at the Library of Congress studying publications on Russian ethnography (Goldenweiser to Kroeber, May 31, 1917, alkp). In a December 19, 1918, letter to Lowie, Sapir mentioned this project: “I am glad to learn Goldie’s book on Russia is getting along well. Is it economic and social or cultural in character?” (Lowie 1965, 32). Unfortunately, none of these plans ever materialized. Goldenweiser’s interest in Russian anthropology also persisted during this time. In the first decade of the twentieth century, he continued translating Russian ethnographic works for Boas. In addition to Jochelson’s writing, he translated Lev Shternberg’s important monograph on Gilyak social organization, which was supposed to be published in Boas’s Jesup Expedition publication series (see Kan 2009). Taken as a whole, the entire corpus of Goldenweiser’s academic publications of the 1910s clearly demonstrates that he was making a name for himself as one of the key members of the Boasian cohort, who was engaging in a critical dialogue with the most senior European and American scholars as well as his peers on a variety of major issues central to anthropology. From kinship and social organization to totemism and the anthropology of religion, “primitive mentality” and the role of the individual in culture, and independent invention versus diffusion, this Russian American scholar did not shy away from expressing his own strong opinions on theoretical questions hotly debated in anthropology on both sides of the Atlantic. He was particularly adamant in his critique of various deterministic theories in anthropology. In the meantime, while making a significant contribution to the ongoing Boasian critique of evolutionist anthropology, he was not afraid to disagree with Boas 72 | Early Scholarship

himself—­for example, on totemism (Goldenweiser 1918a). The latter clearly appreciated Goldie’s contributions, including his strong interest in social science theory. At the same time, Boas seemed to believe that some of the anthropological ideas expressed by his former student might be antagonizing some of his American colleagues. This would explain Boas’s suggestion that, given his theoretical inclinations, Goldenweiser might have enjoyed a better career in Europe than in the United States. While we do not have any clear evidence of Goldie’s outspokenness impeding his career, such a possibility does exist.29

Popular Press, Discussion Groups, and Politics During the first decade of the twentieth century, Goldenweiser also began writing articles and book reviews for the popular liberal press, an activity, which became even more important for him in the 1920s. While earning a little extra money was undoubtedly a factor in his decision to find the time in his busy schedule to write for the likes of the New Republic, such writing also gave him an opportunity to express his political views and apply anthropological wisdom to the burning issues of the day. In an article discussing the behavior of an anti-­Semitic crowd, which hung a life-­size image of the Georgia governor in Atlanta in 1915 for commuting the sentence of Leo Frank (a Jewish man falsely accused of murdering a “Christian” girl) from death to life imprisonment, Goldenweiser compared its conduct to “primitive magic” (1915a). In that article he cited eyewitness accounts of how a dummy of Governor Slanton was strung to a telephone pole in a public square bearing an inscription “John M. Slanton, King of the Jews and Georgia’s Traitor Forever.” Later on the effigy was burned. Goldenweiser went on to reiterate an important notion, which had already been expressed in his academic writing of the 1910s: “Culture is notoriously skin deep. Beneath the thin veneer of civilization lie dormant the ferocious instincts, the crude emotions, the ghost-­haunting thoughts of our human and pre-­human ancestry. Provide a setting, and a gathering of parliamentarians will behave like a gang of streetboys or like a flock of sheep” (226). These serious doubts about the “advanced” nature of Western culture as manifested in the conduct of its ordinary carriers continued to preoccupy Goldie for the rest of his life. He concluded his article with the following thoughtful rhetorical question: “The Atlanta rioters did not believe that the burning Early Scholarship | 73

of the effigy would hurt the Governor. But suppose that through some unfortunate accident Governor Slaton had died on the day of the burning, or on the next day. Would there still be no believers in homeopathic magic among the rioters of Atlanta?” (226). Goldenweiser also used the pages of the New Republic to express his anti-­war sentiment as well as his strong opposition to the calls for restricting immigration (1915b, 1916b). The latter piece contained strong language: “The policy thus outlined [i.e., restriction of immigration] . . . I regard as contrary to all principles of democracy, as vicious in its human implications, as pregnant with infinite possibilities of injustice and reaction. The policy is immoral as well as irrational and seems to me to be another manifestation of the panicky mental attitude which is also responsible for the conjuring up of the spectre of invasion and the correlated preparedness craze” (1916b, 44). In Goldenweiser’s view such policy would lead the United States “towards the goal of a narrow national ideology, fundamentally opposed to the spirit of our past, most unworthy of a democratic commonwealth which may be expected to possess in the future as it possessed in the past the idealism and the courage to throw open its doors to all those whom economic pressure, political or religious persecution, or the spirit of adventure may bring to its hospitable shores” (44). He warned that the policy of restricting immigration and the accompanying anti-­immigrant sentiment would result in the people of United States finding themselves “surrounded by a wall of prejudice, a wall easier to build than to destroy” (44). Another opportunity for Goldenweiser to play the role of a public intellectual was in several discussion groups, in which he participated actively or even presided over in the 1910s. These groups, which included the Liberal Club, the Civic Club, and the Heretics, among several others, usually met once a month for dinner (mainly in Greenwich Village) and intellectual conversation. The list of members of the Heretics, the group founded by Goldenweiser himself, included such prominent liberals, pacifists, and suffragists as Randolph Bourne; anthropologist, sociologist, and early feminist Elsie Clews Parsons (1875–­1941); journalist, editor, and publisher Freda Kirchwey (1893–­1976); and J. Salwyn Schapiro (1879–­1973), a prominent historian at the City College of New York (see Zumwalt 1992, 124–­44; Deacon 1997, 168–­69). These were the people Goldie respected greatly and whose views he seems to have shared. 74 | Early Scholarship

Among them he became particularly close to Elsie Clews Parsons. For her Goldenweiser clearly represented one of the brightest stars in the constellation of Boasian anthropologists, with whom she developed important collegiate relationships and intellectual partnerships during this era. For him Parsons represented a progressive “new woman” whom he admired as a scholar and a public intellectual (see Deacon 1997).

Personal Problems As far as Goldenweiser’s personal life was concerned, the first decade of the new century brought some joys as well as a number of serious frustrations. On the positive side, there was a visit from his parents in 1910, when his father (accompanied by his wife) attended an international penitentiary congress in Washington dc. Lowie’s sister Risa described their joy at having Shoora’s parents visit him: “The Golds are very happy now in the presence of their transatlantic guests. . . . They left for Bradby Beach. Mr. Goldenweiser, senior, is a dignified, white-­ haired, brown-­eyed man. . . . [Mrs. Goldenweiser . . . is a charm?]ing lady, grande dame partly but warmhearted and intelligent as well. Shoora is said to be radiant. The father was out with his two sons, so I did not get to meet him, but we made arrangements for the week after their return” (Risa Lowie to Robert Lowie, September 3, 1910, rhlp). And then there was the birth of his daughter Alice Rosalind in 1914. On the other hand, the 1910s were marked by his brother Emmanuel’s divorcing Goldenweiser’s wife’s sister Sofie. Added to that were perennial financial difficulties the family faced. He summed up the situation in a letter to Sapir: We are in peculiar strained financial conditions just now Mrs. G. having lost her job some 8 weeks ago. My “salaries” have thus risen into sudden prominence. I do not have the money to lay out and would have to borrow it—­which I do not like to do—­unless the check is sent here. . . . Things at home are in a most deplorable condition and we are in a continuous state of emotional instability which is most nerve-­wrecking. On account of a recent turn to the worse in the matrimonial strife of my sister-­in-­law (and a consequent lapse in her physical condition), Mrs. G’s trip, with me, to the field, must be given up. (Goldenweiser to Sapir, May 12, 1912, esc) Early Scholarship | 75

The 1910s were also marked by the death of his father in 1915 (which he blamed on the shock that this great humanist experienced during the brutal world war) as well as the first in a series of major marital discords in the Goldenweiser family as a result of Shoora’s infidelity. Then there was the devastating effect of the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik coup on his family. The tragic events of 1917 in Russia, followed by a bloody civil war (when a dozen governments ruled over Kiev over a period of four years), separated members of the Goldenweiser family and exposed them to terrible privations. Alexei (1890–­1979), the youngest of the Goldenweiser brothers and the only one to follow in their father’s professional footsteps, and his wife, Eugenia (Ginzburg, 1889–­1976), remained in Kiev until 1921, when they had to flee to Poland and then to Berlin (see Alexei Goldenweiser 1922; Budnitskii 2020). The two Goldenweiser sisters, who had spent a considerable amount of time living and studying in Western Europe prior to 1917, ended up along with their mother in Germany, where they were practically penniless. One of the sisters, Nadezhda (Natasha, Nadine, 1881–­1944) was married to Alexander Feldser, a lawyer and a sculptor. The other sister, Elena (Helene), never married and lived with Nadine. Shoora’s January 28, 1918, letter to Elsie Clews Parsons described his relatives’ predicament in detail and asked for help. According to Goldie, it had proved impossible for his youngest brother, who was still in Kiev (a city ravaged by the revolutionary upheaval) at that time, to send their mother any money and it was not clear how long this situation was to continue. In the meantime his mother and his two sisters were in a most dire predicament. Nadine, whose husband was unemployed and who had two daughters, was in an especially difficult financial situation. When an initial request for money had arrived from his relatives in Europe, Goldenweiser was able to send them a few hundred dollars and so did his brother Emmanuel. However, since then, Anna Goldenweiser had stopped working at her shop, which made their family savings “run completely dry.” Goldie’s attempts to arrange a loan with the banks had failed. Consequently, he was forced to ask Parsons for a sum of $500, which he believed would last his European family for five months. The tone of his request was quite apologetic—­it looks like he was quite uncomfortable making such a request but did not have any other choice.30 76 | Early Scholarship

While the first decade of the new century in Goldenweiser’s life was marked by an acquisition of new friends and colleagues, they also witnessed a falling-­out with one of his closest friends and fellow Boasians, Robert Lowie.31 As Lowie wrote in a letter to Leslie White, “An estrangement occurred, though never a rupture of relations. In course of time we became friendly enough once more, but the old cordiality had vanished” (Lowie to White, March 5, 1956, lawp). The only explanation of this estrangement that I could establish is found in Lowie’s unpublished manuscript, a lengthy response to Goldenweiser’s posthumously published article “Recent Trends in American Anthropology,” in which Goldie offered a rather negative evaluation of Lowie’s scholarship (1941; see chapter 5).32 According to Lowie the rupture in their relationship was initiated by Goldenweiser, who accused his friend of committing plagiarism behind his back. This strange charge was based on his claim that Lowie’s 1915 article on Morgan’s evolutionism used Goldenweiser’s own ideas and, in Lowie’s words, “had trespassed on his domain and stolen his thunder” (cited in Kan 2015a, 4). What troubled Lowie most was not the odd accusation itself, but Goldie’s “failure to confront a supposedly intimate friend with his grievance” (17). In addition, as Lowie soon found out, Goldenweiser had been upset about Lowie’s review of his published dissertation on totemism. Even though the review was largely positive, Goldie had been peeved by its title, “A New Conception of Totemism,” interpreting it as Lowie’s claim that it had been he and not Goldenweiser who had produced a new interpretation (Lowie 1911).33 While all of this sounds like a series of misunderstandings, it is quite conceivable that the easily irritable Goldenweiser was actually unhappy with Lowie’s mild criticism of part of his interpretation of totemism and felt the need to publish a rejoinder to the review (Goldenweiser 1911a). Throughout the 1910s the two of them continued to spar over the topic of totemism and exogamy as well as diffusion and convergence, with Goldenweiser issuing bold definitions of these phenomena, and Lowie, the eternal empiricist, retorting with words of caution and skepticism (Lowie 1912; Goldenweiser 1912f, 1913b, 1918a). The general tone of the polemic remained courteous, with Shoora even thanking Lowie for pointing out similarities between totemic groups and religious societies and age groups and for helping clarify his own thinking on convergence (Goldenweiser 1913b, 270; 1918a, 281). However, by the end of the decade, Early Scholarship | 77

their views on totemism had diverged so much that in his 1920 Primitive Society book, Lowie spent as much time summarizing his former friend’s contribution to the subject as critiquing his views (Lowie 1920, 137–­45). He took issue with Goldenweiser’s 1910–­12 definition of totemism as “the tendency of definite social units to become associated with objects and symbols of emotional value,” arguing that it was “insufficient to cover all cases” (Lowie 1920, 142). According to Lowie (1920), while the Winnebago case did fit Goldenweiser’s definition, some of the aboriginal Australian ones did not. In his words, “Why not abandon the vain effort to thrust into one Procrustean bed a system of naming, a system of heraldry, and a system of religious or magical observances? Each of these might with profit be studied separately and where connections occur their rationale must of course be likewise investigated. But the fact that they represent diverse phenomena should not be obscured by the deceptive caption of ‘emotional values’” (143). As for Goldenweiser’s 1918 paper on the same subject, Lowie strongly disagreed with its argument that totemism was after all a specific phenomenon characterized by “the association of the totemic content with a clan (sib) system.” He called this argument “singularly infelicitous and contravening some of the most valuable results of Dr. Goldenweiser’s earlier studies” (144). In his final conclusion, Lowie stated that he was not convinced “that all the acumen and erudition lavished upon the subject” of totemism had established its reality. In his typical cautious fashion, he argued that the problem of totemism resolved itself “into a series of specific problems not related to one another” (145). In return Goldenweiser published a rather critical review of Lowie’s Culture and Ethnology book, which criticized “Dr. Lowie’s one-­sided and somewhat naïve conception of the relations of culture to psychology on the one hand, and to history on the other” (1918d, 837). This break between two close friends must have also had something to do with a major difference between their characters and personalities. Goldenweiser had a high opinion of himself as a scholar and was a bit of a prima donna among Boas’s early protégés. Lowie was somewhat more modest: everyone who knew him emphasized his intellectual honesty and solicitousness (Kan 2019). Moreover, a truly old-­fashioned gentleman, Lowie could not understand or tolerate his friend’s womanizing, carelessness about returning his debts, and other improprieties (see Kan 78 | Early Scholarship

2015a, 6). Lowie must have been particularly sensitive to Goldie’s marital infidelities, because both he and his sister Risa were good friends with Anna Goldenweiser. Goldenweiser, on the other hand, must have considered Lowie, a shy old bachelor (who did not get married until years after moving to California), to be rather dull and straitlaced. Lowie wrote about Goldenweiser to Leslie White sixteen years following his death: .

Apart from these escapades [extramarital affairs], G. failed to return books to the [Columbia] University Library and did not pay his bills at the Faculty Club. At one time he was jailed for non-­support of his wife and child. He established a reputation of complete irresponsibility. Sapir, while in Ottawa, gave him opportunities for fieldwork and would doubtless have continued to befriend him, but warned him against treating the Indians with liquor. G. once fell in the mood of disregard [for] the warning: the consequences was a letter from a Canadian official, which G. showed me, to the effect that if G. reappeared on the Reservation, he would be instantly apprehended. In an earlier period, while supposedly studying in Berlin, G. neglected his lectures, preferring to perfect himself in billiard-­playing under the tutelage of a German champion. These are a few facts explaining why one could not whole-­heartedly recommend G. for one of the few good jobs then available. (Lowie to White, May 3, 1956, lawp) Differences of opinion on World War I must have also contributed to the estrangement. As a Germanophile Lowie resented the pro-­Entente sentiments of most of his fellow anthropologists, including Sapir, and especially Goldenweiser who (not surprisingly), while being against the war in principle, did harbor sympathy for Russia and was definitely anti-­ German. As Goldie wrote to Sapir in the fall of 1914, “Lowie is altogether absorbed in pro-­Germanistic propaganda. We continue to drift apart” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, October 13, 1914, esc).

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1. Announcement of the engagement of Alexander Solomonovich Goldenweiser and Sophia Grigor’evna Munshtein on June 17, 1878, in Ekaterinoslav. Leslie English Family Archive.

2. Alexander Solomonovich Goldenweiser, 1910. Leslie English Family Archive.

3. 13 Reitarskaia St., Kiev. The house where the Goldenweiser family lived for many years. The family occupied the second floor. Courtesy of the author.

4. Alexander Goldenweiser as a student at Kiev’s St. Vladimir University, 1900. Kiev City Archive; copy in the author’s possession.

5. The Goldenweiser siblings. Left to right: Alexander, Nadezhda (or Elena), Emmanuel, Elena (or Nadezhda), Alexei. Kiev, 1904. Leslie English Family Archive.

6. The Goldenweiser family on the beach at Norderney (?) on the Northern Sea, ca. late 1890s. Left to right (first row): Nadezhda, Elena, Emmanuel, Sophia Grigor’evna, Alexei; (second row): Emma and Grigorii Muntshtein (Sophia Gregor’evna’s parents), Alexander, Alexander Solomonovich. Leslie English Family Archive.

7. Alexander Goldenweiser and Anna G. (Hallow) Goldenweiser. Kiev, 1909. Leslie English Family Archive.

8. Alexander Goldenweiser and his daughter Alice Rosalind, ca. 1918. Leslie English Family Archive. 9. Alexander Goldenweiser with fellow students of Franz Boas. New York, ca. 1910. Seated left to right: Joseph (?), Goldenweiser. Standing left to right: Thomas T. Waterman (1885–­1936), Paul Radin (1883–­1959), Robert Lowie (1883–­1957), Wilson D. Wallis (1886–­ 1970), unknown. Leslie English Family Archive.

10. Franz Boas and his graduate students, ca. 1910 (?). (This date was suggested to me by Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt [personal communication, February 3, 2021].) Standing left to right: Fay-­Cooper Cole (1881–­1961), unknown, Lowie, possibly Robert T. Aitken (1890–­1977). Seated left to right: Boas, Goldenweiser. American Philosophical Society Digital Library. apsimg 2458.

11. Alexander Goldenweiser and family. Kiev, 1909. Left to right: Anna (Hallow) Goldenweiser, Alexander Goldenweiser, Sophia Goldenweiser, Alexei Goldenweiser, Alexander Solomonovich Goldenweiser. Leslie English Family Archive.

12. Portrait of Chief John Arthur Gibson (1849–­1912) of Brantford, Ontario. Marius Barbeau, 1912. Canadian Museum of History, 20234.

13. Alexander A. Goldenweiser. Portland (?), 1930s. Leslie English Family Archive.

14. Goldenweiser at suny Buffalo, summer 1936. Leslie English Family Archive.

15. Alexei Goldenweiser, 1930s (?). Leslie English Family Archive.

16. Emmanuel Goldenweiser, 1930s. Ellen Davies Family Archive.

3 The New School, Academic and Popular Writing, and a Devastating Divorce

The 1920s was a unique decade in American history. As Dumenil (1995, 7) points out, the faith in prosperity shaped the politics of the time. The progressive reform era that had preceded World War I gave way in the 1920s to a period of conservatism in which politicians and pundits celebrated Big Business as the savior of American democracy and economy. Simultaneously, the 1920s was the time of the flappers, the speakeasies trafficking in illegal liquor, the sexual revolution, and the so-­called lost generation of American writers, which was disappointed with the fact that the end of the war did not bring world peace or greater social justice and prosperity. That era was also marked by the virulent nativism of the Anglo-­Saxon Protestant elite aimed at immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. The decade was ushered in by the 1919–­20 Red Scare with its Palmer Raids—­a product of Americans’ fears that the Bolshevik coup in Russia might spread to the United States. This fear combined with a wave of strikes, remaining wartime nationalism, and a long-­time hostility to immigrants resulted in widespread hysteria aimed at radicals and dissenters (Dumenil 1995, 9). Of course, widespread conservatism does not adequately describe the political climate of the 1920s. During that decade reform efforts did persist. Reformers of that era clustered in a variety of organizations as well as such liberal journals as the New Republic and the Nation. Most of these advocates for social justice supported moderate, piecemeal reforms aimed at greater control by the federal government over the capitalist economy. As Pells (1973, 21) puts it, “The New Republic, as the representative voice of many liberal intellectuals, was trying desperately to keep its 81

feet in both capitalist and the socialist camps, though committing itself firmly to neither.” John Dewey, Franz Boas, and other leading politically active intellectuals of the 1920s envisioned that America would liberate the individual from the tyranny of tradition, competition, competition, waste, and selfishness (Kutulas 1995, 21). If liberal reformers of the era tended to operate on the periphery, radicals were even more isolated and marginalized. Severe repression during the war and the Red Scare seriously weakened many leftist organizations, especially the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World. The Communist Party (cp usa), which emerged in 1919 out of left-­wing socialist circles, remained quite small throughout most of that decade. The Soviet-­controlled Communist International (Comintern) directed the American Communists to concentrate on mobilizing the working class via organizations already tied to the cp usa and not to try to draw fellow travelers or intellectuals in. Socialists were labeled “social fascists” and viciously attacked by the Communists. Nonetheless, the magazine the New Masses (the heir to the Masses) launched in 1926 did serve as the major radical voice, constituting an important venture for such important leftist writers such as Michael Gold and Max Eastman. At the same time, persistent conflicts between the Socialists and the Communists weakened the radicals. Moreover, in the late 1920s, the Communists were split between the pro-­Moscow, pro-­Stalin faction and the supporters of Leon Trotsky. As far as the Progressive coalition, in the 1920s it was badly splintered. As Pells (1973, 12) observes, “Though it managed to come together briefly in 1924 under the banner of Robert La Folette, the entire Presidential campaign exuded the feeling of a last fling, a one-­shot performance that could not survive the defeat and death of its most charismatic star. Throughout the decade, Progressivism existed more as a cluster of ideas and unrelated programs than as a serious political movement on a national scale.” Despite all of these divisions, several political causes did bring Communist and non-­Communist intellectuals together in the 1920s. The most important was the case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vancetti. The two groups joined ranks in their defense. As far as Goldenweiser’s own political orientation in the 1920s, it appears that, while he continued to espouse the liberalism of the previous, progressive era, he also moved more to the left, identifying on a 82 | The New School

number of issues with the Socialists without ever joining any of their parties or groups. He also continued to advocate for what I have characterized earlier as a mixture of strong individualism combined with Tolstovian and anarchist views. As an individualist and an anarchist, he retained serious reservations about Marxism, as espoused by the Socialists and especially the Communists. Moreover, his knowledge of the true situation in Bolshevik-­ruled Soviet Union, obtained from family members and friends as well as via extensive reading, prevented him from joining a large group of American liberals and leftists who expressed enthusiasm for the Soviet economic and sociopolitical system and even saw it as a model for United States. One indicator of where Goldenweiser stood politically during this era is his close relationship with V. F. Calverton (1900–­1940), an American radical who modified his Marxism with Freudianism and remained staunchly anti-­Soviet throughout the 1920s–­30s (Wilcox 1992). Calverton’s eclectic political philosophy was exemplified by his magazine, the Modern Monthly (eventually replaced by the Modern Quarterly), which would publish authors with very divergent views. As Pells (cited in Wilcox 1992, 14) opines, “Calverton demonstrated a remarkable capacity for absorbing diverse and contradictory ideas. He operated his journal as a clearinghouse for whatever seemed to him ‘modern’ in the world of culture and politics, psychology and socialism, sex and revolution.” Although its most frequent contributors by the end of the decade were confirmed Marxists like Max Eastman and Sidney Hook, the Modern Monthly (Quarterly) attracted intellectuals from both the liberal and radical camps. This ideological eclectism was also true of Goldenweiser, who, throughout the 1920s, contributed to both the liberal and the more radical periodicals. Another indicator of Goldenweiser’s political stance during this era is his participation in the conference “The Socialism of Our Times,” organized in 1928 by the League for Industrial Democracy (the successor to the Intercollegiate Socialist Society) under the leadership of such centrist socialists as Norman Thomas and Harry W. Laidler and held at the Socialist-­run Camp Tamiment (Laidler and Thomas 1929). The conference featured a variety of presenters, including prominent socialist politicians and intellectuals from Europe and the United States, as well as scholars sympathetic to socialism. One of the key arguments The New School | 83

made by many of the speakers was their support for a peaceful, legal, and democratic—­rather than violent—­struggle for a socialist transformation in the United States. Differences of opinion with the Communists on many of the key political issues of the days were also frequently mentioned. Most of the speakers, with just a couple of exceptions, also agreed that the political system established by the Bolsheviks in Russia after taking over the country in 1917 was not a truly socialist system ruled by the working people. Instead, they characterized it as “an autocratic rule” by the Bolshevik (Communist) Party, which used political repression to maintain its control over the population (Hillquit 1929). As Harold J. Laski (1893–­1950), a prominent British Labor politician and political scientist, writes, “The experience of Russia has only reinforced this truth—­that a dictatorship, whether or not it be proletarian, is in simple fact the exchange of one tyranny for another” (1929, 101). Goldenweiser fully agreed with this viewpoint. Particularly concerned about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia, which he characterized as an “intellectual proletariat” and viewed as the leading force in the Russian Revolution, he stated: “The recent events in Russia have given us a very sad and, in many ways, tragic example of the fate of the intellectual proletariat at the hands of a revolutionary working proletariat. What happened there was . . . that the revolution once successful rode rough-­shod over the flower of the Russian intelligentsia and wiped them out or very nearly so. And when the revolution realized soon after that it needed them, there were relatively few left to call upon” (Laidler and Thomas 1929, 155). As an heir to the ideology of the Russian revolutionary Populists (Narodniki), Goldenweiser viewed the “intellectual proletariat” as the group that “engineered, organized, and headed” all past revolutions (Laidler and Thomas 1929, 155). In the American context, his favorite example of a member of this group was Randolph Bourne, whom he described as “that remarkable intellectual worker, that outstanding spiritual force, a sort of prophet of the American intelligentsia” (156). The intellectual proletariat, according to Goldie, included professional academicians as well as artists and members of the creative professions. In his view this intellectual proletariat belonged “in the same boat with the proletariat,” and for that reason, he argued, it was “dangerous for either to rock that boat. For what, under such conditions, would happen 84 | The New School

to one would befall the other too. In order the avoid the tragic mistakes of the Russian revolution, they should stand together, the intellectual worker and the manual worker” (156). His conclusion of the discussion of this subject was clear: “What happened in the Russian revolution should not happen again. I think it is up to the socialist movement in America, in cooperation with other radical movements, to see to it that it will not happen again” (156). Another issue that Goldenweiser spoke about at this conference was what he called “the economic factor in society” (1929a). In that discussion, Goldie, a Boasian anthropologist, offered a critique of all forms of economic determinism in the interpretation of history, including Marxism. He characterized the latter as “the ideology of a sick age, an age sick with an overdose of economic determinism” (Laidler and Thomas 1929, 207). To criticize the Marxist theory of history, he also invoked his favorite argument: that it is wrong to view the group and not the individual as the true agent of history and to characterize all spiritual factors as epiphenomenal (207–­8). He ended his discussion by arguing that if the economic factor in society “is reduced to decent proportions and the other impulses of man will once more be permitted to come into their own: the spirit of inquiry, the love of beauty, the urge of human companionship, the glories of free subjective creativeness, the charm of play, the lure of adventure. . . . Such is the stuff that history is made of” (208). This romantic-­sounding statement does not provide a very clear picture of how Goldenweiser envisioned this future just and humane social order, but one could speculate that he had in mind some sort of democratic and anarchic socialist order characterized by full-­ scale individual freedom (see chapter 4). His argument that “man does not live by bread alone” was well received at the conference (217–­18).

The New School Having taught his last Columbia course in the winter of 1919, Goldenweiser was fortunate to find a new home at New York’s recently established New School for Social Research, which opened its doors on February 10, 1919. The New School was founded as an institution of adult education by a group of Columbia faculty headed by two prominent historians, James Harvey Robinson and Charles Beard, Goldie’s senior colleagues at Columbia and the Rand School. They were joined The New School | 85

by such luminaries as economists Thorstein Veblen (1857–­1929), Wesley C. Mitchell (1874–­1948), and Alvin Johnson (1874–­1971); liberal philosopher Horace Kallen (1882–­1974); philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey (1859–­1952); classicist Emily Putnam (1865–­1944); literary critic Henry W. Longfellow Dana; Herbert Croly (1869–­1930), an intellectual leader of the progressive movement, a political philosopher, and a co-­founder of the New Republic. In addition visiting lecturers, such as Harvard’s law professor Roscoe Pound (1870–­1964), historian and sociologist Lewis Mumford (1895–­1990), political theorist and economist Harold Laski (1893–­1950), sociologist Harry Elmer Barnes (1889–­1968), City College philosopher Morris Cohen, and even Boas himself offered occasional courses. The founders of the New School were brought together by their disillusionment with Columbia’s increasing bureaucratic structure dominated by its president and the board of trustees as well as by their association with the liberal New Republic and the Women’s Suffrage Party. In their history of the New School, Rutcoff and Scott (1986, 18) write that the school’s faculty members “never repudiated their democratic cosmopolitanism or their expansive notion of academic freedom. The convictions of the founders endowed the New School with a flexible attitude toward education and research and, as well, a strong sense of the limits of its own toleration: theistic philosophy, racist social theory, and antidemocratic political thought were strictly excluded. With room for virtually everyone, except the advocates of what they considered regression, the founders of the New School were above all committed to human progress as they understood it.” Although these founders were establishing a “school,” they saw research as being superior to teaching and “understood adult education as something comparable to apprenticeship, in which a student would learn from a senior scholar much as a young person might learn from a master artisan” (20). Such an arrangement, in their view, would be conducive to a friendly, informal relationship between faculty and students, absent from the traditional institutions of higher learning. They also embraced Veblen’s idea of the need for the faculty control over institutional policies, something severely lacking at most American universities. Inspired by Dewey’s ideas about the role of education in a democratic society, they also hoped that the education received at the New School would allow its graduates to cast a critical 86 | The New School

eye on American economic and sociopolitical system and work on its improvement (Westbrook 2015). To accommodate its adult students, the school’s classes met once a week for an hour-­and-­a-­half lecture, usually in late afternoon or early evening. It should be mentioned that more women than men enrolled in the New School’s courses, and that Jews (discriminated against by the Ivy League universities) constituted a significant percentage of its students. While the school was established thanks to a generous gift from a wealthy liberal donor, it appears that Goldenweiser’s salary was paid at least in part by the money raised by Boas and his other supporters at Columbia as well as by Elsie Clews Parsons (Deacon 1997, 234). In a letter to Veblen, Boas mentioned that, while a group of Columbia faculty was trying to raise funds to enable Goldenweiser to teach at the new institution, he wanted to receive an assurance from the New School that his protégé would be “welcome there” (Boas to Veblen, May 12, 1919, fbp). At the same time Boas was anxious to avoid making an impression that he was putting pressure at the school, as far as this matter was concerned. Veblen passed Boas’s letter on to Robinson, who responded by stating that the Faculty Committee of the New School for Social Research was “very glad to act favorably on the proposition of some of Mr. Goldenweiser’s friends, and the Committee will be delighted to have him lecture during the coming year, provided that his friends are in a position to furnish the necessary fund” (i.e., $3,000). He promised that given this kind of funding, the school would be able not only to offer him several courses to teach but also enable him to work independently with a few “specially qualified students.” Robinson added that he expected Goldenweiser to appreciate this opportunity “to present the results of his learning and observation to an intelligent group of men and women” (Robinson to Boas, March 22, 1919, fbp). Four days later Boas forwarded Robinson’s letter along with his own to Theresa Meyer, one of Columbia’s graduate students in anthropology, who had advocated on Goldenweiser’s behalf. He wrote: I am exceedingly anxious that some place should be found for Dr. Goldenweiser. He has given the last ten years of his life to research and has made for himself a rather unique position in American anthropology, and it would be a great loss to our science if he were The New School | 87

compelled to give up his scientific work. The particular line of theoretical investigation of the foundations of our science which he is carrying on is of the greatest importance and should have full support. I regret exceedingly that all my endeavors to keep him here [i.e., at Columbia] have been unsuccessful.1 (Boas to Theresa Mayer, March 26, 1919, fbp) Goldenweiser began teaching at the New School as a lecturer in anthropology in the fall semester of 1919, offering a course titled The Groundwork of Civilization. The course description published in the New School’s catalog is worth quoting in its entirety: This course proceeds from the assumption that an insight into civilizations differing widely from our own is essential for an open-­minded approach to the problem of modern society. Starting with an analysis of the aims and scope of anthropology and of its relations to other social sciences, the discussion will turn to the fundamental concepts of primitive men, race, heredity, environment and culture. This will be followed by a survey of the principal forms of early industries, economic pursuits and ideas, social and political structures, law, ethics, and religion. The concrete data thus brought to light will next be re-­examined from the evolutionary standpoint in the attempt to show the more conspicuous transformations undergone by the economic, social, legal, moral and religious institutions. The final discussions will introduce a comparison of modern and early civilizations, with suggestions as to the application of the results thus secured to an analysis of the cultural and social problems of the present day. The outlook for the future will be the final topic. (nsa) It is important to note that Goldenweiser was presenting anthropology as a discipline, which not only explained the cultures (he called them “civilizations”) of the non-­Western people but also could help make sense of the present-­day and the future lives of his students and the society they were living in. In the academic year 1920–­21, Goldenweiser’s teaching load increased; he now offered four courses: the introductory

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Groundwork of Civilization plus Theories of Society, Early Society and Politics, and Early Economics and Industry. The Theories of Society course gave Goldie an opportunity to demonstrate his great interest in and solid grounding in social science theory. It included a discussion of such key scholars as Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Wilhelm Wundt, and Emile Durkheim and concluded with an examination of the Boasian “historical approach.” Goldenweiser’s 1921–­22 offerings reflected his new research interests: Race and Race Problems and The Diffusion of Civilization. Race became the subject of all three of the courses taught by him in 1923–­24, with Theories of Race being offered in the fall, Race and Culture in the winter, and Race and Politics in the spring. In a letter to Boas, Goldenweiser wrote: “I am much interested in any material available on Negroes, especially from the psychological standpoint. I need these data in connection with my course on Races” (Goldenweiser to Boas, November 16, 1921, fbp). Noteworthy is the attention paid in the fall course to racist theories, including those of Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–­1927) and Madison Grant (1865–­1937). The winter course dealt with such controversial issues as immigration, race mixture, and eugenics. From the point of view of the major issues of the day, the Race and Politics course seemed particularly interesting. Its description read: The Great War has brought in its wake the precipitation of racial and national ambitions. The recasting of the political map of Europe, the repartition of the colonial domains of Africa, the post-­war aspects of immigration, are only some of the factors in the racio-­political issues of the day. While the problems of race and politics allow, at least theoretically, of a rational approach, their successful solution is checked at every turn by deep-­rooted emotional bias and traditional preconceptions. To lay these bare and thus to facilitate an open-­minded consideration of the problems of race and politics in the modern world, is the aim of these lectures. The plan of the course includes such topics as British imperialism in India, the colonial empires of Africa, the Asiatic problem in the United States, the negro in America, the theory and practice of Americanization. The selection and emphasis of particular subjects will in part depend upon the interests of the students.

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This is an advanced course in which the students are expected to carry on independent investigations under the guidance of the instructor. (nsa) The following year Goldenweiser returned to the issue of race by offering a course that focused exclusively on The Racial Groups in the Greater New York. As the catalog described, “The aim of this course is to exploit the unrivalled opportunities for the study of cultural contacts presented by the many immigrant groups resident in New York and vicinity.” The course was designed as an upper-­level seminar “consisting of field investigations by the students and classroom reports and discussions” (nsa). It is my impression that Goldenweiser was a true pioneer as far as teaching social science courses on race and colonialism. It is very doubtful that he would have had an opportunity to address these issues in such detail in his Columbia courses. While Boas also dealt with race and specifically with the cultural accomplishments of African peoples as well as African Americans in the United States, his proposals to adopt a “Black studies” curriculum at Columbia, which would enlighten its students about these cultures, did not materialize (Hyatt 1990, 96). Equally innovative was Goldie’s introduction of field research in New York City into some of his courses. This addition of concrete anthropological and sociological investigations carried out outside the classroom with a solid grounding in social science theory was the hallmark of the New School’s teaching philosophy, and Goldie exemplified it perfectly. In this respect he was a true pioneer, practicing a type of teaching that Columbia’s anthropology department did not offer at the time. As he continued teaching at the New School throughout the first half of the 1920s, Goldenweiser decided to offer courses dealing with the ethnography of specific regions and cultures of the world in addition to ethnology courses on material culture and art, religion, and social and political organization. As he indicated in a 1924 letter to Boas, his plan was to offer separate courses on America and Siberia, Africa, and Australia and the South Seas. However, as he put it, “the whole matter is conditional on the possibility of making some sort of arrangements by which Columbia students might be induced to take these courses” and obtain credit for them. He mentioned that the reason for wanting

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to teach such courses had to do with the fact that they were not being offered in New York, as well as Goldenweiser’s “feeling of growing stale in the subject to which I had devoted so many years and which remains, after all, the field of my major interest and competence” (Goldenweiser to Boas, February 11, 1924, fbp). Boas’s response poured cold water on this proposal: as he pointed out, the Columbia administration was not going to allow tuition to be paid to the New School for courses Columbia students would be taking. At the same time, Boas pointed out that he personally had always given credit to his students for courses taken with Goldenweiser at the New School, accepting them as equivalent to his own Columbia courses. He had also repeatedly invited Goldenweiser to attend the doctoral students’ examinations at Columbia (Boas to Goldenweiser, February 11, 1924, aps). The 1925–­26 New School catalog featured two new courses by Goldenweiser in addition to the one on race. One of them was called New-­Evolutionism: A Theory of Social Change, while the other was a seminar titled Journal Club in Social Sciences and was supposed to involve “reports and informal discussions of books and articles bearing on problems in social science” as well as “an attempt to lay bare the ways in which ideas are turned into books and to develop a technique of criticism” (nsa). While Goldenweiser clearly enjoyed teaching at the New School, his contract was not renewed in 1926 (for reasons discussed later in this chapter). In fact in the 1926–­27 academic year the course on race was taught by Boas instead. At the New School, Goldenweiser, aided by his friend and fellow anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons, was able to attract to his discipline and train a number of major figures in American anthropology. These included Alexander Lesser (1902–­82), Leslie White (1900–­1975), Melville Herskovits (1895–­1963) and his wife Frances (Shapiro) Herskovits (1897–­ 1972), Melville Jacobs (1902–­71), Gene Weltfish (1902–­80), and Abram Kardiner (1891–­1981), a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who wrote on anthropological subjects. While Irving Hallowell did not study with Goldenweiser at the New School, he did attend his lectures at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work and, from them, learned about psychoanalysis (Wallace 1980, 197). Goldenweiser was also responsible for encouraging Ruth Landes to study anthropology; he happened to be an old friend of her father, a labor organizer (Cole 2003, 43). Some

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of these people studied closely with Goldenweiser and then went on to do a PhD with Boas at Columbia, while others only took a course or two with him, simultaneously doing graduate work with Boas. His most dedicated student, as well as someone he had influenced most, was undoubtedly Ruth Benedict (1887–­1948). She began her New School education in 1919 and in 1920–­21 took four courses with Goldenweiser. In 1921, upon his encouragement, she went on to Columbia to work on her PhD under Boas. In her book Anthropologist at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead (1901–­78) described Goldie’s effect on Benedict and his other students: “In his lectures the bold strokes, the vivid partial characterizations with which he sketched in ‘the red paint culture of Melanesia’ or described the rise and fall of Gothic architecture in Europe, the magnificent flare that outshone the lack of detailed information caught the imagination of students, whom he treated as potential captives of his charm” (1959, 8). Benedict herself wrote of her discovery of Goldenweiser and of anthropology at the New School: I went to see Dr. Goldenweiser about taking a course with him during the first year at the New School for Social research. I was an unemployed wife with no knowledge of anthropology, and he took me on as a neophyte. The lectures were only a small part of his help; he suggested books and articles and talked them over with me afterward; he suggested topics to investigate, and gave me criticism. After a year of this work, he sent me to Dr. Boas and Dr. Lowie and suggested that I work with them also. Even after I had finished my graduate work at Columbia University, he was generous with suggestions from his great store of bibliographical knowledge. (Benedict 1940a, 32) She went on to praise him as a New School teacher and mentor in her eloquent style: Only those who are yet untried and are looking for guidance in some proliferate field of knowledge can appreciate what a godsend Dr. Goldenweiser was as a teacher, both to me and to many others like me. He did not stint time nor patience, and he never held a pupil back from any reading or research which might possibly be of some 92 | The New School

profit. He liked neophytes. Many of them were busy people who could not take time for much reading, and for them he had extra-­ curricular discussion groups and informal seminars on current literature in the social sciences. Many of them were people with training in special fields and to them he talked constantly of closer rapprochement among the different disciplines, and, more effectively still, exemplified such rapprochement in his own learning and discourse. All over the country men and woman came under his influence in one or other of these ways and remember his words of wisdom. In later years, on those rare occasions when he was in the East, my pupils went to him, and I recognized, in their appreciation of his interests, the same experience which years before I had been lucky enough to have in the old building on 23rd St. With Dr. Goldenweiser’s death a rare teacher has been lost. Those of us to whom he gave so lavishly of his knowledge feel a special loss, for such teachers are not easy to find.2 (32–­33) Judging by Benedict’s diary, she continued to attend Goldenweiser’s lectures while studying at Columbia. Her March 7, 1923, entry reads: “After A. A. G’s class—­Totemism, Heaven defend us—­went down to lunch with him. Cut Barnard class for the purpose. A pleasant time; he’s easy to please” (Mead 1959, 67). Benedict was so fond of Goldie that she forgave him his flirting and showing her a desk drawer full of love letters from women (Banner 2003, 199). What she could not forgive was a dull lecture. In her diary on January 24, 1923, she wrote: “2 p.m. Goldenweiser—­on the Egyptian mummy and crumbling of primitive civilization. Bored!! How could he!” (61–­62). Goldenweiser was the one who suggested the Native American vision quest as a topic of Benedict’s PhD thesis, while his notion of “religious thrill” had a profound influence on her own views on religion, particularly early in her career (Young 2005, 258, 337). Even her concept of “cultural patterns” must have been influenced by her mentor, who first used it in his 1912 article on the origin of totemism (Goldenweiser 1912f). In it Goldenweiser explained his “pattern theory of the origin of totemism”: “The central point of the above theory of the origin of totemism lies in the conception that the building up of a totemic complex consists of a series of totemic features which appear one by one (or possibly in The New School | 93

small groups), spread from clan to clan, become socialized in the clans and absorbed in the complex. Each new feature, on its appearance in a clan, becomes a pattern presently followed by other clans until the wave of diffusion has swept over them all” (606). In 1927, seven years before Benedict’s Patterns of Culture was published, Goldenweiser wrote: “Unless we are badly misguided, a concept of the general type of pattern or Gestalt may yet come to mark an epochal advance in our conceptual explorations” (1927a, 85). As Briscoe (1979, 452) suggests, “Goldenweiser was throughout his life much involved with psychological and psychoanalytic questions relevant to the study of culture, and he must thus be credited with giving Benedict an early awareness of the possibility of psychological patterning at the base of culture.” As for Mead, while she did not take any courses with Goldenweiser, she did attend some of his lectures and discussed her doctoral dissertation with him (Mead 1959, 287). He also gave an informal seminar in anthropology at her apartment in 1924 (Mead 1940, 33). In her obituary of Goldenweiser, Mead gave this thoughtful characterization of him as scholar and teacher: Goldenweiser matured just a few years too early. I remember an anthropologist saying of him in the middle 1920s, “Goldenweiser is finding the place where he belongs, on the borderline between anthropology and other disciplines.” That borderline, which was soon to be dignified by the Social Science Building in Chicago and the development of the Institute of Human Relations at Yale, was not a respectable place to dwell in 1922. American anthropology was still committed to the task of collecting concrete data on primitive society as rapidly as possible, with a bias in favor of minimum theorizing until the work was done. . . . The data with which he [Goldenweiser] wished to deal was the record of other people’s intellectual adventures. He wished to trace the way in which Rivers or Wissler had arrived at their present position, to show how Spencer’s interest had been perpetuated in the collection of ethnographic data as well as pseudo-­biological theories of culture. It was from him that I learned that the history of the way people had thought about a problem mattered, mattered above and beyond whether what they thought was thrown out of court by later evidence. He 94 | The New School

delighted in tracing the growth of a bias in some individual social scientist’s work, a tiny enough bias at first which would in the end skew all his findings in a special direction. This is a lesson which one often learns very late in life, and it is not synonymous with the knowledge of the history of a subject. (33–­34) Mead went on to say that because Goldenweiser had been trained as an anthropologist, he was particularly fitted to examine the thought of social scientists in the same tone of voice as he examined totem poles, or Melanesian art, or the patterns of Gothic cathedrals. In her words: His analysis poured from his lips with a kind of indiscriminate brilliancy, a brilliancy that embraced while it disregarded, the particular subject upon which he happened—­for it always seemed a matter of chance—­to be lecturing. It has been said that one of the contributions which social anthropology has made to modern thinking is to teach students to regard social data, no matter of what apparent triviality, nor from how simple a tribe, with equal seriousness, and in the same tone of voice. This Goldenweiser did and the circumstance that the tone of voice was uniformly full of rich overtones, only made it the easier, and pleasanter, to learn what he taught. (34) In addition to teaching at the New School, throughout the 1920s, Goldenweiser continued to offer courses at the Rand School. The need to earn additional money even forced him to teach during the summer: first at the University of Washington in 1923, and then at the University of Oregon in 1925. Moreover, he even gave weekly lectures on anthropology to twelve-­and thirteen-­year-­olds at the Walden School. Established in 1922 in New York City on the basis of the Children’s School, the Walden School combined Montessori-­style education with Jungian psychoanalysis and creative expression. Goldenweiser’s collection of essays contains a stenographic account of a class he taught at that school (1933, 439–­48).

Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences One of Goldenweiser’s major projects of the 1920s, which grew out of his involvement with the New School, was the Encyclopedia of the Social The New School | 95

Sciences. The initial idea came from him: in 1923 he organized a conference at the New School followed by a series of meetings that petitioned the American Sociological Society to sponsor such an encyclopedia. According to Rutcoff and Scott (1986, 67), “Goldenweiser conceived of the encyclopedia as a logical extension of the New School’s effort to integrate the social science disciplines and foster social change. Goldenweiser enlisted the support of six learned societies, which together set up a committee to explore the feasibility of an interdisciplinary encyclopedia.” In the words of Alvin Johnson, the head of the New School since 1923, who became the encyclopedia’s second in command, it was Goldenweiser who recruited a prominent Columbia economist, Edwin R. A. Seligman (1861–­1939), to serve as its chief editor (1960, 306). In a letter to Leslie White, Alvin Johnson indicated that Goldenweiser had originally hoped to be the encyclopedia’s chief editor, but had to settle for Seligman in that role. Seligman told Johnson: “But Alvin . . . there is a delicate problem. Goldenweiser expects to be editor. But the Foundations say, never on your life. Not one cent for a Goldenweiser encyclopedia. We are counting on you, E. R. A. Seligman, to be Editor” (Johnson to White, August 11, 1955, lawp). In 1926 the Social Science Research Council lent its support to the project and in 1927 chose Seligman as the chief editor. Seligman was able to secure financial support from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller and the Russell Sage foundations and also negotiate a contract with the Macmillan Company to publish the encyclopedia. In 1927 he traveled to Europe, where he obtained support for the project from European scholars (Rutcoff and Scott 1986, 67). Goldenweiser seems to have expected to serve as the encyclopedia’s associate editor; in fact an announcement in the May 1928 edition of the American Political Science Review listed him as such, with Alvin Johnson as the assistant editor. According to Johnson (1960, 306–­7), Goldenweiser envisioned its articles as lengthy and comprehensive in the style of the mid-­nineteenth-­century Encyclopedia Metropolitana. Thus, he wanted to write a 300-­page article on anthropology and for Seligman to write a 400-­page article on public finance and Alvin Johnson a 250-­page entry on the history of economic theory. Such articles, in his view, could be sold separately. Johnson was opposed to such a plan and tried to convince Seligman that shorter articles would work better. As Johnson noted, Seligman thought that there was something to be said on both 96 | The New School

sides. Johnson had assumed that Seligman would make Goldenweiser his second in command but did not consider that choice to be a good one. As he reminisced some thirty years later, Goldenweiser was a man of immense scholarly reach, but he was extremely idiosyncratic. He could see his own position clearly, but he refused to see at all clearly the position of men in other scientific camps. As I conceived it, the position of editor is that of servant to his constituents, not their master. Goldenweiser would have gone to any lengths to enforce his own views. But I kept my opinion of Goldenweiser to myself. After all, it was he who had made the initiative that had led to the launching of the encyclopedia. (308) Johnson said that Seligman told him that, whatever his merit as the associate editor, Goldenweiser was out of the question. The profession regarded him as too erratic. Seligman tried to get an economist Allyn A. Young (1876–­1929) as his associate, but Young had no stomach for the job. Finally, he asked Johnson himself to join him (1960, 308).3 The problem with Goldenweiser at that time was the fact that he had already made a commitment to write several books. In addition, in 1926–­27 he was going through a very tumultuous divorce (see below). It appears that Boas, who was well aware of these issues, was trying to help him. He wrote to Goldenweiser: Since I wrote to you last I had a conversation with Seligman. He says that the plan for the encyclopedia of social sciences is going through and that in the fall he will need help and that he would be glad to give you the opportunity to work on this material, provided he can actually rely upon your cooperation. He asked my opinion and I told him that you have several contracts for books outstanding, but that you have not delivered the manuscripts as stipulated. It is, therefore, the question whether you can make up your mind to settle down and do the work that may be required. I do not feel that any one of us should take the guarantee that you will do it, after all that has happened during the last years. It will be up to you to settle down and do what is required. (Boas to Goldenweiser, May 27, 1926, fbp) The New School | 97

It would seem that Boas’s position further discouraged Seligman from hiring Goldenweiser, who must have been very disappointed about Seligman’s choice. As he wrote to Boas in March 1927, “My heart is in this Enc. task; I have conceived it and nursed it during its babyhood and want to see it carried to completion” (Goldenweiser to Boas, March 15, 1927, fbp). Nonetheless, his vision for the encyclopedia remained influential, and he did take an active part in soliciting entries and creating a template for many of them as well as contributing a number of his own, ranging from such topics as “marriage” to an entry on his own father (1931a, 693–­94). Goldenweiser’s key role in developing a model for the encyclopedia is illustrated by Alvin Johnson’s 1928 letter to Boas, in which he asked him to contribute an entry on anthropology “following an outline prepared by Goldenweiser” (Johnson to Boas, June 19, 1928, fbp; see also Boas to Johnson, October 19, 1928, fbp). In the late 1920s, the work on the encyclopedia became especially important for Goldenweiser, since he was no longer employed by the New School. That work continued into the early 1930s, though it was less intense than it had been in 1927–­28 (see chapter 4).4 Goldenweiser’s controversial habits and lifestyle did not change in the 1920s compared to the previous decades. He remained the same charming and cultured conversationist who could be remarkably selfish and even devious. According to one story told to Fenton by the Herskovitzes, one time after his lecture at the New School, Goldie invited a group of his students to dinner at a fairly expensive restaurant in Greenwich Village. After dinner, which he very much enjoyed, when the waiter presented the bill, Goldenweiser asserted that he had no money and left the students to pay his share as well as theirs (Fenton n.d., 4–­5, wnfp). Fenton himself experienced Goldie’s “unorthodox” habits, as described in the following episode, shared with Rob Moore in the 1980s and later related by Moore to Robert Brightman. It took place at an annual meeting of the aaa in Philadelphia (precise location and date uncertain). Standing in the back of the room, Goldenweiser mentioned to Fenton that he was bored by the meeting and asked if he knew a place nearby where a gentleman might enjoy a cigar and a game of billiards. Fenton gave him the address of a club he belonged to and told him to use his name. Days or weeks later, Fenton received a bill from that club, including charges for 98 | The New School

many games of pool, cigars, and whiskeys (Robert Brightman, personal communication, February 20, 2021).

Scholarship in the 1920s Compared to the previous decade, Goldenweiser’s scholarly output was less impressive. Even though he continued publishing a significant number of articles and book chapters, much of that writing represented surveys of existing theories rather than original thinking. Writing a textbook and doing editorial work occupied much of his time in addition to teaching. Moreover, starting in the mid-­1920s, his personal life was in state of constant turmoil and thus did not lend itself to productive writing. In his obituary of Goldenweiser, philosopher Sidney Hook (1902–­89) noted this change. He compared Goldie’s 1910s publications, which he had found extremely thought-­provoking, to those of the 1920s, which he viewed as less inspiring. As he put it: I made the acquaintance of Alexander Goldenweiser ten years before I met him in the flesh. . . . The more I read of Goldenweiser’s previously published work, the more I admired the acuity of his perceptions, the imaginative sweep of his ideas and the catholicity of his interests. To my surprise I found that his writings subsequent to my discovery of him in 1922 seemed to be of an entirely different order. He still was interesting but intellectually too kind to the commonplace, sloppy thinking, blind and pedantic minutia or pigmy writers in sociology and anthropology. (1940, 31–­32) Of all of the academic papers published by Goldenweiser in the 1920s, “Diffusion and the American School of Historical Ethnology” is probably the most important (1925c). The author began by asserting that the absolute majority of contemporary anthropologists no longer subscribe to evolutionist theorizing. He then added that there now existed a “universal recognition of the ubiquitous character and cultural importance of diffusion.” He also argued that while “the role of emotional and unconscious factors may not be wholly understood, but all accede that most of what we call culture comes from this course” (20). The next step was a brief review of three versions of the diffusionist theory. The first one was that of Fritz Graebner (1877–­1934), a German The New School | 99

ethnologist and geographer. Graebner’s main error, according to Goldenweiser, was his underestimating the difficulty of perceiving and evaluating cultural similarities. In addition, in Goldie’s words, “Graebner was also wrong in treating separate cultural features in mechanical fashion with little concern about their mutual influences and their psychological mutations in time, and in assuming that the adhesions between the features of a culture are fixed and immutable; that they, for example, travel together” (1925c, 23). For these reasons Graebner’s distributional schemes were often highly questionable while his hypothetical culture complexes lacked historic reality (1925c). The next diffusionist to be criticized was W. H. R. Rivers (1864–­1922), who was attacked for using the theory of diffusion as a dogmatic postulate rather than as a heuristic tool. Goldenweiser’s harshest criticism, however, was reserved for two British anthropologists, Grafton Elliott Smith (1871–­1937) and William James Perry (1887–­1949). He characterized their “superdiffusionist” theory of prehistory, which derived much of world culture from ancient Egypt, as a reductio ad absurdum (see Stocking 1995, 208–­20). Goldenweiser (1927b) returned to the theory of diffusion in his brief comment on three longer essays on the subject by G. Elliott Smith, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Herbert J. Spinden (Smith et al. 1927). In it he once again subjected Elliott Smith’s and William Perry’s theory to harsh criticism. At the same time, he disagreed with Malinowski’s complete rejection of a possibility of diffusion. The bulk of Goldenweiser’s 1925 paper on diffusion was devoted to a discussion of the American school of historical ethnology led by Boas. Goldenweiser began by reviewing the major work of the Boasians aimed at demolishing the earlier schemes of the evolution of social organization. Members of this school—­Boas himself as well as Lowie, Clark Wissler (1870–­1947), and Goldenweiser himself—­were credited with the development of the concept of cultural pattern. As far as diffusion itself was concerned, Goldenweiser singled out such works as Lowie’s (1916) on the age societies of the Plains Indians, describing it as “probably the most careful single investigation of diffusion within a limited area and referring to a strictly circumscribed culture complex” (1925c, 30). He also singled out Wissler’s (1910) comparative analysis of Blackfoot culture, Radin’s (1914) study of the peyote cult among the Winnebago, and his own paper on the “The Principle of Limited Possibilities in the Devel100 | The New School

opment of Culture.” He also credited the American school of historical ethnology with introducing the concept of convergence. Mentioned in a positive light was also a series of studies focused on the analysis of what he called specific “historico-­psychological complexes.” Among them was Radin’s study of the Midewiwin (Radin 1911), Benedict’s (1923) work on the guardian-­spirit idea among North American Indians, and Goldenweiser’s own study of totemism. In his words, “What these researches purport to show is the coming together of cultural features of diverse historical provenience, which subsequently become psychologically assimilated into a well-­knit and apparently integral cultural complex” (1925c, 32). In the latter part of the paper, the American concept of the culture area was discussed. Developed by the Boasians, that concept postulated that, within a delimited ecological and geographical zone, cultural traits would be functionally interrelated, and there would be greater resemblance between the cultures constituting a culture area than between these cultures and those outside that area. While crediting Boas himself as well as Wissler with introducing this concept, Goldenweiser pointed out that an objective enumeration of traits went only halfway toward a complete characterization of an area. What remained was the functional aspect of the interpenetration of traits. The different aspects of culture, he argued, formed associations with one another that differ in content and in degree of adhesion in the different areas. Wissler’s (1914) article on the “The Influence of the Horse in the Development of Plains Culture” was singled out as an outstanding example of such an approach. Goldenweiser then argued that the culture area concept was applicable beyond Native North America and cited Herskovitz’s (1924) recent article, which applied it to Africa. In conclusion Goldenweiser characterized the American school of historical ethnology as critical, historical, and psychological. According to him, “It is critical in so far as it rejects the extreme of speculative evolutionism and diffusionism. It is historical in so far as it clings tenaciously to geographico-­historical realities, venturing into historical reconstructions only at the hand of specific proofs, not of speculative probabilities or plausibilities. Finally, it is psychological in so far as it supplements objective description by psychological evaluation, is ever watchful of the processes of interpenetration between cultural features, The New School | 101

and conceives of diffusion not as a mechanical transfer, but as a process psychological in essence” (1925c, 38). Goldenweiser’s other major scholarly work of the 1920s was, in my opinion, his Early Civilization: An Introduction to Anthropology (1922b), the first anthropology textbook to appear in the United States and, according to Mead, “the first book by an American anthropologist which was to present cultures briefly as wholes” (1959, 8). Based on Goldenweiser’s lectures at the New School and dedicated to his father, it was well received by critics (Barnes 1922; Goddard 1923; Parsons 1923). The book’s introduction laid out the author’s basic views on race and culture (“civilization,” in Goldenweiser’s terminology). The work discussed “early civilization” (i.e., non-­Western culture) from the standpoint of Boasian anthropology. Thus, racist theories postulating the superiority of some races over others were rejected out of hand, as were any attempts to correlate race and culture. The superiority of Western culture was also called into question. Part 1 contained five case studies describing various non-­Western cultures: the Eskimos, the Tlingits and Haidas, the Iroquois, the Bagandas of Uganda, and the aboriginal people of Central Australia. In his analysis of these case studies, the author acknowledged the importance of both independent invention and diffusion. One can also detect some influence of the Boasian culture area concept on the author’s interpretation of data. In his words, “The five primitive civilizations bring irrefutable evidence that culture, whether modern or primitive, derives stimulation for growth and development both from within itself and from other cultures with which it comes in contact” (1922b, 117). Part 2 examined various aspects of human culture: from material culture and economy to social and political organization to religion and art. In his reflections on part 2, Goldenweiser rejected environmental determinism, while not denying the fact that the environment does impose some limitations on human material culture and economy but much less on sociopolitical organization and religion. He arrived at the following conclusion in this section of the textbook: The basic formative factors of all civilization are these: creativeness of the individual, which is responsible for the origination of cultural forms; psychological and sociological inertia, which 102 | The New School

determines institutionalism and cultural stability; and the historic relations between human groups, which bring stimuli for change and determine the dissemination and exchange of ideas and commodities. It will be seen that these factors are psychological, sociological, historical, but not physical-­environmental. Adjustment to environment is an important urge, especially in primitive society. But the necessity or desirability of such adjustment nowhere figures as an univocal determinant of cultural form. There is always more than one adjustment possible, and the particular solutions of the problem adopted by a given civilization can never be foreseen or derived from an inspection of the environmental factors alone.5 (1922b, 300–­301; italics mine) This section of the book also discussed independent development versus diffusion, proposing that both occur in human culture. The argument presented here drew on Goldenweiser’s previous works on the subject. The last part of the textbook, titled “The Ideas of Early Man,” reviewed and critiqued the anthropological theories of Spencer, Frazer, Wundt, Lévi-­Bruhl, and Freud. Goldenweiser’s critique of these theories was based on his earlier works. The only exception is Freud, who became of significant interest to Goldenweiser in the late 1910s–­20s. While giving Freud credit for revolutionizing psychology, Goldenweiser sharply critiqued his interpretation of totemism and taboo as well as the comparisons made by the father of psychoanalysis between the thought and behavior of the neurotic and “primitive” man. In Goldenweiser’s words, “The assumption of a psychic continuity between the generations is but an alluring fantasy and the willingness to accept it as true, in the face of contradictory historic and biologic evidence, may well be regarded as a curious example of the omnipotence of thought which Freud regards as characteristic of the psychic life of primitive man and of the neurotic” (1922b, 398; see also Groark 2019). The book ends with Goldenweiser’s attempt “to throw light on primitive civilization and mentality as they stand before us when compared and contrasted with the mind and culture of modern man” (1922b, 401). Here some major limitations and contradictions of Goldenweiser’s view of “primitive civilization” become obvious. According to him primitive society lacked depth as far as its historical memory was concerned: it The New School | 103

did not extend into the past beyond the generation of the grandparents. He also insisted that in primitive civilization “the individual is but a miniature reproduction of the group culture and the latter but the magnified version of the knowledge, behavior and attitudes of the individual” (404). Any serious dissent from cultural norms in that kind of society was not tolerated. At the same time, he acknowledged that individual variation in the ways in which primitive people make tools and create art did exist. Finally, primitive thought was dominated and limited by supernaturalism, which was “shielded by the warm intimacy of psychological reality” and thus “may well dispense with the truth of objective verification” (412). Such a worldview was contrasted by him with the modern scientific one. Thus, it seems that this macrocosm-­ microcosm view of the individual and culture in “primitive society” was a step backward compared to Goldenweiser’s 1917 response to Kroeber’s “superorganic” paper (Robert Brightman, personal communication, October 13, 2021). As we shall see in chapter 4, he significantly modified this position in his 1936 paper “Loose Ends of Theory on the Individual, Pattern, and Involution in Primitive Society.” During the 1920s Goldenweiser contributed on several occasions to collections of essays dealing with the social sciences. His contributions, prompted by his genuine interest in the interrelation between the various social sciences as well as a search for additional earnings, tended to be surveys of anthropological ideas and methods, past and present. In 1924 he penned an important review paper, “Anthropological Theories of Political Origins,” for a collection of essays titled A History of Political Theories: Recent Times (1924a). In it he criticized evolutionist theories of the development of political organization and argued that while politics—­or, rather, the “integrating tendency of political consciousness”—­was “universal and as old as society itself,” the modern state was a different phenomenon altogether, characterized by a coordination in one institution or a set of institutions of the “legal, religious, economic and other cultural functions,” while in “primitive society” political institutions were divided among various “constituent units of the social aggregate,” such as clans and religious societies (454–­55). As a result the rise of the modern state, he argued, was not a radical evolutionary change in the social order, but a new organization

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of “constituent units” of society, prompted by such historical circumstances as war, territorial expansion, and economic change. His paper concluded: “It is for this reason that the study of the problem presented by the historic state tends to develop into a special discipline. This is as it should be. If only it is remembered that political organization is of the essence of human society, that one or another form of political life is omnipresent, then the separation of the study of the modern historic state as a distinct branch of socio-­historic inquiry becomes not only justifiable but imperative” (435). A year later he contributed a substantial chapter on cultural anthropology to a volume edited by Harry Elmer Barnes titled The History and Prospects of the Social Sciences. Goldenweiser’s characterization of the Boasian American school of historical ethnology is worth quoting here at length: If the guiding principles of the historical school were to be condensed into a brief catechism, it would read somewhat as follows: the concentration of research upon restricted geographico-­historical districts, which are to be studied in their chronological depth and their lateral geographical extension in inter-­tribal contact; the application of the objective and statistical methods in the tracing of distributions of features or feature complexes, and of the psychological method in the study of association, interpenetration and assimilation of features; the use of the concepts of “style” and “pattern” in the description of tribal or area cultures, especially in their relation to the absorption of new traits of local and foreign origin; the extension of the differential method inside of tribal boundaries to sub-­tribal and individual differences; the adoption of the linguistic method wherever authenticity or delicate shades of meaning or evaluation are involved; the disentangling of the historical and psychological ingredients of cultural complexes; the rejection of evolution and environmentalism in their crude classical forms; and the application of the concepts “diffusion,” “independent development,” “parallelism,” “convergence,” not as dogmatic postulates but as heuristic tools. (1925b, 247; see also Blatt 2009, 23–­24)

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Among the more recent trends in cultural anthropology in the United States, Goldenweiser singled out approvingly Sapir’s 1925 paper “Culture, Genuine and Spurious,” pointing out that works like that one would enable American ethnology to achieve “an incipient liberation from its methodological bondage” (1925b, 254). And finally, in 1927 he produced a review paper, “Anthropology and Psychology,” for an important volume titled The Social Sciences and Their Interrelations. The goal of this paper was to examine “the psychological assumptions, avowed or implied, underlying some of the principal trends in anthropological thought and practice” (1927a, 70). Goldenweiser proceeded to examine the psychological assumptions of Bastian, evolutionist anthropology, Wundt, diffusionism, and the American or Boasian “school of ethnology.” The paper concluded with an interesting statement on the need to combine psychological and anthropological (and historical) research: “The life of culture belongs to the psychological level. It is in the minds of men in society. If the nature of this level is misunderstood, an impetus is given to vicious methodology and one-­sided or artificial theory. The historian, the anthropologist, are students of life. Life is psychology. Abuse your psychology, and it will corrupt your history, your anthropology” (85–­86). This time Goldenweiser was not only a contributor to an interdisciplinary social science volume but also its coeditor, along with William F. Ogburn (1886–­1959).6 A prominent American cultural sociologist who wrote on subjects of relevance to anthropologists, Ogburn knew Goldenweiser well during the years when he taught at Columbia (1919–­27) and maintained ties with him when he became the head of the sociology department at the University of Chicago in 1927. As Murray (2007, 39) points out, Ogburn was part of the Boasian circle at Columbia and was particularly close with Sapir and Lowie. He was also very interested in psychoanalysis. Murray characterizes him as “a major figure in interdisciplinary American social science . . . the major sociologist most interested in culture, and the most Boasian one” (39). Thus it made sense that he chose Goldenweiser as his partner for putting together a substantial volume of essays, which featured anthropologists such as Boas, Lowie, Sapir, R. R. Marett as well as social science luminaries John Dewey, Edwin R. A. Seligman, Pitirim Sorokin (1889–­1968), and

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Morris R. Cohen. Goldenweiser’s work on the volume coincided with a tumultuous period in his life when he was going through a scandalous divorce and in a terrible need of money (see below). Ogburn’s papers, located at the University of Chicago Library, contain a thick set of letters from him and his technical staff to Goldenweiser pleading with him to complete his paper on time.7 Speaking of psychology, Goldenweiser’s strong interest in psychoanalysis, which developed in the 1920s, ought to be emphasized. It has already been mentioned that he lectured on it at the Rand School and at several other places. He also shared his thoughts on the subject with colleagues. In a letter to Kroeber, dated December 20, 1921, he described having to “read and re-­read Freud” for a course at the Rand School. He went on to say that he was “becoming more and more enamored with him.” In his words, His capacity for thought is amazing, and what, after all, do the negative points amount to when this is present? One book I had not read before is his “Gradiva.” If any of Freud’s essays carry conviction, this one most assuredly does.8 Moreover, a most alluring avenue of approach is thus opened up to literature and literary characters. In fact, I have already made a small beginning in turning over in my mind some things I know about Dostoevsky, who, I feel, may well be called a pre-­Freudian psychoanalyst.9 Goldenweiser went on to say that there was one thing of which he was certain: whatever the exaggerations of the Freudian system, anyone desirous of studying psychoanalysis could not begin any better than by reading Freud first, and carefully at that. The rest would then fall into line easily enough. Even Freud’s applications of social facts were not as contemptible as was once thought by anthropologists. Of the Totem and Taboo essays, it was really only the essay on totemism that was “wholly below par,” while the interpretation of exogamy (incest), magic, and taboo were, if not wholly satisfactory, at least theoretically justifiable (Goldenweiser to Krober, December 20, 1921, alkp).10 A year later, in a letter to Sapir, Goldie expressed some other interesting thoughts on Freudian theory:

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I am glad that the reading of Freud’s introduction has stimulated you (yes, I am familiar with Pfister’s book).11 It is quite true, as you say, that after we succeed in shedding some of our deep-­grained prepossessions, Freud’s position tends to become more and more feasible. One such prepossession strongly prompted, I am convinced, by aesthetic factors—­refers to the radical line drawn between the sex function of sex organs and other functions of the same or related organs. I do not think that the sensations involved in normal sexuality (“preparatory and orgasmal”) could be analyzed much more than they have been by good analytical psychologists and realistic novelists. The emotional level in which this complex of experience lies, will, I believe, ever prove an unsurmountable barrier against any more precise quantitative analysis. On the other hand, I do feel with you—­and decidedly so—­that the phenomena of cutaneous sensibility articulate quite naturally with the Freudian theory, especially in connection with the wide organic connotation given by him to the term “sex.” As for the question of the therapeutic versus the theoretical aspects of Freud’s doctrine, Goldenweiser argued that the father of psychoanalysis was “frequently afflicted with the philosopher’s itch, thus being prompted to develop the theories suggested by his clinical experience much further than is required for purposes of practice.” On the other hand, whenever Freud found himself entangled in one of the inevitable knots that theoretical speculation brought with it, he was tempted to solve these in Gordian fashion, by donning the protective hood of a clinical practitioner. His final verdict on Freud was that the man was wise, and that he could not be blamed for being human, which, however, did not have to prevent others from picking holes in his theoretical system (Goldenweiser to Sapir, August 2, 1922, esc).12 In an article published in 1928 (reprinted in History, Psychology, and Culture) and titled “Is Freud a Psychologist?” Goldenweiser offered a much more critical evaluation of Freudian theory. In his view, Freud, being primarily interested not in mind, but in morbid personality, left unexplored the larger part of the psychologist’s domain. Misled by the physician’s bias, he permitted his pathology to run amok. Obsessed by 108 | The New School

the sex concept, he was prevented from giving a more penetrating psychological evaluation of other urges, such as religious or aesthetic. The psychological differentials of diverse sexual orientations were obliterated in his sweeping sex formula, patterned after the general concepts of the natural sciences. As Goldenweiser put it, “The concept of the unconscious, finally, though born of the intent to save psychic autonomy, bore the earmarks, not of psychology, but of physics, not of mind, but of mechanism.” In this sense the, Freud, according to him, was not, strictly speaking, a psychologist (1933a, 435). Several of Goldenweiser’s publication plans of the 1920s did not materialize. In the early 1920s, he was planning to produce a festschrift for Boas on the occasion of Boas’s retirement from Columbia.13 No such publication ever saw the light of day. Also, during that same time, he was busy developing a plan for a collection of essays by participants in a discussion group called the Unicorns, which he presided over in the late 1910s to early 1920s. The potential contributors included such scholars as Morris R. Cohen, Robert Lowie, William F. Ogburn, James Harvey Robinson, whom we have already encountered, as well as a noted professor of history at the City College of New York, J. Salwyn Schapiro (1879–­1973), a friend of both Goldenweiser and Lowie.14 There were other books Goldenweiser contemplated writing but never did, such as the book on “social origins” and another on Freud (Goldenweiser to Sapir, August 2, 1922, esc).15 The heavy demands of teaching and his serious personal problems must have prevented him from carrying these projects out. While at the New School, Goldenweiser organized a major discussion group, called the Social Science Club. In a letter to Kroeber, he described it as his new baby and as a highbrow version of the Unicorns. The club met once a month at the New School and counted a number of the School’s faculty among its members. Schapiro, Ogburn, and other luminaries participated in its meetings. Goldenweiser hoped that the group would eventually form the nucleus of a new social science journal (Goldenweiser to Kroeber, July 12, 1921, alkp). As evidence of Goldenweiser’s strong interest in the interrelations between the various social sciences, one should also mention the fact that, in addition to attending the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association, he took part in several meetings of the American The New School | 109

Sociological Society and of other related social science organizations. He would often present papers at those meetings and comment on the presentations by others. For example, he offered thoughtful criticism of a paper presented by Floyd H. Allport at the 1923 meeting of the American Sociological Society (Allport 1924; Goldenweiser 1924c).

Popular Writing on Race, Gender, the Jewish Question, and Progressive Education In the 1920s Goldenweiser was a well-­known figure in East Coast’s liberal and left-­leaning intellectual circles. For instance, he was a frequent participant in the social gatherings at the home of V. F. Calverton. Alfred Kazin (1962, 74), who attended those weekly get-­togethers as well, reminisced years later that one could meet there “socialists like Eastman and Hook,16 as well as Thomas Wolfe and sensitive and skeptical anthropologists like Goldenweiser who were contemptuous of Marxism, and ex-­radicals like Eugene Lyons who had gone completely sour on socialism and all its works . . . labor experts, news commentators, student leaders, Harlem poets” (see also Wilcox 1992, 1–­2).17 As a progressive public intellectual, Goldenweiser gave frequent public lectures and wrote articles for liberal and left-­leaning publications on such burning issues of the day as race and racism, immigration, anti-­ Semitism, gender, peace, eugenics, and progressive education. As was the case with some of his academic publications, he was motivated by both a genuine concern about these issues as well as a desperate need to earn some extra money. For the latter reason, he even engaged the service of a speaker’s bureau. In a letter to Sapir, he wrote: I am much obliged to you for your efforts [in re] lectures. My Bureau is proving very much of a fizzle. . . . As things stand it would be quite possible for me to make the trip to Ottawa for just the expenses. However, should I have a lecture at Montreal or vicinity, I’ll certainly arrange for a short visit with you. By the way, I am going to lecture in Buffalo on the 16th and 17th of this month. If your ladies could offer me $50 and railroads from [?] to Buffalo, my time would permit the excursion together with the bargain.18 (Goldenweiser to Sapir, December 4,1924, esp)

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The journals he tended to publish in included the liberal the Nation, the New Republic, and the American Mercury as well as the more left-­ wing journals the Dial and the Modern Quarterly. In addition he favored a liberal Jewish periodical the Menorah Journal, whose aim was the promotion of secular Jewish culture, and he also published some articles in the Urban League Bulletin, a progressive African American periodical (1922e). His writing on race appealed to African American intellectuals. For example, in an angry letter to Post Standard, a noted African American writer and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson (1871–­1938) cited both Goldenweiser and Boas to refute an article that assumed Black inferiority (Diner 1977, 148). As far as race was concerned, Goldenweiser followed Boas’s approach: he rejected all theories postulating racial inferiority of the nonwhite races (including the recent “Nordic myths”) and condemned European colonialism. He referred to the doctrine of Nordic superiority as “an atavistic offshoot of a racial theory once made famous by Count de Gobineau, later transformed into a philosophy of history by Houston Steward Chamberlain, and finally adjusted to the needs of a practical policy by such writers, in this country, as Madison Grant, Lothrop Stoddard, William McDougall, and Edwin Grant Conklin” (1926, 198). He identified feelings of racial superiority as a psychological (emotional) complex (fixation), and he espoused Boasian cultural relativism as far as evaluating the contribution of various “cultures” and “civilizations” to the total of human cultural capital. He viewed the plight of African Americans in the United States as a major problem to be dealt with. As he wrote in his enthusiastic introduction to the important book The Negro Faces America by civil rights activist Herbert J. Seligman (1894–­1981), “The uniqueness and pathos of the Negro problem in the United States rest in the fact that so few Americans recognize it as a problem” (1920b, i). In the article “Racial Theory and the Negro,” published in the Urban League Bulletin, Goldenweiser went as far as to question in a Boasian fashion the widespread belief in the superiority of Western (“white man’s”) culture. He argued that its outstanding achievements of this “civilization” were limited to the narrow area of the “systematization of knowledge and its utilization in thought and in practice” (1922e, 2). However, in his view, when it came to art, literature, religion, ethics, and

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social organization, one could not argue in favor of an unquestionable superiority of Western culture. He concluded with the following assertion: “It is therefore perfectly justifiable to question whether if history were to begin over again, white man would have done as well as he has and whether another race might not have succeeded in accomplishing what the white man has accomplished” (2). In an article published in the Nation three years later, Goldenweiser urged white people to accept members of other races and ethnicities (Mongols, Arabs, East Indians, and Negroes) on the “chariot of history” rather than “persist in forcing them to do the pulling while we wield the whip of race prejudice and domination” (1925a, 462). The fact that Goldenweiser was deeply concerned about the status of African Americans in the United States is further supported by the fact that he—­along with Boas and several other progressive anthropologists—­attended several meetings of the naacp, and in 1929–­ 30 he was asked to engage in a debate (later changed to a symposium) on the “The Negro Problem in America” with none other than W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–­1963) himself (see Diner 1977, 147).19 The debate was planned by a Jewish congregation, Shaarai Shomayim, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I have not been able to find an account of that symposium, but the correspondence between Goldenweiser and a member of the congregation in charge of organizing it gives some idea of Goldenweiser’s views on the question of how to improve the situation of African Americans: It is a little difficult for me to state my attitude on the Negro problem, except in relation to what I expect Dr. DuBois’ position to be. Seeing that Dr. DuBois has been in this work for years and has developed a definite and emphatic policy it would, I feel, be more feasible to make his stand the starting point in the debate (incidentally I hope it can be arranged that Dr. DuBois speaks first). However, in compliance with your request I shall say this. Apart from the obvious necessity to fight their own battle in matters political, economic and social, much is to be expected from a wholehearted cooperation on the part of progressive and intelligent Negroes in the solution of the impending problems in the United States today. In these matters the Negroes would function not as an alien minority, but as Americans on a par with the Whites. Another 112 | The New School

indirect source for the enhancement of Negro self-­respect lies in the achievements of their intellectual and artistic “upper set.” Let the Negro make his cultural contribution (and the process is on its way now), and the rest will follow. He added that it was “desirable that Negroes should not shrink from participation in the specifically liberal (or radical) activities of certain white groups—­a social obligation the Negro is induced to shirk by the fear that such activity will have a negative effect on the Negro situation as such.” In his view the stimulation of racial self-­consciousness on the part of African Americans with accompanying racial patriotism and pride was a dangerous policy and was more likely to impede rather than enhance the solution of the “Negro problem” (Goldenweiser to Daniel L. Davis, February 28, 1920, webdbp). Basically, what Goldenweiser was suggesting as a course of action for African Americans was a combination of a separate struggle for equality and a cooperation with progressive white Americans. At the same time, he warned against the cultivation of Black nationalism. It should be pointed out that, as a professed individualist, Goldenweiser was opposed to all forms of nationalism, whether it was Russian, Jewish, African American, or, for that matter, American. I suspect that DuBois’s prescriptions for the struggle of African Americans for civil rights and economic and social justice as well as his increasing Black nationalism would have appeared to Goldenweiser as being too radical (see Baker 1998; Liss 1998). Interestingly, Boas shared his view about the dangers of “fostering social solidarity” among African Americans (Baker 1998, 164). In the words of Anderson (2019, 48), “For Boas and Goldenweiser, any emphasis on Black distinctiveness and collective self-­interest would exacerbate the racial feelings of whites.” One other interesting and important argument made in Goldenweiser’s letter had to do with a special role of African American intelligentsia, which Goldenweiser saw as a major force in this struggle. This singling out of the educated class was central to his thinking about political movements and clearly echoed the views of Russian revolutionary Populists (Narodniki) of the late nineteenth century, which he was well acquainted with and most likely influenced by. For the Narodniki, the heroic intelligentsia was supposed to lead the oppressed masses to liberation via the revolutionary struggle (Ely 2016). The New School | 113

Goldenweiser made the following proposal for eradicating racial prejudice: To my mind there is only one thing that can save mankind from prejudice of this sort. Whether it can be achieved through education or not, I do not know. But in my experience I find that those people among us who by temperament or incidentally to their occupations, are individualists, are much less addicted to this kind of prejudice. You take, for example, the artists and actors, and you will find that in every country, in every nation, the artists as a group, are on the whole less given to anti-­racial prejudice, to group discrimination than almost any other group, much less so, than let us say, scientists, as a group. (1923, 313) According to Goldenweiser this was the case because the occupation of the artist was intensely individualistic. The artist appreciated talent for talent’s sake, and to him, every individual meant just so much; hence he did not particularly care to what group, to what nation, this individual belonged. The same attitude, in a less pronounced degree, was observable in the relation of nonartists toward artists. In Goldenweiser’s view a lesson could be gleaned from this and other similar examples: group prejudice, including racial prejudice, was a social phenomenon. It was based on traditional backgrounds and inculcated unconsciously into human beings early in life, and they could not get rid of it unless they became, to a great extent, individualists, independent thinkers, persons who could stand on their own feet, who were detached and capable of viewing things “above the battle.” Goldenweiser’s hope was to achieve all this through education “at home and in school, not through the general propaganda education of groups” and not “through mass education” (1923; see also 1924g). Goldie’s placing such high hopes on the enlightened artist, who was also an individualist, may seem naive, but it does make good sense if one keeps in mind the sources of his worldview—­ namely, Russian Populism, which did put a “critically thinking individual” on a high pedestal, as well as anarchism, which seems to have had something to do with his admiration for Leo Tolstoy (see chapter 4). As Anderson (2019, 42–­43) points out, this idea that racial prejudice was a violation of the principle that individuals should be treated as individ114 | The New School

uals was typical for the liberal position on this subjected advocated not only Goldenweiser but by Boas himself as well other Boasians, such as Edward Sapir (1925). When it came to the future of African Americans, Goldenweiser asserted that they will some day become “part and parcel of the civilization of the United States” (1922e, 2). To accomplish this, he told a group of social workers at their national meeting in 1922 in Providence, it was imperative to achieve a “complete legal equalization of the white and the negro, educational propaganda to convince both groups of the advantages of economic cooperation, and the imparting of knowledge of both among negroes and whites of the facts about racial traits and cultural capacity” (“Groups Racial Problems,” New York Times, June 25, 1922, 1). That same year Goldenweiser argued that it was essential “to stimulate the Negro talent in all directions in which it may manifest itself” as well as to fight the anti-­Black prejudice among whites via the educational system (1922e, 2). At the same time, aware of the limitations of education and propaganda as the tools of combatting racism in America, Shoora was rather pessimistic about its complete elimination from. In his words, “I do not know of any method by means of which it would be possible to make people change their attitude toward the Negro. Education is, of course, one way. But go and try to educate the American people in an attitude favorable to the Negro. Who will do the educating?” (1924g, 133). As Anderson (2019, 43) notes, “For Goldenweiser, racial prejudice resisted appeals to reason and represented an acute conundrum for the anthropologist as a liberal theorist attuned to the power of culture in molding thought, perception, and behavior. If individuals were socialized into illiberal attitudes toward the racial other by their culture, was the elimination of racial prejudice even possible?” Finally, there was Goldenweiser’s interesting comment on the rise of the Ku Klux Klan (kkk) in 1920s America. Published in the World Tomorrow, a Christian socialist political magazine, it compared the kkk to secret societies present in “primitive” societies and argued that its popularity among certain segment of America’s population was a reflection of the “vacuity and insufferable boredom” of contemporary American life marked by a revived conservatism. In his view this “dullness” was caused by industrialism, which had “dulled the edge of spiritual The New School | 115

endeavor” in modern America and even American democracy, which “under the guise of an illusory ideal of freedom and equality has deprived political activity of its one-­time ardor and enthusiasm.” Discussing the secret rituals of the modern kkk, Goldenweiser identified their quasi-­ military features and contended that they served as a substitute for war. Ultimately, this ugly manifestation of racism, anti-­Semitism, and religious intolerance was for him a symptom of what was wrong with modern American civilization (1924f, 82). While Goldenweiser was very much concerned with the future well-­ being of the “Black race” in the United States and around the world, he was much more pessimistic about the fate of the American Indians. Thus, he shared a common view of his contemporaries on the “vanishing Indian.” As he wrote in the Nation, The North American Indian is out of the running. Fragments of the once virile and poetic stock still linger on in a state of degeneration and dejection. But their days are counted. In the words of the Iroquois sage: “Another generation and our customs and beliefs will be memory, still another generation and they will be forgotten.” Will the Indian of South America fare any better? I doubt it. The mechanisms of dismembering the primitive civilization and devitalizing it bit by bit are too busily and powerfully at work.20 (1925a, 462) Goldenweiser’s most dramatic confrontation with “academic racism” took place in the spring of 1924, when he, along with Boas and Henry Usher Hall (1876–­1944), a curator of general ethnology at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and a specialist on Africa, gave talks at the symposium “Are the Various Races of Man Potentially Equal?” organized by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. While Boas’s presentation seems not to have been published, Hall’s and Goldenweiser’s did appear in the Proceedings of the aps. In his talk, which preceded that of Goldenweiser, Hall focused on African peoples and specifically on such “backward” custom as the worship of kings and chief (including the murder of the aging ones). His conclusion was that “the restrictions binding the negro chief and his people in their relations to him could only perpetuate superstition and submission to blind forces” (1924, 116 | The New School

213). In contrast, among the people of the Western civilization, “whatever divinity may once have hedged a king was, as far back as we can trace the institution, counterbalanced by checks and restrictions which had a political rather than a religious bearing” (213). Hall then briefly discussed the culture of Black people in the New World, arguing that it was basically the same as those of Africa, despite centuries of exposure to Christianity and Western civilization. According to him the limited progress that African Americans had made was due to white philanthropists and leaders of mixed-­race backgrounds. He concluded: “So far as the evidence from history is concerned the peculiar mental disposition of the negro is unchanged, and it seems unchangeable. This mental disposition keeps him backward and we have no reason to suppose that in comparison with the white man he will ever be anything else” (214). Goldenweiser began his own presentation by pointing out that African beliefs about the rulers’ divinity were not so different from the European ones, citing an example from Russian history, when Tsar Alexander III attributed his surviving a major assassination attempt to divine providence. He proceeded to give other examples of superstitious behavior by Westerners and then went on to reject the arguments about the major physical and psychological differences between the races. He also cast doubt on the notion of Western culture being superior to non-­Western ones in all of its domains. He ended his talk by reminding his audience that Japan, a representative of the “Asian race,” which in the past had been viewed by the West as inferior, delivered a major blow to Russia in the war of 1904–­5 and warned that such an outcome could happen again. In his words, “The fate that befell Russia at the hands of the yellow men of Asia may befall others when they are confronted with the black legions of Africa. Then we shall recognize them. Then we shall grant them the right to world citizenship. But must they wait so long? Must we? Remember there is a price to pay for the delay. Might it not be wiser as well as safer to proceed more expeditiously?” (1924b, 220–­21). While the minutes of the symposium do not tell us what sort of responses the presentations by Boas, Hall, and Goldenweiser elicited among its participants, we do have a letter written by Goldenweiser to Boas in the aftermath of the meeting at the aps. It is highly emotional and gives a good idea of the presence of racist views among the academics gathered in Philadelphia on April 25, 1924, and the deep anger The New School | 117

their prejudiced views aroused in Goldenweiser. It is very much worth quoting in its entirety: Dear Professor Boas, sometimes I cannot sleep. It’s that areopagus of morons raving my soul. Such a gathering! I sensed the spirit of the assemblage even before we began to speak: the bearded faces, set mouths, sallow complexions. . . . It was as if the cemeteries of the American Philosophical Society had emptied their weird contents in that hall. Why, I believe there were not as many as [six?] persons there who as much as followed your closely knit argument. They just sat there trying not to look asinine but failing miserably—­the entire group seemed condensed into one bestial countenance with two pointed ears framing it in as a halo. Nor did my effort to get at the kernel of their humanity via sense of humor proved any more successful. They laughed, to be sure, but as laughs that Australian bird, the Laughing Jackass, and the noise of their merriment must have aroused queer echoes in the empty chambers of their skulls. And those spontaneous irrepressible comments by the Chairman . . . “the entire problem of Africa depends on it . . . the Negro is regarded as an equal only where there are few of him . . . We all believe in it (the racial difference) . . . I, as a white man” . . . I suppose you and I must have appeared to him as the colored men disguised as Jews dishing out our black magic before that “symposium” (vide the Century) of blue-­blooded (or red blooded—­which is it?) gathering of sapientes. And our genial prohibitionist host, what a cheering appropriate introduction he gave us! I have heard referees at wrestling matches regale the mob with such choice merriment while the main event was being set up. And to crown it all, dear little spick-­and-­span Mr. Hall chanting his magic lore in the shade of the Golden Bough . . . Gegen die Dummheit streiten die Gotter selber vergebens.21 . . . Why should we try? And the worst of it is, it’s not really Dummheit, stupidity is not it! But worm eaten brains, rusty consciences and the pride of the milk wagon which makes much noise—­being empty. I’ll remember that scene as long as I live. 118 | The New School

As ever yours Alexander Goldenweiser (Goldenweiser to Boas, December 1924, fbp)22 The confrontation at the aps symposium was not an accident. In 1924 tensions between the Boasians and the eugenics community, which was present within anthropology and also dominated many fields outside of it, had become especially strained on matters of race and, most notably, intelligence. A great many factors contributed to this, not the least being a nativism resurgent in the U.S. following World War I, with a strong anti-­immigrant bias becoming an academically respectable position. While Boas’s emphasis on environmental influences as exemplified in, say, intergenerational differences in human physiological characteristics had gained the upper hand within anthropology, elsewhere hereditarian views on behavioral and cultural diversity predominated, most notably within genetics and psychology (Robert Brightman, personal communication, October 13, 2021). Boas’s views on race were much derided by the eugenic opposition, and even his earlier anthropometric studies showing a superordinate influence of environment on human variability were widely discounted. The conflict became particularly intense during the run-­up to the Immigration Act of 1924, when Congress limited the number of undesirable immigrants from eastern and southern Europe (see also Silverstein 2004).23 Along with Boas Goldenweiser opposed restrictions on immigration. Thus, according to a report in the American Israelite for January 8, 1925, at a gathering of sociologists and economists in Chicago, he proclaimed that “there should be no tariff on human stock. Freedom of locomotion throughout the world is the inalienable right of man” (4). In a lengthy paper titled “Immigration and National Life,” Goldenweiser characterized the current immigration policies of the United States as being based on postulates that were “erroneous, dogmatic, and incompatible with facts, straight thinking, humanity, and even national self-­interest” (1926, 206). In that paper Goldenweiser went on to argue that, since races could not be classified as inferior and superior, any immigration policy that discriminated against certain groups of people was “prejudiced and unjustifiable” (1926, 207). His own preference was for free immigration. He also questioned the wisdom of the desirability of American cultural The New School | 119

uniformity and proposed that the presence in United States “of foreign groups with their national customs and ideals” provided “an unprecedented opportunity,” including an educational one, that would reduce the “intellectual provincialism” of American youth (208–­9). Thus, Goldenweiser should be recognized as an early exponent of multiculturalism and a critique of the wasp insistence on the need for all immigrants to assimilate completely into the dominant American culture. While Goldenweiser considered himself an expert on Russian history and politics, he never claimed to be a scholar of Jewish history or culture. In fact his writings on Jewish subjects were few and far in between. This makes sense, given that he did not participate in any Jewish organization or serve on the editorial board of any Jewish periodical. If he did pen an occasional article in the Menorah Journal or another American Jewish periodical, it was upon its editors’ request.24 Nonetheless, in the early to mid-­1920s, his opinion on some topics of great concern to American Jews was sought by the liberal Jewish press. This is not surprising; after all, this was a time of the rise of nativist ideology in the United States, with its pseudoscientific racist and eugenic theories, anti-­immigrant propaganda, Nordic mythology, and increased anti-­Semitism (Diner 1977; Hyatt 1990; Barkan 1992). This ideological attack on African Americans and “undesirable non-­Anglo-­ Saxons,” particularly Jews, had some unfortunate practical consequences for the rising Jewish middle class, such as job discrimination in certain professions and a quota system in admission to Ivy League colleges. Moreover, American Jews of all classes were threatened by the general rise of anti-­Semitism in American society. To counteract a “dangerous myth” of Jewish racial inferiority and the incompatibility between Jewish and American values, American Jewish organizations of various stripes turned to those prominent anthropologists who had opposed this pseudoscience for quite some time. The leader of this group was none other than Goldenweiser’s own mentor, Franz Boas. Boas had conducted his own research in biological anthropology, which had undermined many of the central arguments of the racist ideologues and had written about the subject in scholarly and popular publications. However, given Boas’s ambivalence about his own Jewish identity and his view that assimilation was the best solution to anti-­Semitism, he preferred to concentrate his critique on 120 | The New School

the racist theories of Black, rather than anti-­Semitic, inferiority (Glick 1982). Goldenweiser, however, who was well known to the educated Jewish public as a prominent Jewish American anthropologist and a New School professor, was willing to speak publicly and write on the subject of “race theory,” whether it was aimed at African Americans, Asian immigrants, or Jews. Thus, between 1922 and 1925, Goldenweiser gave presentations to a variety of Jewish audiences: synagogues, banquets of the Menorah Society (a national Jewish college students organization dedicated to fostering cultural Judaism), Jewish women’s groups, and national meetings of the Jewish social workers. As always he did this in part to earn money, but he also seemed to enjoy challenging his listeners with some of his provocative views on the topic. His Jewish audiences were keenly interested in the subject, and not merely because they wished to learn from him how to defend themselves against the attacks by Madison Grant and Company. The 1920s was the time when Jewish American intellectuals and the educated lay public were debating whether Jews in general and American Jews in particular in fact constituted a “race” or something like a “religious group,” a “nation,” a “people,” or a “culture” (see Goldstein 2006, 165–­86). In his major statement on the subject, a lecture delivered in 1923 to the National Conference of Jewish Social Service, Goldenweiser (1923, 303) echoed Boas’s idea that race was to a large extent an invention, a “state of mind.” Like Boas he also argued that there was nothing wrong with the assimilation of American Jews into mainstream society and asserted that the only way to eliminate anti-­Semitism altogether was to have the Jews mix with the other ethnic groups and “races” of the country (320). On this issue his views were clearly similar to those of Boas, who believed that by intermarrying with whites African Americans would contribute to the lessening of racial prejudice among the former by “diluting” the blackness of their skin color. Similarly, by intermarrying with Gentiles, American Jews would bring about the decline of anti-­Semitism in the country (see Anderson 2019, 60–­89). Generally speaking Goldenweiser was rather skeptical about any public campaigns against anti-­Semitism, arguing that the best way to deal with it was to ignore it and let it run its course. He did concede that proper public education might help reduce its influence but did not place much hope on it (1923, 312–­13). The New School | 121

Such views expressed by the “distinguished Jewish professor from the New School” (as the Emerich Speaker Bureau usually billed him) indicate that Goldenweiser did not see much worth in preserving Jewish religion or culture in America, be it Judaism, the Yiddish language, or specific ethnic customs and traditions from the Old World.25 A highly assimilated Jew, Goldenweiser was equally dismissive of Zionist ideology. In his review of a book Extinction and Survival by an American economist and publicist Elisha M. Friedman (1890–­1951), which had a strongly Zionist message, Goldie referred to Hebrew culture as being “dead,” and Palestine being “not Zion but a colonial enterprise on a small scale, the future of which was still in doubt” (1925d, 203–­4). What worried this radical most was that, if the Jews would acquire their own state, they might turn from the oppressed into the oppressors of others (i.e., the Arabs).26 Despite expressing his approval of the fact that eventually most diaspora Jews would be assimilated into the societies in which they were living, Goldie did see them playing an important special role in the present. In the post–­World War I world, where the first attempts were being made by some of the Western states to reduce international tensions and avoid another world war, the Jews, in his view, could actually play quite an important role. Not surprisingly, Goldenweiser, a modern-­ day Jew and a member of an assimilated Jewish intelligentsia, was an “internationalist.” As he put it, “Wherever he [the Jew] may reside, he is able to preserve a certain aloofness with reference to purely local issues and thus be saved from the buncombe of national conceits. He is also relatively free from narrow traditionalism. More often than not he is at home in more than one country and, not infrequently, in more than one continent. Not being fanatically addicted to any nation, he is able to appreciate the worth of all” (1922a, 316). Having suffered persecution and “racial” discrimination himself, Goldenweiser’s ideal Jew was also a natural opponent of racial and ethnic discrimination. Moreover, the Jew’s “national exterritoriality” made him not only an internationalist but an individualist, “an intellectual free-­ lance, who is capable of judging economic, social and political issues on their merits, unencumbered by the historic dogmas, prejudices and bias of those whose egos shot through with national self-­consciousness” (1922a, 316).

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In other words, Goldenweiser, a somber social scientist, ended his analysis of the role of the Jews in the perilous post–­World War I era with a rather romantic image of a cosmopolitan Jewish intellectual, immune to nationalism and ethnic prejudice and open to an international exchange of ideas. He described this ideal Jew in the closing passage of his speech “Concerning Racial Differences,” addressed to a Jewish audience, which he ultimately did not include in the published version: “Perhaps the Wandering Jew of the poet and the traveling salesman of modern industrialism will find their third and worthier brother in the international Culture Hero of the future, the Jew-­apostle of peace and good will amongst the peoples and races of the world” (Goldenweiser Correspondence, hhp). Ironically, while speaking as a highly assimilated European (Russian) Jewish intellectual, who welcomed Jewish assimilation via cultural as well as biological mixing, Goldenweiser still expressed a certain sense of identification with the Jews as well as pride in being Jewish. This sentiment was further illustrated by a humorous talk he gave on October 20, 1925, at a dinner hosted by the Menorah Society. In it the New School lecturer described a dystopian future world without the Jews, which would experience a serious decline in all of its domains, in which Jews had once played an important role (Goldenweiser Correspondence, hhp). Goldenweiser also wrote a forceful critique of the proposed limiting of the admission of Jewish students to Harvard and other elite American universities (1922d). When it came to such topics as sex and gender, some of Goldenweiser’s writing, both (semi)scholarly and more popular, was rather old-­fashioned and retrograde—­some might even say misogynous, especially compared to such Boasians as Parsons, Benedict, and Mead. This is surprising, given the fact that, as a Boasian and a liberal, Goldenweiser was supposed to espouse more progressive or even radical views on the subject. In fact he did on occasion express such views, as, for example, when he questioned the universality of the Western monogamous marriage. He also asserted in at least one of his popular publications that, sometime in the future, thanks to the modern experimental education of children, the man and the woman would become fully equal to each other in all of their endeavors. He also predicted that, in the future, women

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would be playing a much more prominent role in such important social movements as those aimed at reforming the penal system, eliminating racism, and bringing about world peace (1928b). Nonetheless, in an article titled “Man the Creator,” published in the Nation, he reviewed the woman’s contribution to the various crafts and arts in both “primitive” and modern societies and concluded that “the Woman’s creative achievement reaches the top when the top is relatively low; when the top itself rises, she falls behind” (1924e, 623). In his interpretation it was in the “personality-­imaginative complex” that the woman failed at the top, and this inferiority, compared to the man, was supposedly most prevalent when it came to love. According to Goldenweiser, “Woman is never so much ‘a part of’ as when she loves, man never so ‘whole’; her self dissolves, his crystallizes. Also, woman’s love is less imaginative than man’s: man is more like what woman’s love makes him out to be than woman is like what man’s love makes her out to be. Relatively speaking, his love is romantic, hers realistic” (623). His final verdict is harsh, and by contemporary standards misogynist: “The preceding analysis leads to the conclusion that woman’s strength lies in the concrete as contrasted with the abstract, the technical as contrasted with the ideational, the human as contrasted with the universal and detached. This conclusion, it may be of interest to note, harmonizes perfectly with the general consensus of mankind, as expressed in lay opinion and the judgments of literary men” (623). Moreover, according to Goldenweiser, while in all the fields of cultural activity opened to the woman, she did show creative ability, since modern cultural conditions have made major creativeness possible, “she has failed, in comparison with man, in the highest ranges of abstract creativeness” (624). At the same time, the woman did show “in her psychic disposition amenities for the concrete, the technical and the human” (624).27 In a more academic piece, “Sex in Primitive Society,” which he contributed to an important collection titled Sex in Civilization and edited by V. F. Calverton and S. D. Schmalhausen, Goldenweiser offered rather standard Boasian comments on the relationship between culture and sexuality in non-­Western societies while also suggesting that psychoanalysis, as applied creatively by such scholars as Bronislaw Malinowski, promised to shed new light on the subject. And yet, in his conclusion, he made observations that today would be described as sexist. Speak124 | The New School

ing of the woman in the realm of love and sex, he stated that “together with her skill in the game of love, ever attractive, ever elusive, inviting, rejecting, granting, derisive, have placed woman in the center of the sex realm. She, whom the French call le sex, is, indeed, sex. Woman is sex. Sex selects her, isolates her, exalts her, humiliates her, makes her taboo. She must be sought, avoided, wooed, conquered, held. But the real conqueror, at all times, is woman herself, she—­le sex” (1929b, 64). In his view this was never as clear as when sex appeared apart from marriage, for with matrimony, other factors (e.g., social, economic) supervened that tended to obscure the operations of sex as such. In his words, “It is through the obfuscation created by the matrimonial situation that woman has come to be represented as the martyr of sex, rather than the mistress of it, which she is and always was” (64). Given Goldenweiser’s known weakness for the opposite sex and frequent marital infidelity as well as the fact that he was writing these words while going through a tumultuous divorce, it is tempting to conclude that it was not so much Goldie the scholar as Goldie the man who was saying that “woman as sex always was and still is an enigma, a menace as well as a joy” (53; see also Banner 2003, 199). As Alvin Johnson wrote in a letter to Leslie White, “He had the noblest aristocratic contempt for woman, except in bed or manicuring his toe nails. . . . And he loved where love beckoned” (Johnson to White, August 11, 1955, lawp). One other issue of great concern to Goldenweiser was the plight of the intelligentsia in the new Soviet Russia. Thanks to the information provided by his younger brother Alexei, who left Russia in 1921, settled in Germany, and dedicated himself to fighting for the rights of the Russian refugees, Shoora was well informed about the dire situation most Russian scientists and artists found themselves in during the upheavals of the revolutions and the civil war (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, April 18, 1922, agp). Throughout 1922 he gave a series of public lectures in New York on the plight of Russian scientists, with the proceeds going towards a relief fund. For example, on May 6, 1922, he gave a talk titled “Russian Intelligentsia” at the Community Church of New York, and on May 7, 1922, the New York Times announced that Dr. Alexander Goldenweiser was going to speak on “The Prehistoric Artist and the Modern Art Movement” at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles J. Liebman for the benefit of destitute Russian scientists.28 The New School | 125

Finally, as an experienced educator, who by the late 1920s had not only taught at an Ivy League university, an innovative institution of higher learning (the New School), and an adult education school aimed at the working people, but also at an experimental high school, and who believed firmly in the importance of education in a modern democracy, Goldenweiser spoke on the subject to various audiences and occasionally published opinion pieces on it as well. His most important work on the subject of early child education and the role of the new experimental school in bringing about social progress was the article “The New Education and Social Progress,” which appeared in a liberal Jewish monthly, the Reflex (1928a). According to Madison (1976, 226), this journal, whose goal was to report and interpret the realities of modern American Jewish life, featured a number of leading Jewish intellectuals of the 1920s to early 1930s. The main postulates of Goldenweiser’s piece were the following. First and foremost, experimental education must consider the child to be already a person, who “needs to find a way to its own self and a way for it to be thrust forth into the world. It must be given an opportunity to achieve this, unencumbered by excessive paraphernalia and the standardizing dangers of pre-­existing patterns” (1928a, 42). He then emphasized the importance of art education in early childhood. Second, the child must be seen as a “genius.” This means that it must be treated by the teacher as an equal and without any condescension. Third, it is the child who is the aim of education, and for that reason it should be given ample opportunity to express his or her emotions and interests. Hence, as he put it, “The experimental school is a noisy place. Often it is an uncomfortable place for the tired adult, and it takes much energy, nerves of steel, to keep up the pace set by these lusty urchins. But the way of rational and humane education points in this direction and the experimental school knows it” (43). Fourth, learning must be very interesting to the child. Fifth, the child should be taught how to think rather than to memorize lots of factual data. Sixth, since “life is dynamic” (44), much of the child’s learning should take place in the course of some interesting and lively activity. Seventh, convictions and values are significant only when they come through personal experience. Therefore, the task of the school is “to create a setting in which children may learn by personal contact and experience what’s what in 126 | The New School

the moral realm, what is good or bad, proper or improper” (45). This is how the social life of the school, and especially the life of the children as they come in contact with each other, “becomes a moral laboratory in which the foundation is laid for values and principles later to emerge” (46). Finally, Goldenweiser criticized the use of excessive disciplining of children, which limited their freedom to be themselves. While the 1920s were the period in Goldenweiser’s life filled with teaching, doing research, writing, and giving public lectures, it was also a time of great turmoil in his private life.

A Scandalous Divorce and Boas to the Rescue The mid-­1920s was a very difficult period in Goldenweiser’s life as he fell victim to his own weaknesses and poor judgment. Some time in 1921–­ 22 he began a serious affair with Anne V. Cooper, his young secretary at the New School.29 According to Goldie’s descendants, starting in 1922, he was not home much of the time. By the mid-­1920s, he had made up his mind to divorce his wife and marry Cooper. Being extremely jealous Anna Goldenweiser came to see the New School’s director, Alvin Johnson, and told him that if he would let “that son-­of-­a-­bitch” lecture any more at the school, she would attend his first lecture and shoot him with a revolver “in the gut” (Johnson to White, August 11, 1955, lawp; Leslie English, personal communication, November 2018). The first evidence of the brewing trouble—­which I was able to find in Goldenweiser’s own correspondence—­was a telegram he sent to his friend and colleague University of Chicago economist Leon C. Marshall (1879–­1966). The telegram informed Marshall about the date and time of Goldie’s arrival in Chicago for a meeting with him, but it also mentioned that his “wife” (i.e., Cooper, not Anna Goldenweiser) was “gravely ill” and that he needed $100 to be wired to him (Goldenweiser to Marshall, July 13, 1925, ucl). Less than a month later, Goldie sent a letter to Marshall complaining about his difficulties: My wife [Anna] persists in an absolutely noncompromising attitude. In fact, she tends to make a “scandal” of the affair, while refusing me a divorce. Detectives are hounding me, the [New] School is being besieged, etc., etc. Mr. Johnson, our director, is taking a most above board attitude and would be only too glad to continue me The New School | 127

at the School—­but for these activities of my spouse for which, of course, no institution, however, liberal, would stand. I am leaving for Yucatan on Thursday to secure a divorce there, Miss Cooper (my girl) will join me & we will be married. After which, unless some most unexpected change takes place in Mrs. G’s attitude, my plan [is] to go to Europe for an indefinite period. This, of course, means “burning my bridges” here which I am doing not without heart ache. I am trying to make [illegible] with various journals—­the keep the wolf from the door. He then proceeded to ask Marshall whether he could help him secure some sort of fellowship to undertake a research project in Europe—­for example, an investigation of “The Teaching of the Social Sciences in the Schools and Universities of Europe.” He thought that if he could secure an income of some $5,000 a year to work on such a book, his problem would be solved. He also mentioned that “Mrs. G. & my daughter, Alice, will be for some time at least supported by a fund that was established for my work at the School and which will be unavailable, the situation notwithstanding” (Goldenweiser to Marshall, August 7, 1925, ucl). A handwritten postscript to Goldenweiser’s letter to Sapir reflected his dark mood at the time: “Life is weighing heavily upon me. Oh, that ever gnawing urge toward freedom, creation, happiness! I wish, my good friend, I were a bit older, then the very bursts of the remaining span of existence would effectively kill all such urges by making them appear duly ridiculous. For all I know, they are so already” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, May 11, 1925, esc). Three days later Sapir commented on Goldie’s mood in his own letter to Benedict: “Just got a note from Goldie. Poor boy! He indulges in the soulful vocabulary of an adolescent of the German ‘Storm and Stress’ period who is prepared to sing an ode to Life with the intention of putting a bullet through his brain as soon as he’s finished” (cited in Mead 1959, 179). It looked like Goldie’s friend and colleague dismissed his complaints in a rather cold-­blooded manner. Sometime in the fall of 1925 Goldie traveled to Yucatan, Mexico, to seek a divorce and remained there through early June 1926. While he was able to obtain a divorce there, his troubles in New York continued. According to an article in the New York Times, dated April 8, 1926, his wife filed a suit against him for separation, alimony, and counsel 128 | The New School

fees, and an arrest warrant was issued to prevent him from leaving the country. She charged him with “desertion, cruelty and friendliness with other women” and with “love affairs with other women to whom he wrote and from whom he received epistles of love.” She also stated that she had had to support herself and her daughter by working as a clothes’ designer, while her husband used some of his earnings to paying gambling debts and entertain women. She did mention Cooper, her husband’s former secretary, as the woman he intended to marry if he could obtain a divorce. In mid-­May of that year, Goldie sent frantic telegrams to Sapir and someone named “Mitchell” asking for financial help. The two must have informed Boas of the news, because on May 18, 1926, Boas sent letters to a number of Goldie’s friends and colleagues, including Sapir as well as Elsie C. Parsons, James H. Robinson, and Samuel Joseph (a political scientist and a friend of Goldenweiser). Having consulted with Joseph in person and also having sought advice from Ruth Benedict, Boas sent Joseph a letter stating that he had decided to raise about $700 to cover the cost of Goldenweiser’s ticket back to the United States and to use the remaining balance to pay him in weekly installments. Boas believed that his former student would not be able to do his scholarly work in Yucatan and suggested that he should go to Chicago and stay there until he would be able to return to New York. He asked Joseph and Joseph’s friends to contribute to this emergency fund and said that he was taking upon himself to manage it, as it was not advisable, in his view, to place any large sums of money into Goldenweiser’s hands (Boas to Joseph, May 18, 1926, fbp). He also mentioned that a group of Goldenweiser’s friends and colleagues had already agreed to contribute $50 each, and that the money so raised would enable to “save Goldenweiser for scientific work” until September. The reason Boas favored Chicago as a place for Goldie to cool his heels was the availability of a good library (Boas to Parsons, May 18, 1926, fbp). Boas should be given a lot of credit for his efforts on behalf of Goldenweiser, especially given the fact that, after the latter had left Columbia, their relationship became rather distant. “I should very much like to see you and talk to you again,” Boas wrote to Goldenweiser in 1921. “I don’t know why you keep so totally away from us” (Boas to Goldenweiser, November 18, 1921, fbp). Boas wrote to Lowie two years later: “I The New School | 129

hardly see Goldenweiser at all. He comes in about once in three months to say he wants to have a talk with me, but nothing ever happens” (Boas to Lowie, February 13, 1923, fbp). Despite this estrangement Boas did try to help Goldenweiser get a job in anthropology at the University of Chicago, when an opening appeared there (Boas to Goldenweiser, May 12, 1923, fbp). That plan did not work out, since the Chicago anthropologists decided Goldenweiser’s research was too close to sociology, and the position went to Sapir. It also appears that while Boas stepped in 1926 to teach anthropology at the New School instead of Goldenweiser, he did lobby on his behalf with the school’s director, Alvin Johnson. Boas’s fundraising efforts must have succeeded, because on May 22, 1926, he sent a letter to Goldie along with a check for $25, informing him that he would be receiving the same amount weekly for four weeks. He also wrote: “I want you to write to me at once in detail, what your plans are for the future and we can then decide whether it will be possible to help you so as to get on your feet again” (Boas to Goldenweiser, May 22, 1926, fbp). Five days later Boas sent another letter to his wayward former student, informing him about recent conversations he had had with Seligman and Johnson. Apparently Seligman was willing to give Goldie some work on the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences in the fall. He had asked Boas whether he thought Goldenweiser would be able to carry out that work. Boas was cautious, pointing out that Goldenweiser had had several contracts for manuscripts but had not been able to deliver the work. He went on to make a rather stern statement: “It is, therefore, the question whether you can make up your mind to settle down and do the work that may be required. I do not feel that any one of us should take the guarantee that you will do it, after all that has happened during the last years. It will be up to you to settle down and do what is required.” As for Johnson he had apparently told Boas that a position for Goldenweiser at the New School was still open (Boas to Goldenweiser, May 27, 1926, fbp). Goldenweiser’s response, also dated May 27, 1926, tells us a great deal about his affairs as well as his state of mind and is thus very much worth citing in its entirety: Dear Professor Boas,—­ I have been informed by a good friend that “Dr. Boas is anxious to help but wants to know your plans.” I am most grateful to you for 130 | The New School

your loyalty in the face of my shameful and prolonged neglect of our personal relations. However, I do not want you to be under any misapprehension as to the facts. Here in Merida I have obtained a divorce decree & hope that this puts an end, once and for all, to my relations with my former wife except purely formal financial ones. I should have taken this step long ago but lacked the courage & persistence which I now have owing to a deep, tried & [unshaken?] emotion that has come into my life—­my love for Miss Anne V. Cooper with whom I have [unreadable] so successfully for the last five years, who has been my friend, chum & wife except in name. Henceforth my personal feelings belong solely to her, but whether I shall succeed in marrying her & in keeping her love depends largely on whether I shall be able to solve my economic situation. As you may well imagine I am most eager to work but in order to do so, a certain financial security is almost indispensable. I am starting out for Washington, D.C., where I expect to stay for the present. I propose to write a book on “Anthropology & the Social Sciences” for Knopf. Have made arrangements with the Nation, New Republic & Herald-­Tribune “Books” to write reviews for them (but they pay so little). My attempts to secure an appropriation for a study of the teaching of the social sciences in Europe have failed. I wanted funds for a two year study & have approached several of the big Foundations. I have written to five university presidents (Ohio State, Northwestern, Duke, Colorado & Michigan) applying for a professorship of anthropology—­have given your name among others as reference. But have no illusions as to my chances to land anything in these directions. My ex-­wife is talking a great deal about my attempting to evade my financial responsibilities to her & Alice. This is of course, the very opposite of the fact. I have so far sent her $35 per week thru [sic] my lawyer & intend to continue to do this (barring impossibilities) until I begin to earn again when I shall give her not less than $50 per week. My main problem is perhaps the immediate future until October when public lectures will probably bring sufficient returns for some time. But some more permanent and lucrative position is the great & urgent desideratum. The New School | 131

I am most miserable & despondent just now, for more than one reason, but am not giving up hope that I may yet do useful work, live up to my obligations to those whom I have [?] so badly &, perhaps, succeed in achieving that personal happiness which will come if I make my Cleo (Miss Cooper) happy. If you write to me, please address c/o my brother E. A. Goldenweiser, Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C. As ever yours, Alexander Goldenweiser (Goldenweiser to Boas, May 27, 1926, fbp) On May 29, 1926, Boas sent a letter to Emmanuel Goldenweiser, explaining the plan to help his brother and asking him to contribute to the fund being raised. He also mentioned that it had been decided that “Alex” should remain in Mexico for the time being to avoid any trouble with Mrs. Goldenweiser, and for that reason asked Emmanuel not to send him any large sums of money (Boas to E. Goldenweiser, May 29, 1926, fbp). In his response Goldie’s younger brother expressed his gratitude to Boas, but said that due to his obligation to support his mother and two sisters living in Europe, plus other recent developments, he would not be able to contribute any money to his brother’s rescue fund (E. Goldenweiser to Boas, June 3, 1926, fbp). On June 4, 1926, Goldenweiser arrived back in United States via a ship that had sailed from Havana to Key West. Four days later Boas sent him a letter care of Emmanuel Goldenweiser along with a $25 check. On June 24, 1926, another letter from Emmanuel arrived on Boas’s desk. This time it bore very bad news: Goldie’s wife had had him indicted for abandoning a child in destitute circumstances, and as a result, he had been arrested in Maryland (where he had been staying with Emmanuel) and was awaiting extradition to New York. Goldie was asking Boas to send any money from his rescue fund to his lawyer, who would then pass it on to Mrs. Goldenweiser. This way the indictment might be excused (E. Goldenweiser to Boas, June 24, 1926, fbp). Two days later Boas responded, saying that there was no longer any money available to help “Alex.” He also confessed feeling awkward about the whole situation because it appeared that he was acting now against the interest of Mrs. Goldenweiser, who, in his words, “deserves all consideration under the present 132 | The New School

conditions, although I do not excuse for a moment her vindictiveness at the present time.” He suggested that the best scenario at the moment was to fight the extradition (Boas to E. Goldenweiser, June 26, 1926, fbp). Two days later Emmanuel sent another letter to Boas. He informed him of the latest development in his brother’s saga: Alexander decided to go to New York because fighting his extradition would be too costly. However, he wished that someone would put up a bond for him, so as to allow him to go there on his own accord and not as a prisoner. In the meantime he was spending time as a prisoner in Rockville, Maryland (E. Goldenweiser to Boas, June 28, 1926, aps). On July 2, 1926, Boas sent a letter to Goldenweiser himself, with the following strict instructions: My conclusion is the following: you should, through your lawyer, ask for a judgment against yourself which would bind you to such financial support as your income will justify in such a way that the payment from you can be enforced. The way in which you have treated your financial obligations in previous times, is a full justification for the legal security that ought to be demanded on behalf of Alice. This action on your part would have to be done without any conditions attached to them. It is the very least that you can do on behalf of your child. Secondly: for the time being you ought to make your home not in New York, in order to avoid, for the time being, all possible personal contact between yourself and Mrs. Goldenweiser. If you were here there would be unavoided [sic] conflicts as matters are. I believe all the work that you can do, could be done just as effectively, let us say from Philadelphia, as from here. (Boas to Goldenweiser, July 2, 1926, fbp) Boas concluded by stating that he had no other advice to offer and insisted that, if Goldenweiser would accept his conditions, he would try to help him as much as he could until Goldenweiser would be able to resume his lectures and reestablish necessary connections, which might, perhaps, take a couple of months. If Goldenweiser would accept this plan, he was supposed to write to him. If not Boas would not do anything further in regard to his case. In Boas’s view Goldenweiser’s entire future depended The New School | 133

now on the question of whether he could make up his mind “to accept the obligations that any decent man has and live accordingly.” If he did so, there was a reasonable possibility that after a year or two matters might look quite different than they did now (Boas to Goldenweiser, July 2, 1926, fbp). On the same day Goldenweiser sent the following telegram to Boas: “Accept your message in spirit and in letter am terribly broken but still full of energy and hope expect to see you before leaving town” (Goldenweiser to Boas, July 2, 1926, fbp). That same month Boas received a letter from Alvin Johnson, who informed him of the following: “I met Mr. Goldenweiser today. He is looking surprisingly well but agrees that in the condition of confusion in which his affairs find themselves, it is out of the question for him to be in New York next year” (Johnson to Boas, July 19, 1926, fbp). In other words, Goldie’s teaching at the New School in 1926–­27 was out of the question. We do not know how Shoora spent the rest of the summer and early fall of 1926, but on October 11 of that year he was put in a prison called “the Tombs” (the Manhattan Detention Complex, a municipal jail in Lower Manhattan) following an order for his arrest issued in March. He was held on a $1,500 bail. The New York Times article (October 12, 1926, 1) that reported this also mentioned that his wife was accusing him of a series of infidelities, including an affair in Russia when he was serving in the army years ago, and then again three years later, following his return to the United States. She contended that her husband had obtained the documents from the Department of Labor and the Immigration Bureau to go abroad and live in Europe, and therefore she wanted him kept in jail or under bond pending the trial. It is not entirely clear how long Goldie remained a prisoner, but, judging by his letter to his publisher, he was still incarcerated as of late February 1927 (Goldenweiser to Mrs. William E. Harnod, n.d., wfop). Finally, on March 10, 1927, Anna Goldenweiser was awarded separation from her husband, who was then set free. Four days later Boas wrote to Johnson, informing him that Goldenweiser had been ordered to pay $50 alimony a week plus $25 a week in order to make up for his failing to pay in the past. According to Seligman this amount was the total of Goldenweiser’s current income. Given this dire situation, Boas asked Johnson whether he could offer Goldenweiser a lecturing job at the 134 | The New School

New School. Boas was anxious for Goldie to get some income “in order to continue his research work” (Boas to Johnson, March 13, 1927, fbp). Johnson responded promptly: “I have received your letter of March 14. So far as I could judge, Goldenweiser situation is still too mixed up to permit of any arrangements as to the future. I am sorry that his financial predicament is so serious, but as I understand it, the whole subject of the alimony will be taken up again in September and no judge will be so foolish as to saddle him with alimony equal to his entire income. If I were in a position to promise him a course for next fall, which I am not, the only effect would be an increased alimony” (Johnson to Boas, March 15, 1927, aps). Johnson went on to say that he did not want to judge Goldenweiser’s private affairs and that he had no questions about his teaching abilities. However, having stated that he proceeded to criticize Goldie for “every species of bad judgment” he had shown since the fall of 1926, such as “the pointless Yucatan expedition, borrowing money right and left with no prospect of repayment, failure to admit before the court that his income earning power had been virtually ruined with the consequent exaggerated claim for alimony lodged against him.” He also expressed concern that Anna Goldenweiser was going to continue making trouble for Goldie at the New School, since, as he put it, it was “all too recent that she assured me that she would put a bullet in his brain if I let him lecture at the New School. Of course, I don’t take the bullet seriously, but I do take seriously the scenes and confusion that she might easily create. The New School wants to be fair, but it doesn’t want a pack of trouble.” The bottom line was that the New School curriculum for the spring term had all been already laid out, so it was too late to hire Goldenweiser. Neither did he see any possibility of Goldie lecturing there next year (Alvin Johnson to Boas, March 15, 1927, aps). About the same time, Boas received a letter from Goldenweiser himself (who was living in Philadelphia at the time), which was more upbeat than many of his previous ones but also reported new trouble—­this time having to do with Seligman and the encyclopedia: Dear Dr. Boas,—­ You have probably heard about the recent satisfactory developments in my case. The separation trial is over, the amount of aliThe New School | 135

mony fixed ($75 per week) & the criminal charge dismissed. I left New York in a most hopeful mood & have just begun to concentrate on the Encyclopedia work when a new calamity seems to threaten. Seligman now takes the position that he has advanced $300 (for a month’s work) & refuses to send the weekly $75—­which are essential to keep me out of jail—­until a month from now. I cannot raise that money & will without doubt find myself in jail again. . . . It is difficult for me to understand his position. He talks about lack of confidence in my working power (persistence or something). No one complained of this during the entire year when I carried the Encyclopedia enterprise upon my own shoulders without pay or encouragement from anyone! The irony of fate! The whole thing is preposterous & ridiculous. . . . At this time, the job is a Godsent to me—­about my only chance toward rehabilitation & high class work. How silly it is to talk of my not sticking etc. Besides, if I say so myself, I feel eminently competent to do just this sort of work—­do you doubt this? Under different circumstances I’d tell Seligman to go to hell. I am afraid I cannot afford this luxury. Just now. Nor can I humiliate myself before him any further. Would you care to help me out? It is just a question of this month & of $300 to cover the four weekly payments. I write to my brother asking for the money. Do not know what he will do. But even if he does send it, a check for $200 from you deposited with Weinberger, would be a guarantee of security & peace of mind for me for one month during which I am to produce “evidence” of my competence. How could I do so otherwise? Trusting that you will not refuse me in this horrible situation (horrible because so humiliating), I am as ever Yours Alexander Goldenweiser (Goldenweiser to Boas, May 15, 1927, fbp) Boas responded two days later, writing that he had just made some inquiries and established that Goldenweiser’s worries were unnecessary because Mrs. Goldenweiser seemed to have understood the present situation of his income; hence there would not be any danger of him 136 | The New School

ending up in jail again, provided he would do all in his power to comply with the court’s order, at least until the time when the regular payment from Seligman for the encyclopedia work would begin. Boas expressed his strong wish to see Goldenweiser resume his scholarly work, especially since he had learned from Goldenweiser’s lawyer that, starting in April, his income was going to increase. He concluded his letter with the following comment: “I only wish that you might put aside, as far as possible, all thoughts of previous complications and try to live up to your obligations, particularly to your daughter, and by useful work [to] reestablish your own position” (Boas to Goldenweiser, May 17, 1927, fbp). Goldenweiser responded to his mentor on the same day. The most interesting piece of news he related was his parting with Cooper, the woman he had described as his “Clio.” He wrote: Dear Dr. Boas,—­ I thank you for your kind letter. It is gratifying to know that Mrs. G. “understands” the situation. But, after all that has transpired in the recent past, I do not place over much confidence in her words or promises. My brother has written to Seligman expressing his willingness to guarantee the refunding of $300 to Seligman, if the latter agreed to continue weekly payments now & in case I myself would not be in a position to reimburse him within a reasonable time. I trust this will prove satisfactory to the Professor. I want to impress you personally with the fact that, so far as I am concerned, the past is past. Mrs. G. does not disturb my mind any more (unless she will continue to go out of her way to do so) and the same applies to the young lady who figured so prominently in the events of last summer—­the thing has become a memory. Also, I am in good physical shape & in fine spirits & fit to do my best by way of work (in fact, am rather successfully engaged right now on the encyclopedia scheme). Goldenweiser also expressed concern about the feasibility of his continuing to reside in New York. As he put it, this was not a legal but a personal matter, because if his ex-­wife would set her mind on making his life there impossible, she could easily accomplish that, despite the fact that she was now receiving all of his salary earned at the encycloThe New School | 137

pedia. He additionally expressed his hope of resuming his relationship with his daughter by making a real effort to see her. However, at the present time he did not want to do so, so as not to have the child “be torn between the two sides.” Finally, he expressed his desire to reestablish next winter his contacts with “the anthropology crowd” and to resume the activities from which he had been alienated for so long (Goldenweiser to Boas, May 17, 1927, fbp). For the rest of the 1920s, Goldenweiser continued teaching at the Rand School and giving public lectures. He also had a stint lecturing at the University of New York at Buffalo in the summer of 1927. The New School was no longer an option for him. Things did not look good for him as far as obtaining a permanent teaching position, either. As Sapir wrote to Lowie, “It’s going to be terribly difficult for Goldie to get a regular job in America. The ugly truth of it is he’s become taboo in all academic circles. It’s a hell of a shame but inevitable all the same” (Sapir to Lowie, March 25, 1926, esc). And yet fortune did smile on Goldie once again: in 1930 he was appointed Professor of Thought and Culture at the University of Oregon Extension. A new chapter in his life was about to begin.

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4 The West Coast Exile The 1930s On October 24, 1929, the American stock market began to collapse. By the end of 1930 the economic depression had impacted most American families in one way or another. The liberals did not seem to have an answer to the country’s economic and political problems. Concepts like individual liberty and parliamentary democracy, the Progressive reliance on reason and education, the middle-­class trust in legislative reforms and neutral social planning were all being called into question. As Pells (1973, 53) writes, “In their place, many intellectuals displayed a growing sensitivity to political action and policy decisions based on power rather than rational persuasion, an easier acceptance of social and economic conflict as a positive force in human life, and a great willingness to explore more radical theories and movements.” The disenchantment of the liberals with traditional reform was strengthened by the existence of a concrete alternative against which the American economy and political system could be evaluated. That alternative for many became Soviet Russia. Pells (1973, 61) points out that, “for better or worse, the American intellectual’s ability to devise a new social philosophy and value system in the 1930s depended to a great extent on what he thought about Russia.” In the 1930s the trips of American intellectuals and political activists to Russia increased further, compared to the 1920s. Many of these visitors saw the Bolshevik Revolution as a natural continuation of the socialist tradition, which had been the hope and dream of Western intellectuals. The chaos of America’s economy of the 1930s seemed to stand in sharp contrast to the well-­organized Soviet economy, with its five-­year plans. The problem, however, was how to make sense of what was going in Russia and get 139

a true picture of the situation in the “only land of socialism” (Kuznick 1987, 106–­43). For the radical Left of the American Communists, this was not really an issue. For them the Soviet government was always right, and it was considered immoral and irresponsible to question its policies. The Socialists had a more nuanced and ambivalent view of the Soviet Union’s success, but many of them still marveled at its seeming accomplishments. Even a number of non-­Marxist liberals were in awe of them. They lauded the planned economy and society being constructed by Moscow in its industry and agriculture. Thus, the USSR, in the minds of many American intellectuals, symbolized a replacement for their traditional political commitments and values. They saw the Soviet experiment as a compelling alternative to their own declining society. However, as Pells (1973, 67–­68) argues, “It was precisely this equation of socialism with Russia that helped paralyze radical thought in the 1930s. Among other things, it often led to an obsession with the Soviet Union on the part of both sympathizers and critics, rather than a sustained exploration of Marxist ideas. Indeed, the strength of one’s socialist values and loyalties frequently depended solely on the course of events in Russia.” The 1930s era in American history has often been referred to as “the Red Decade” (Lyons 1970). Indeed this was the time when the cp usa gained the largest number of members and fellow travelers. For the Communists the period between 1929 and 1935 was one of strong militance, sectarian politics, and radical revolutionary rhetoric. They tended to regard the New Deal legislation as a deliberate plan to salvage the capitalist system. Viewing the Socialist Party and its candidate Norman Thomas as too moderate and timid, many left-­leaning intellectuals, suspicious of Roosevelt’s New Deal, voted for the Communist Party in the 1932 presidential elections or at least sympathized with it. While evaluating the role of the Communist Party in the 1930s American life, one has to distinguish between the activities of many of the rank-­and-­file party members and those of its leadership. The former did take part in many progressive causes, such as the defense of striking factory workers or the so-­called Scottsboro boys (a group of young African Americans falsely accused of raping a white women). However, the party leadership was slavishly devoted to Moscow, which supported the party financially and dictated its ideology, policies, and tactics. For 140 | The West Coast Exile

example, in the mid-­1930s, following the defeat and suppression of the German Communist Party by the Nazis, the USSR began to rethink its outright hostility toward Western capitalist democracies. Moscow moderated its rhetoric somewhat and in 1934 entered into the League of Nations. Starting in 1935 it called for creation of a united “popular front” to combat fascism throughout the world. While initially resisting the popular front idea as a threat to their professed militancy (i.e., attacks on the New Deal and the Democratic Party), American Communists eventually embraced it as a chance to end its political isolation and become a respectable member of a “progressive” coalition. As a less radical renewed party, the cp usa turned its attention to reform (e.g., establishing a thirty-­hour work week, higher minimum wage, full civil rights for African Americans). It also completely changed its attitude toward the Roosevelt administration and the Democratic Party, choosing a rapprochement with it in the hope of transforming it into a popular front (Klehr 1984). In the second half of the 1930s, the Communist Party created a large number of front organizations and attracted middle-­class followers among students and professionals. One example was the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners, which was willing to speak out on behalf of leftist political prisoners in the United States and fascist countries but not the Soviet Union. This double standard led to the eventual resignation from this committee of such prominent figures as Horace Kallen, Suzanne LaFollette, and eventually even Franz Boas himself (Kutulas 1995, 43–­46, 81–­83). American Communist leaders’ subservience to Moscow and the Moscow-­controlled Third International resulted in their full support of all of the repressive Soviet policies toward workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia, resisting any criticism of the Soviet judicial system. Moreover, any criticism of the Soviet-­style Marxist ideology or the current policies of the Communist Party by non-­Communist leftists and left-­leaning liberals were viciously attacked by the Communist press. On several occasions the Communists actually engaged in physical attacks on the rival Socialists. In May 1938, after the third major show trial in Moscow, 150 “American Progressives” (Communists and their liberal fellow travelers) signed a statement vindicating the trials. That statement was also a call for liberals The West Coast Exile | 141

to maintain their unity in supporting Russia and opposing the fascist threat to peace. The New Republic also expressed a view that there were no obvious reasons to doubt the validity of the show trials. The Nation was somewhat less willing to accept the Soviet government’s version of the trials, but it did not fully condemn them either, justifying them by arguing that Russia needed complete political and ideological unity in the face of the fascist threat. Eventually both papers adopted a “know-­ nothing” attitude toward the trials, arguing that it was impossible to truly judge them; thus, the two leading liberal publications’ pro-­Moscow sympathies managed to survive them. Many progressives hesitated to criticize them because of their long-­standing belief that Russia deserved special accommodation (Kutulas 1995, 110). They also viewed Soviet Russia as the main antifascist force. Another blatant example of the lack of the cp usa’s ideological and political independence from Moscow was the willingness of its leaders as well as some of its rank-­and-­file members to carry out espionage activities in America on its behalf (Warren 1966; Romerstein and Breindel 2000). Finally, the Communist Party revealed the degree to which it was willing to follow the directives coming from Moscow when, following the Stalin-­Hitler pact of 1939, it suddenly switched from calling for a united front of all anti-­fascist forces against Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany to characterizing the Allies’ war against Germany as imperialist and refraining from criticizing the Nazis. Moreover, the cp usa tried very hard to justify the Soviet invasion of Poland and the Baltic republics as well as its war of aggression against Finland, which followed on the heels of the Stalin-­Hitler pact. Of course the Communists paid a heavy price for this about-­face: while many members (and especially the intellectuals) quit its ranks, most of the leftist non-­Communists and liberal sympathizers turned away from the party altogether. The Communists’ response to the Stalin-­Hitler pact spelled the end of the Popular Front. In the 1930s there were also many liberal and left-­leaning intellectuals who, while not supporting the Communist plan for America, were searching for an indigenous form of socialism. Drawing on ideas whose roots lay in the Progressive era, such intellectuals as John Dewey, Edmund Wilson, Lewis Corey, and V. F. Calverton renounced the tactics and objectives of traditional reform. They were convinced that the liberal approach to 142 | The West Coast Exile

political and economic problems must be transcended, that the New Deal, despite its good intentions hastened the trend toward monopoly and fascism without ending the depression, and that the system of private profit must therefore give way to some form of democratic socialism (Pells 1973, 94). They also demanded a reallocation of wealth and power, a planned economy that would provide a decent standard of living, an elimination of hunger and poverty, and a new set of priorities based on the needs of the community rather than individual advancement. As Pells writes, “Most of these proposals were revolutionary in the context of existing institutions; combined with a broad mass movement, they held out a reasonable hope of transforming American life” (94–­95). In this intellectual climate, Marxism gained significant popularity. While the Communists espoused a dogmatic version of Marxism as articulated by Lenin, Stalin, and other Bolshevik leaders, many left-­ leaning American intellectuals, including Goldenweiser’s friends and colleagues, tried to “Americanize” Marxism. Thus, for example, Max Eastman, the editor of the Masses, argued that conventional Marxism, with its emphasis on the external environment and its faith in the triumph of socialism, left no room for human inventiveness; it deliberately minimized the role of ideas and actions in transforming society. Another important development of the 1930s was the rise of the anti-­ Stalinist Left. Leftist intellectuals (many of them Jewish), like philosopher Sidney Hook (1902–­89), were initially attracted to the Communist Party, but eventually grew disillusioned with its subservience to Stalin and its bureaucratic rigidity and worked on applying Marx to America. Some were attracted to Trotskyism because of his sharp criticism of the political and economic system created by Stalin and his allies in the USSR (Wald 1987; Kutulas 1995). The Communists, however, accepted the Soviet charge that Trotsky was behind the counterrevolutionary activities of most of the leading Bolsheviks put on trial in the late 1930s. They proclaimed that only a reactionary enemy of Soviet Russia would doubt the sincerity of the defendants’ confessions at these trials (Warren 1966, 163–­92). In fact they parroted the Soviet line that Trotsky was really a fascist agent. On the other hand, the anti-­Stalinist radicals and liberals viewed the trials as evidence of Stalin’s betrayal of the ideals of the Russian Revolution. These anti-­Stalinists included socialists and Trotskyites as well The West Coast Exile | 143

as liberals. Other liberals were caught in the middle. Some of the anti-­ Stalinists began to equate the violent and antidemocratic nature of the Soviet regime with that of Hitler. Others continued to insist on their difference, since the goals of the latter were still seen as noble. These dissident intellectuals coalesced around Calverton’s Modern Quarterly and the fledgling Partisan Review (in its 1937 iteration) and went on to wage a full-­scale assault on the ideological foundations of American Communists while also criticizing the liberals. These socialists, Trotskyites, and the left-­leaning intellectuals who sympathized with them were trying to stake out a position that would be both genuinely Marxist and strongly anti-­Stalinist. They saw clearly that the ideals of a socialist revolution were being sacrificed to the needs of Soviet foreign and domestic authoritarian policies. They turned away from the Popular Front and criticized the Communist Party’s alliance with Roosevelt and the New Deal. A number of key figures among American liberals also became disillusioned with Russia in the 1930s. Among them were such prominent intellectuals—­whose opinion mattered to Goldenweiser—­as John Dewey, Horace Kallen, Charles Beard, and Morris Cohen. They denounced not only Bolshevik tactics but those of the cp usa as well. They also began linking fascism and Soviet Communism, with their dictatorial government and coercive control of the state over the individual. For them the show trials reinforced the distinction between dictatorships and democracies, thus providing additional proof that the Stalin and Hitler regimes were alike (Kutulas 1995, 113). By the late 1930s, the liberals and the dissident leftists began to realize that the negative aspects of the Soviet regime were not to be blamed entirely on Stalin but had their origin in the Bolshevik coup itself and in Leninism. They began to blame the one-­party system (and the party’s rigid centralism and bureaucratization) and the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Warren (1966, 15) argues, “By 1934 an articulate body of liberal opinion hostile to both Communism and Fascism had developed.” In this heady ideological and political climate, Goldenweiser managed to carve out his own unique position. Without joining any political party or movement, he continued to criticize the excesses of American capitalism while rejecting Marxism and Communism and identifying similarities between the fascist and Stalinist dictatorships. Continuing 144 | The West Coast Exile

to write and speak on a variety of the hot-­button issues of the 1930s, he also insisted on the importance of defending and safeguarding the political and intellectual rights and freedoms of the individual.

Living and Teaching in Portland Before moving to Oregon to take up his position as Visiting Professor of Thought and Culture at the University of Oregon Extension, Goldenweiser got married in January 1930. His new wife, Ethel Cantor, was born in 1897 and had lived most of her life in Buffalo.1 Her father was a rabbi, and both he and his wife had come to the United States from Poland. Goldie must have met her through her brother Nathaniel Cantor (1898–­1957), a former student of his from Columbia and a friend who taught sociology at suny Buffalo for many years.2 In his letter to Ethel, Leslie White reminisced about attending her wedding celebration at Buffalo’s Statler Hotel (White to Ethel Cantor Goldenweiser, July 12, 1955, lawp). Unlike Shoora’s first marriage, this one was happy and conflict-­free. An older man by now, Goldie no longer sought the company of other women, and Ethel adored him. He dazzled her with his intellectual brilliance as well as his Old World courtly manners. He was known for drinking champagne out of her slipper at parties, while she would ask all the guests to be quiet when he spoke (Dobbin 1986, 55). As Goldie’s brother Emmanuel wrote to his other brother, Alexei, in the wake of Shoora’s passing, “Ethel is suffering a lot. She gave Shoora 10 years of happiness, and she managed to change him without hurting him. She worshipped him” (Emmanuel Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, July 8, 1940, agp). Ethel had begun her college studies in Buffalo but did not complete them. In 1936 she enrolled at Reed College as a junior, with history as her major. Her thesis dealt with Trotsky, and she must have received some advice from her husband on that subject (Ethel Goldenweiser 1937). In the absence of any correspondence between Goldie and Ethel or any written testimony of his feelings toward her, it might be worthwhile to quote from the foreword to his 1930s textbook Anthropology, dedicated to her and in which he acknowledges her contribution to his work: Still another person has contributed her share to make the act of writing possible: my wife, Ethel. Her contribution is the dearer The West Coast Exile | 145

because she is so little aware of it. A man busy upon a book is a formidable animal, best appreciated at a distance. He does not speak, he does not hear, he remembers nothing except irrelevances, namely, things bearing upon the book. To share one’s habitation with such a creature is an achievement little short of the heroic. My wife stood by nobly under the strain. For days and weeks on end she practiced without grumbling the bitter art of self-­effacement. In the words of the Melanesians, she “grew” me, while the book was growing under my hands. To her also I owe the preparation of the list of tribes for the final Map, the list of personal names, and the list of illustrations. (Goldenweiser 1937a, ix–­x) A sign of Shoora’s settling down and achieving some degree of normalcy and stability in his life was the fact of his finally (!) obtaining his U.S. citizenship in 1936. Goldenweiser’s position at the University of Oregon extension was half time and was changed to a three-­quarter time in the late 1930s, not long before he died. As a University of Oregon Extension professor, he really had to stretch, teaching philosophy as well as anthropology, and even offering a course on Western European and Russian history (including the USSR). In order to earn some extra money, he occasionally taught during the summer session as well. In 1933 he landed another half-­time job as a visiting professor of sociology at Portland’s Reed College. Founded in 1908 explicitly in reaction against the prevailing model of East Coast Ivy League colleges, Reed lacked varsity athletics, fraternities, and exclusive social clubs. Moreover, it was coeducational, nonsectarian, and egalitarian and was well known as an intensely academic and intellectual college whose purpose was to devote itself to the life of the mind. In Goldie’s days its enrollment was rather small, which meant a good deal of close interaction between the faculty and the students. In addition to regular courses, students took independent studies and were required to write a senior thesis. Reed’s student body was known for its liberal views. In the 1930s a number of Reed students were Communists. Reed’s unique nature must have appealed to Goldenweiser, and it is no wonder that he developed close ties with many students. In addition to offering introductory courses in anthropology and sociology, he taught 146 | The West Coast Exile

a course on “cultural dynamics” and on “social control,” and another one on the history of sociological theories.3 At some point he offered a course on social psychology (which included discussion of psychoanalysis). He even contemplated giving a course on Russian history, but that plan never materialized. In a letter to his daughter, Goldenweiser joked about the wide array of courses he had to teach in Portland, saying, “I have been telling people that before I leave Oregon (if ever) I shall announce a course on rock gardening, then the list will be complete” (Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, February 4, 1934, lefa). He also conducted tutorials and supervised senior theses. One former student reminisced about him being a “magnificent speaker and a delightful person,” who in a class “did not force his own views on the students but wanted to have them think for themselves” (Dobbin 1986, 54). Anthropologist David French (1918–­94), who studied with Goldenweiser as an undergraduate, recalled: “Goldenweiser was known as a radical, and it was likely that he even had predilections toward anarchism, but he did not force his views on his students, nor even make them aware of them. This would have been contrary to his ideals of the value of education in the propagation of an ideal democracy” (cited in Dobbin 1986, 23–­24). Another former student observed that “each of his lectures was like a beautifully developed and finely written essay, although he rarely used notes. He was a performer, and in each of his performances, whatever the social setting, he made great demands on himself; he wanted to make a great impression” (cited in Dobbin 1986, 56). Doris B. Murphy, who studied with Goldenweiser in the mid-­1930s, remembered him as “a man of tremendous personal charm and magnetism” who was her “guiding star in all things intellectual” (2006, 63, 69). Students recalled long conversations with Goldenweiser in his office. One of his male students mentioned that the two of them would occasionally share a drink of whiskey during those office hours. Trusting their mentor a number of students shared their political views with him. Thus Murphy, who was considering joining the Communist Party, asked him whether she should do it. Goldenweiser took her question very seriously and told her that this might conflict with her plans to become a social worker, a profession in which one should be nonpolitical and respect other people’s ideas. He also said to her, “The main problem for you would be the secrecy. For now, the American Communist Party is not well thought The West Coast Exile | 147

of in contemporary society. This country is not yet ready for the Revolution, so that the members must keep a lot of secrets. You would have trouble with that. You are open and forthright, and say what you think. Keeping political secrets would be hard for you” (76). Another way Goldie endeared students to himself was by giving frequent parties for them at his home, where the starved undergraduates would be stuffed with delicious Russian-­style food and entertained by Goldenweiser playing the piano and singing Iroquois songs while wearing an Iroquois bonnet. Although some former students and at least one former Reed colleague of Goldie’s, interviewed by Dobbin (1986), said that he was liked and respected by the faculty, some other students said that he was actually not very well liked and kept to himself, not socializing with the faculty. They thought that the reason for this was his stature as a scholar, which was higher than that of most of his colleagues and might have made at least some of them jealous. Goldenweiser also must have been annoying to his Reed colleagues and especially the administration because of his work habits: failing to appear for office hours, not attending faculty meetings, and not submitting his grades on time (David French to Christopher Winters, March 21, 1990, rca). There was one colleague, however, with whom he maintained friendly relations—­a professor of history by the name of Reginald F. Arragon (1891–­1986), his regular pool partner. Goldenweiser’s political views, which were considered rather radical even at Reed, must have played a role in his never being given a permanent full-­time appointment there.4 In a 1938 letter to his daughter, he mentioned a major labor dispute taking place in Oregon at the time and hinted at his and his wife’s involvement. In his words, “Things have been so . . . as to the labor affairs here lately that I fully expect that at least one of us (& Ethel claims the privilege) will land in jail. Governor [Charles Henry] Martin is putting on a reaction act a la Hitler. And so it goes . . .” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, April 10, 1938, lefa). Reed’s president, Dexter Merriam Keezer (1934–­42), had a reputation of being politically conservative. Nonetheless, when Alfred Powers, the dean and director of General Extension at the University of Oregon, told him that someone had questioned Goldenweiser’s fitness to teach on the ground of “his social and economic radicalism,” Keezer defended him. Describing him as a distinctive scholar and teacher in a letter to Powers, Keezer pointed out that Goldenweiser discussed “the 148 | The West Coast Exile

materials with which he deals in a scholarly, dispassionate and totally unbiased manner” (Keezer to Powers, August 23, 1935, rca). Another reason for the Reed administration’s reluctance to turn Goldenweiser’s position into a full-­time one must have been his age. Although an experienced lecturer, Goldenweiser resented the uncertainty of his job situation in Portland as well as the amount of teaching he had to do. It also appears that the quality of his students at the University of Oregon Extension was not what he would have liked. He salary there was also rather low. He wrote to Ruth Benedict in 1931 about teaching at the University of Oregon, “I did the usual summer session (rather awkward I fear, as I was dead tired). Meanwhile academic year is impending with the usual over-­doze of lectures and worse than usual under-­doze of salary. The people here simply cannot raise the funds to carry my work. So we are hoping to get out at the earliest opportunity” (Goldenweiser to Benedict, September 26, 1931, rbp). The situation improved in 1933, when Goldenweiser was hired by Reed: the quality of the students was definitely higher than at the University of Oregon Extension. Nonetheless he was still not satisfied: the amount of teaching he had to do at the two institutions combined was simply too much for an aging man whose health was far from good. The absence of graduate students also bothered him. In addition both he and his wife did not like Portland, which they viewed as a provincial backwater.5 Goldenweiser summed up his feelings about all of this in a 1936 letter to Boas: Our life in Portland is nothing to brag about. The town is a godforsaken hole in most things. No theater, no music, few books, and seedy people.6 Ethel resents all this even more than I do. Moreover, the work, tho [sic] interesting, and at times exciting for an old workhorse like myself is entirely too elementary and there is too much of it. I am doing twenty hours per week of regular talking—­too much even for a tartar constitution! My job is a double one: mornings and afternoons at Reed College (a fine progressive institution by the way), & three long evenings a week at the University of Oregon, Portland Extension (adult classes). I have all sorts of ideas and plans for writing but shall not make much headway along this line, until a job comes with less talking The West Coast Exile | 149

and more time for thought & writing (it seems at times that this even will be posthumous). (Goldenweiser to Boas, August 8, 1936, fbp) In order to get out of Portland, to see his colleagues and friends, have a chance to teach more advanced students, and—­as always—­to supplement his very modest salary, Goldenweiser looked for any additional teaching he could get elsewhere. Thus, in the summer of 1935 he taught at Stanford as a visiting professor of sociology (offering an anthropology course and another one on social control), while the following summer he was at suny Buffalo as a lecturer. During the academic year 1937–­ 38, he taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, replacing Ralph Linton (1893–­1953), who had left for Columbia in 1937. At Madison Goldenweiser’s courses were attended by two left-­wing young Jewish men who later made a name for themselves as major writers and intellectuals. One of them was none other than Saul Bellow (1915–­2005), who studied anthropology as an undergraduate at Northwestern and got a fellowship to attend the University of Wisconsin’s graduate program. He was very much taken in by Goldie. In a 1937 letter to a friend, sent from Madison, he wrote: You ought to meet Goldenweiser. . . . A perfect cosmopolite, a perfect intellect. He knows as much Picasso as he does Tshimshian religion, he knows Mozart as well as Bastian, and Thomism as well as Polynesia. You ought to see the books that line his shelves. Next to Kroeber stands Sidney Hook, and Lenin, and of course many of Trotsky’s pamphlets. He can open up a seminar and discuss for an hour the anthropological thinking of Elisée Reclus, the anarchist geographer, the great friend of Kropotkin. He is a piano virtuoso, an esthetician, a Bolshevik, a deeply cultured man. (Taylor 2010, 9) Years later Bellow reminisced in an interview that Goldenweiser had told him that he was not cut out for science and advised him to leave anthropology for literature: his papers had too much style. “It was a nice way of easing me out of the field,” he said. As for Goldenweiser himself, Bellow recalled that he “played Chopin and wept. He was very Chekhovian. The old boy’s heart was really in literature. Every time I

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worked on my [ma] thesis, it turned out to be a story. I disappeared for the Christmas holidays and I never came back” (Bellow et al. 1994, 4, 14). So it seems that we might thank Goldie for encouraging Bellow to become a writer instead of an academic. The other student was Bellow’s friend Isaac Rosenfeld (1918–­56), who was doing graduate work in philosophy. He, too, was enamored with Goldie and wrote that he considered him “along with Shish-­Kebab as one of the finer things in life” (Zipperstein 2009, 40). Goldenweiser was hoping that his visiting appointment at Madison might turn into a permanent one. However, someone else was appointed instead, and he had to return to Portland (Goldenweiser to Benedict, April 10, 1938, rbp). Earlier Goldenweiser had some hope that his summer term at Stanford might turn into a permanent appointment as well, but that did not happen. As he wrote to his brother Alexei, “My Stanford plans have not materialized so far—­ there is no money. At least this is the official version. But I think my advanced age is the main reason at both Stanford and Madison. . . . In a couple of years, I will have to pass any plans of obtaining a permanent academic position to my successors” (Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, February 22, 1938, agp). Among Goldenweiser’s various public lectures and gigs, there was an interesting one that brought him to Dallas, Texas in the spring of 1935. He described his experience in a letter to his daughter: Alice, my dear girl, for the last 5 weeks I have been in this place, new to me. I accepted a call from the Institute of Social Service, here in Dallas, lecturing on Social Psychology to social workers under the F.E.R.A. [Federal Emergency Relief Administration]. The arrangements [at Reed and the University of Oregon Extension] to enable me to go, were rather complicated. . . . All this proved decidedly worthwhile: the community is really quite exciting. The people are, of course, [illegible] full of all sort of prejudices, but also they are willing to hear the other side (on religion, race, sex) & take criticism without flinching. They are, moreover, most cordial & hospitable. So that, all in all, we had a wonderful time although, as usual, I have been working my head off. (Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, May 8, 1935, lefa)

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While Goldenweiser agreed to return to Reed in 1938, he was anxious to have his appointment changed into a regular one, so as not to have to worry about his renewal every year. As he wrote to Reed’s president from Madison, “It’s time to end my tentative status at the college, abolish the ‘visiting’ status and give me the security of a permanent appointment, even though to be a half job, if need be” (Goldenweiser to Keezer, January 23, 1938, rca). Somehow Reed students found out about this situation, and over two hundred of them signed a petition to the college president, the faculty, and the board of regents and trustees asking to have Goldenweiser’s position made full time. The petition referred to him as a “distinctive intellectual asset” and an “outstanding professor and scholar” (Reed College Archive). Unfortunately, the faculty of Goldenweiser’s division decided not to make the change; instead, they had his appointment reduced to one-­third and made 1938–­39 his last year. To add insult to injury, the college appointed a much younger anthropologist, Marvin Opler (1914–­81), to teach full time in his division as instructor. Goldie described his predicament in a letter to Benedict: The Reed situation is quite definitely established now. I owe to teach there on one third time this year (two third time at Portland Extension) and am to step out in spring 1939. What then? Well, my ‘bodily needs’ are not endangered. If it comes to the worst even 2/3 time at Extension (on that I can definitely count on) is enough to live on—­moreover, the chances are that I shall have full time there which will financially leave me about where I am now. But doing [illegible] teaching some fourteen hours a week on an elementary (almost subelementary) level without any chance of graduate work worthy of any name or of subjects beyond baby-­feed. I confess that my appetite for this sort of fare is decidedly moderate. (Goldenweiser to Benedict, July 25, 1938, rbp) In the end his appointment at the University of Oregon Extension became full-­time, which meant a very heavy teaching load. As he described in a letter to his daughter: “I am now at the Portland Extension (full time) & shall give five courses & a graduate seminar next winter. To wit: Elementary Sociology, Anthropology (Racial Problems), Culture History of Russia, History of Social Thought & Six Modern Philosophers (James, 152 | The West Coast Exile

Bergson, Dewey, Russell, Santayana & M. R. Cohen) & seminar on Social Theory” (Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, 1939, lefa). All through the 1930s, Goldenweiser repeatedly asked his colleagues and friends to help him find a professorship somewhere else, but in 1939 his situation became particularly desperate. In a 1939 letter to Robert Redfield (1897–­1958), a professor of anthropology and a dean at the University of Chicago, he asked about the possibility of teaching at Chicago in the summer. He described “these occasional episodes in the Eastern thereabouts” as “a breath of fresh air” to him, with a proximity of a good library being an extra bonus. He offered to teach an advanced course in anthropology, such as Ethnological Theory or History of Anthropological Theories and some similar course in sociology, such as Social Theory, History of Sociological Theory, or Social Theory and Social Action. He went on to say: Apart from this I am still hoping (being an incurable optimist) that before the end of the century I might secure a roving professorship somewhere in the East (perhaps in Chicago). Specializing in the in-­between is becoming more and more of an addiction with me and I feel that in such a position my usefulness could be at the maximum, while leaving me enough time for writing. When ideas are not being recorded, they have a way of multiplying at an alarming rate, so alarming in fact as to outrun the very possibility of recording unless caught in time. (Goldenweiser to Redfield, May 21, 1939, rrp) Unfortunately for Goldenweiser, there were no opportunities for summer teaching at the University of Chicago. His last letter to an old friend, Morris R. Cohen, a philosophy professor at City College in New York, written only seven months before he died, speaks for itself: I find myself more and more disgusted with my job here in Portland, now that I have relinquished Reed and find myself a general wet nurse and Madchen fur Alles, at the Portland Extension Center, where I administer pre-­digested baby syrup for five long sessions a week.7 Could you do anything to set wheels turning that might land me a professorship (of anything but astronomy) at the City College, The West Coast Exile | 153

or any of its branches? You know, of course, that for some years past residence in New York has been “unhealthy” for me (as that in St. Petersburg was once for Pushkin).8 But years have rolled by and I now feel confident that I would be in a position to pay for my way to immunity from molestation.9 Please devote some thought to this matter as I fear that otherwise I shall find myself prompted before long to close shop and dry up altogether. (Goldenweiser to Cohen, November 2, 1939, mrcp) With almost no colleagues at Reed or University of Oregon Extension to interact with, Goldie had a particularly strong need to reach out to his friends and colleagues at other institutions. For this reason he reestablished ties and a regular correspondence with his old friend Lowie, who was now within driving distance. As Lowie reminisced in the mid-­1950s in correspondence with Leslie White, while a certain level of cordiality was restored in their relationship, they were not as intimate as they were in the first decade of the twentieth century in New York.10 Goldenweiser also interacted and corresponded with Kroeber and with some social scientists at Stanford and ucla. He also attended regional conferences in various social sciences held on the West Coast. Generally speaking he and Ethel preferred spending summers—­whenever he was not teaching—­in San Francisco or Los Angeles. In a letter to his sister, Lowie described Goldie’s experience of attending a social science conference in San Francisco in 1933 and his interaction with his colleagues there: “Shoora feels, of course, that he’s something of an exile in a provincial town, but seems to be happy in his conjugal relations. . . . Last night Kroeber took him and me to the “Moscow” and Shoora was delighted, talking Russian to all the waitresses, eating with gusto the flaming beef a la Stroganoff, and humming the folk-­tunes and the balalaika—­not to ignore the Cossack dagger dance and the Gypsy [?] dance. He looks a good deal older, complains mainly of the lack of books and technical journals in Portland” (Robert Lowie to Risa Lowie, June 16, 1933, rhlp). Goldie developed a new “coastal” friendship in the 1930s with another student of Boas, Melville Jacobs (1902–­71), who was teaching anthropology at the University of Washington in nearby Seattle. He and Goldie must have met in New York in the early 1920s, either when Mel (as he was 154 | The West Coast Exile

known to his friends) was doing his undergraduate work in philosophy at City College with Goldie’s old friend Morris R. Cohen, or in the mid-­ 1920s, when Jacobs enrolled in the graduate program in anthropology at Columbia. In any case the Melville Jacobs Papers at the University of Washington Library contain voluminous correspondence between the two men. The Goldenweisers enjoyed visiting Mel and his wife, Elizabeth (Beth), and made fairly frequent trips from Portland to Seattle. They also often spent holidays and celebrated birthdays together. Goldie gave an occasional public lecture in Seattle, and Jacobs borrowed books for him from the University of Washington Library. He, in turn, helped organize Mel’s guest lectures in his classes at the University of Oregon Extension and at Reed and even arranged for his younger colleague to teach a course in the summer session there. Jacobs used that opportunity not only to make some extra money but to conduct ethnographic and linguistic research among Oregon’s Native Americans, which was his specialty. Besides anthropology Shoora and Mel had other common interests: piano (Mel had studied at Julliard) and left-­wing politics (Mel was a member of the Communist Party). A sample letter from their correspondence conveys the nature and the “flavor” of Goldie’s relationship with his younger friend: “Mel, old boy, we are leaving here Sunday morning & expect to stay until next Thursday morning. O.K.? I am all pepped up at the opportunity to give a Russian touch (shall we say, not too disreputable?) to the New Year’s party (wherever and whoever). Until then, my best—­Shoora” (Goldenweiser to Jacobs, n.d., mjp). As far as his colleagues in the East, Goldenweiser maintained a regular correspondence with Ruth Benedict, discussing his own writing, asking questions about her research and about mutual colleagues, including Boas. As for his correspondence with Boas, it was almost nonexistent. One can imagine that, after the messy divorce saga, in which Boas played such a major role, Goldie was rather reluctant to communicate with his old mentor. In a letter dated August 8, 1936, Goldenweiser not only complained about his life in Portland but asked Boas’s permission to use some of the texts he had published and illustrations from his Primitive Art for the new textbook in anthropology Goldenweiser was working on. About a year later he sent Boas a copy of that book. In response Boas thanked him and then made a peculiar request: being interested in the question of whether the width of a person’s face increased with The West Coast Exile | 155

age, he asked Goldenweiser to get his face measured and send him the results (Boas to Goldenweiser, May 24, 1937, fbp). Goldenweiser obliged. It seems that Boas was keeping a certain distance from his wayward former student. A bright spot in Goldenweiser’s life in the 1930s was a renewed relationship with his daughter, Alice. Sometime in 1934 they established correspondence, with frequent and very warm letters from “Shoora” (as he often signed his letters instead of “Father”) sent to Alice.11 A letter he sent to his daughter on the occasion of her twentieth birthday conveys the tone of his correspondence, while also telling us something interesting about his own youth: You are about to be twenty, Alice dear,—­drink it to the full! There is nothing to compare with it, although we seldom realize it until much much later. When I was twenty (& just at this time of the year) I came to America with my father. All my life, all my affections, all my knowledge (such as it was), were still in Russia, nineteenth century Russia. The war was still far ahead, kings were sitting firmly on their thrones, or so they thought, the twentieth century was a baby just beginning to talk—­little did it know what the Fates had in store for it, & it for humanity. Well, much water has flown under the bridge since then, & much blood. But life goes on, & hope is still with us & with you, people of twenty, won’t you show us the way? Your father. (Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, September 15, 1934, lefa) Another letter of Shoora’s to Alice sheds light on his scholarly interests and broader concerns about world affairs. He wrote: “My own interests now are centered on problems of social control, the introduction of the social sciences into school education, the dictatorships as horrible examples as to what happens when human liberties are permitted to go to seed. How can one help pondering over all this when the world is so badly in need of wisdom & guidance? Civilization itself is cracking, & unless we do something about it & do it fast, it may leave us altogether” (Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, January 13, 1935, lefa). Alice attended Barnard, majoring in dance and graduating in 1935. While in her twenties, she danced with the Martha Graham Group, but 156 | The West Coast Exile

not for long. Her long-­time career was at New York State Employment Service’s Professional Placement Service, where she was a manager, helping professionals who needed to switch paths (Leslie English, personal communication, November 2020). Another close relative who reentered Goldie’s life in the late 1930s was his youngest brother, Alexei (Alexis, Alya), who immigrated to the United States from Berlin along with his wife, Eugenia (Zhenia), in late December 1937. During this period the two brothers met several times and exchanged letters. As Shoora wrote to his daughter in the spring of 1938, “I recently had a couple of letters from Alya who was in N.Y. for a week trying to get acquainted & pave the way for future employment of some sort. The outlook is not any too bright. Well, at any rate he is interestingly busy and thoroughly safe which is more than one could have said of his life in Berlin (have you seen him?). Now that he & I have become re-­acquainted, I am growing awfully fond of the boy. I think he is utterly charming (his other qualities apart)” (Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, 1938, lefa). Initially Shoora tried to help his brother obtain an academic position by appealing to his colleagues in the social sciences; there was even some discussion of Alya going to law school in the United States. Eventually, however, he made a modest living as a lawyer, helping Russian and Russian Jewish refugees come from Europe to America. He also played a prominent role in New York’s Russian and Russian Jewish émigré communities (see Budnitskii 2020; Alexis Goldenweiser 1952; Frumkin, Aronson, and Alexis Goldenweiser 1966). Encouraged and assisted by Alexei, Goldie provided affidavits for a number of Russian Jews trying to escape from Europe to the United States.12

Scholarly Works of the 1930s Goldenweiser’s most original work of this period is a rather brief paper, “Loose Ends of Theory on the Individual, Pattern, and Involution in Primitive Society,” solicited by Lowie for the Kroeber festschrift (1936). Building on Goldenweiser’s earlier ideas about the individual and culture, the paper begins by emphasizing “the existence of full-­fledged individuality among primitives”: that there is significant room for self-­ expression in traditional non-­Western societies (99). As the author points out, despite the dominance of cultural patterns over religious or artistic creativity, the latter do exist. In his words, in “primitive society” The West Coast Exile | 157

personal experience is nonsubstitutive, noninterchangeable. It is one’s own, and there the matter ends. What may be the content of such experience, whether wholly conventional, or truly original, or a bit of each, is an entirely different problem. Whatever the content, it is one’s own, and counts as such. However narrowly limited acts, thoughts, skills may be, however objectively similar as between one man and the next, to each one, as he acts, performs, thinks, dreams, dances, sings, or prays, each of these episodes counts as one rung in the ladder of his life, as something he identifies himself with, something his own effort has gone into, an experience to be remembered, with pride, joy, or horror. Nor is there, from this angle, any significant difference between religious, narrowly social, or mainly personal situations. Envisaged as experiences, all situations are individual, and as such, unique, personal, historical. Society apart, man, not being a robot, lives—­as an individual. (100–­101) Similarly, he argues, even though cultural patterns limit individual variation, they do not preclude individual creativity. As he puts it, “From this angle primitive society is like a school of the arts of life, where competition is keen, and performance, though uniform in aim, is varied in excellence. There is no drabness in such a life. It has about it all the allurements of personal experience, very much one’s own, of competitive skill, of things well done” (101–­2). In this passage, which eloquently extolls the presence of great creativity in the so-­called primitive society, we hear echoes of Radin (1927) as well as Malinowski (1935), whose work interested Goldenweiser a great deal. Finally, Goldenweiser comes to what he at first describes as a “peculiarity of primitive cultures.” What he has in mind is a process of how, within a cultural form dominated by a particular pattern, further changes can still take place. They do so by working inward to draw forth greater internal complexity without transformations that are qualitatively different and have no bearing on their origins. In his analysis Goldenweiser first draws on Maori art but then also brings in an example from Western culture: the ornateness of the late Gothic cathedral. He points out that in both cases the basic art form has reached its finality, and that its structural features are established only as variations. In other words, here originality as invention is exhausted. Elaboration 158 | The West Coast Exile

still goes on, but without inventive transformations. Another wonderful example of this process used by Goldenweiser is a Bach fugue. In it there is a deliberate limitation on invention; thus the melodic elements are repeated, combined, and recombined, and “the result is a highly complex musical texture; so complex, in fact, as frequently to confuse the ear, unless unusually musical or experienced. This feature stands out in bald relief especially when compared, say, with Beethoven, where elaboration or combination of basic melodic elements is not abandoned but supplemented by continued melodic invention” (1936, 104). Goldenweiser called this process of internal elaboration of an existing pattern, rather than a change from one pattern to another, “involution”: a concept used by Clifford Geertz (1963) in his well-­known and much-­cited analysis of Javanese agriculture under the colonial rule (see also Yengoyan 2009). Of the three books published by Goldenweiser in the 1930s, the most truly original one was a slim volume without an academic-­style bibliography or footnotes. Titled Robots or Gods: An Essay on Craft and Mind (1931c), it was published by Alfred A. Knopf in its series The Human Mind.13 In his foreword to the book, the author pointed out that the basic ideas for it were born in the mid-­1920s, as was much of the writing; additional elaboration occurred in the late 1920s. Referring undoubtedly to the troubles brought about by his divorce, Goldenweiser described that period as “years of great psychic tension and physical discomfort, which may account for the somewhat personal flavor as well as the didactic form” of the book. For the same reason he chose to forgo footnotes, “a partial substitute for which may be found in the rather copious quotations preceding each chapter” (ii). While describing the work as a “personal contribution,” he noted that “the discerning will not fail to note glimpses of the thought of James Branch Cabell, John Dewey and George Santayana” (ii).14 In an undated 1930 letter to his friend Morris Cohen, Goldenweiser described the aim of this book: “It is an attempt to analyze the two trends in mental operation: one, leading to objectivity and re-­identification with nature (‘nature projecting itself into mind’), the other, consisting of intuitive leaps heading into a world of spiritual values (‘mind projecting itself into nature’)” (Goldenweiser to Cohen, 1930, mrcp). The best way to characterize this book would be to call it a work of social The West Coast Exile | 159

psychology. Its theme is defined as a contrast between the “craft mind” and the “intuitive mind.” “Craft mind” is practical conduct, which functions as an instrument while “intuitive mind” is mental behavior that is not instrumental, that is not as much disciplined by experience as the “craft mind.” This dichotomy is explored by Goldenweiser in a variety of phenomenal fields, where it becomes a whole series of related pairs of opposites (Redfield 1931, 510). Such opposites include, for example, the artisan and the magician (or the “religionist”), the craftsman and the scientist. An interesting chapter deals with this difference as it is revealed in language, where the instrumental character of grammar is contrasted with the expressive nature of words. Grammar, according to Goldenweiser, is a tool to deal with experience; it is impersonal, and its categories are simply convenient. On the other hand, with words, one expresses one’s self: Grammar is limited but precise, whereas word meanings, children of intuition, are rich but vague. When we say “he spoke,” “he speaks,” “he will speak,” little is conveyed, but what is conveyed is conveyed: there can be no doubt about it, the message is precise. But when we say “he is kind,” or “he is handsome,” or “I love him,” the rich content of these words conveys but the faintest idea, it is a hint, rather than a message, and the implied meaning varies according to the age, sex, experience, disposition or intent of the speaker and is received by the one spoken to with similar variations in interpretation. Words appear in a fringe of conceptual and emotional overtones. Informing and deceiving, rich, playful, capricious and exasperating, they dance on in a perpetual masquerade as none too faithful servitors of man’s madness, in striking contrast to grammar which, removed from the glare and turmoil of consciousness, punctiliously fulfils its drab quotidian labours as a tool of communication. (1931c, 107) As Robert Brightman recently pointed out (personal communication, February 20, 2021), Goldenweiser’s “ruminations on vocabulary are interestingly convergent with earlier and later writing on disorder and irony in language.” At the same time, his “exile of grammar from emotion, creativity, and ambiguity” does not make much sense, considering 160 | The West Coast Exile

active versus passive voice, Russian formal and informal pronouns, and so forth (Goldenweiser 1931c). The book concludes with a subtle critique of the modern industrial order, in which “society, material and spiritual, begins to move in the direction of a socialized Super-­Robot, built after the pattern of a machine” (Goldenweiser 1931c, 131). Moreover, according to the author, a tension between the “craft mind” and the “intuitive mind,” which existed in all human societies, “is assuming critical proportions” in the “Age of the Machines.” In Goldenweiser’s words, “The behaviouristic leanings of institutionalism have never before found such ready support in the prevailing disposition and ideology of organized society. The spectre of complete mechanization may be a mere bugaboo, but there is no gainsaying the fact that the symbol of the machine, with all it stands for, is serving as a beacon to the dominant movement of modern society” (138). Here the words of Goldenweiser, a romantic anarchist and individualist, remind us of those of his contemporary and fellow anthropologist, Edward Sapir, who juxtaposed “genuine” and “spurious” cultures (1924). They also dovetail with a number of critiques of the increased mechanization and bureaucratization of American society found in the works of the social scientists in the 1930s and beyond (see, e.g., Riesman 1950). Robots or Gods is both a scholarly work and a work of literature—­the only one of this kind Goldenweiser ever wrote. Here is a passage marked by a flight of his poetic imagination: “The true scientist walks with the stars before he learns to chain them to his telescope, he dreams the spectacle of the emergence of the species hitting upon natural selection as a process, he lies awake nights with his conclusions before transforming them into demonstrable truths” (1931c, 48). Robots or Gods appears to have been well received by Goldenweiser’s colleagues but had very few reviews. Kroeber reacted to it in a letter to Goldie: “I read ‘Robots’ this summer and liked. It is written with fervor and eloquence. The comparison of handcrafts and language is a new point and I think a good one. I can see why the book made no great splash. There is feeling enough in it to drive away the professional, and reasoning enough to discourage the man who wants mere literature. You had therefore to accept a small circle of readers. But what of it? It is a well done job and you are satisfied” (Kroeber to Goldenweiser, September 4, 1931, alkp). The West Coast Exile | 161

Goldenweiser’s second book published in the 1930s was a textbook. Titled Anthropology: an Introduction to Primitive Culture (1937a), it differed rather significantly from the 1922 textbook (reissued in 1927). Compared to its earlier incarnation, the 1937 textbook opens with part 1 (“Animal, Man, and Culture”), devoted to the discussion of man from the point of view of physical anthropology and psychology; it also deals with the issue of race. All of these topics were covered only very briefly in Early Civilization. On the other hand, in the new textbook the author eliminated the case studies chapters, which gave an overview of individual cultures. His discussion of the various aspects of culture—­from technology to religion—­is amply illustrated with examples from more recent ethnographic studies of such scholars as Bronislaw Malinowski and Margaret Mead. Despite its subtitle and the fact that most of the material presented in this textbook pertains to non-­Western (i.e., so-­called primitive) cultures, Goldenweiser repeatedly makes references to the modern Western culture. From comparison between a primitive inventor and Thomas Edison, to examples of “superstition” in modern society and the “supernatural halo” that is associated with a successful physician, he reminds the reader that our own culture is not unique. At the same time, a certain tone of nostalgia colors his description of “primitive life,” a sense that the modern one lacks something in comparison with it: The tribal old man, steeped in tradition, is an artist, after a fashion, and an art critic. He is an expert in form and a keen censor of the fitness of things. Those familiar at first hand with traditional cultures know the charm of such a personage; there is wisdom here and dignity, considered judgment, inflexible conviction, a matured sense of values. One immersed in the modern world where change is common and the necessity for change a favourite slogan, knows only too well that many current values are not worth preserving, but he is likely to forget that the sense that existing values are worth preserving is a great asset; it is itself a cultural value. Living for the future breeds enthusiasm and keeps one on the go; but it is likely to detract from one’s appreciation and enjoyment of the present in which, when all is said, one must live. The primitives live by the past but also in and for the present. Theirs is a restricted life and a small world. Space and time have cut it to a slight scale, but 162 | The West Coast Exile

it has wholeness, this world of the primitives, and depth, and the wholesome feel of immediacy. With an ardour unmarred by criticism or vision, the primitives make the best of the here and now. Comparisons are invidious. Something is lost, something is gained. Viewed without prejudice, it is a life, not unworthy of humans and possessing a charm all its own. (1937a, 425–­26) Two entirely new chapters were added to the new textbook: one dealing with ethnographic fieldwork and another, titled “The White Man’s Burden,” describing the devastating effects of Western colonialism on Indigenous peoples and their cultures. Such coverage was unusual for an anthropology textbook of the 1930s, and it revealed the author’s political views quite clearly. In it Western conquest of Indigenous peoples is characterized as “bloody, conscienceless, and devastating to the natives,” while economic exploitation is said to be “the prime object and major outcome” of the expansion of white civilization (Goldenweiser 1937a, 427). In Goldenweiser’s words, “The next outcome of these historic events represents perhaps the ugliest and most shameful chapter in the history of mankind Natives were massacred, exploited, pauperized, and speaking generally, they have been permitted or induced to lose their culture and to degenerate physically” (428). Such a critique of Western colonialism was stronger than most Boasians were willing to express, and it prefigured the ideas of the New Left historians of the 1950s–­60s, such as William Appleman Williams (1969), and possibly even the studies of settler colonialism of the last decades (Matthew Bokovoy, personal communication, April 1, 2021). A portion of the same chapter is devoted to the measures undertaken by the Indian administration under commissioner John Collier. Before describing the Indian Reorganization Act, Goldenweiser offers a very strong condemnation of the General Allotment act of 1887, characterizing it as “a weapon of cultural destruction.” The ira, then, is described as a tool of reversing the detrimental effects of allotment on Native American economy and society. While expressing his deep sympathy with the spirit of the ira and the practical efforts of the Collier administration, Goldenweiser expresses his doubts about “the possibility at this late date of saving the culture and the creativeness of the Indians along the old lines.” As he puts it, “The material aspects of the situation can certainly The West Coast Exile | 163

be relieved and built up, the self-­respect of the Indian can be restored, but the idea of native cultures existing safely, happily, and creatively in our midst somehow does not fit into my own view of the nature and the possibilities of our civilization. I hope that I am wrong and that John Collier is right” (1937a, 439).15 Thus, Goldenweiser retained his earlier pessimistic view of the future of the American Indian. In fact his only publication dealing with Native Americans other than the Iroquois, titled “Culture of the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest,” offers a classic Boasian overview of a regional culture of Native Americans without any discussion of their present-­day life. The only statement on the latter subject reads: “It will therefore be understood that the facts here described no longer represent a living reality. They linger on as recollections of a few old men. The sons and grandsons of these mighty hunters and fishermen, warriors and shamans of old are now employed in fisheries and canneries, working for a pittance for the white man. Of the white man’s presence they partake but a little, and to the Indian past they belong not at all” (1940a, 137). The last part of the Goldenweiser textbook, titled “The Ways of Culture,” deals with various theories of the development and the spread of culture, including independent invention and diffusion. The book ends with a discussion of the idea of progress, so popular among many social scientists, past and present. Goldenweiser insists on the notion that progress is a relative concept, and that the West can hardly be characterized as experiencing uniform progress in all of its cultural spheres. Once again we hear the voice of Goldenweiser, an anthropologist and a social critic: However warmly we might feel towards the superiorities of our Western civilization, the fact is only too patent that our scientific and technological development, flowing directly or indirectly from the advancement of the exact and natural sciences in the nineteenth century, is far ahead of our habits and notions in matters social, political, economic, and moral, and is characterized by a far more rapid rhythm of change. This discrepancy is in fact so conspicuous as to be generally and rightly recognized as one of the most serious evils and puzzling problems of the present moment in history. (1937a, 523) 164 | The West Coast Exile

Another important project of the 1930s was a large volume titled History, Psychology, and Culture (1933a), which consisted exclusively of previously published works, including Goldenweiser’s 1910 study of totemism; a series of papers on psychology and culture; an evaluation of the theoretical contributions of the likes of Lévi-­Bruhl, Wundt, and Freud; and papers dealing with race and education. Although Goldenweiser claimed to have “mercilessly” edited the essays appearing in this volume, his reviewers claimed that the revisions had been relatively minor. Generally speaking the response of critics to this collection was mixed. Lowie, for example, while giving Goldenweiser credit for his work on totemism and kinship and also agreeing with his “insistence on the study of the subjective attitudes of the culture-­bearers in addition to the external course of culture history,” criticized his “recurrent emphasis on ‘psychological’ methods, postulates, settings, and what not” (1934, 114). In Lowie’s view, “There is only one fruitful way of connecting anthropology with psychology,—­through the harnessing of scientific psychology for the more accurate definition and ultimate illumination of ethnographic data. Boas’s, Kroeber’s, Spier’s, Wissler’s concern with motor activities of primitive tribes, my own attempts to apply the principle of individual differences and Fechner’s ideas on experimental aesthetics, are steps in this direction; and every clinical discovery bearing on ‘visionary’ experiences potentially adds to an understanding of our facts” (114–­ 15).16 Lowie’s final verdict is ambiguous: he praises Goldenweiser for being “an acute and accomplished writer,” but characterizes him not as an anthropologist but as a “liaison officer of the social sciences” (115). Ruth Benedict’s review was more laudatory than Lowie’s; she argued that the earlier works reprinted in this volume had stood the test of time quite well (Benedict 1933). Reviews by psychoanalytically oriented anthropologists, such as Géza Róheim (1933) and Abram Kardiner (1933), were much more measured. Several papers published by Goldenweiser in the last decade of his life dealt with his favorite topic: social science theory. One of them, titled “Nature and Tasks of the Social Sciences” (1936–­37), appeared in the Journal of Social Philosophy, a quarterly established in the mid-­1930s and devoted to “the philosophic synthesis of the social sciences,” on whose advisory board Goldenweiser served. Another dealt with the subject of causality in the natural and the social sciences (1938). The West Coast Exile | 165

A number of papers written by Goldenweiser in the late 1930s appeared posthumously. One such set of papers represented his contribution to a collection of essays titled Contemporary Social Theory and edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, Howard Becker, and Frances Bennett Becker (1940). The volume was actually dedicated to Goldenweiser, “a gentleman and a scholar,” who had contributed three chapters: a chapter on Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert titled “The Relation of the Natural Sciences to the Social Sciences”; another chapter, dealing with the contributions of psychoanalysis to the interpretation of social facts; and a third, addressing the main contributions of anthropology to social theory. The chapter dealing with the view of Dilthey and Rickert on the social sciences along with references to their ideas sprinkled throughout Goldenweiser’s writing of the 1930s suggests the development of a strong interest in the German school of neo-­Kantian hermeneutics. The chapter on psychoanalysis reiterates Goldenweiser’s earlier critique of Freud’s interpretation of “primitive culture” and concludes: Freud’s partial failure to contribute constructively to an understanding of the crowd, totemism, religion, civilization, is due, in the last analysis, to the fact that psychoanalysis, as a general theory of the mind, is, basically and emphatically, a system of individual psychology. To make it function as a tool of social study, it must be supplemented by specifically social factors. This Freud refused to do. Instead, he bridged the gap between the individual and the social or cultural by introducing, together with several of his colleagues in analysis, the concept of racial unconscious. (1940d, 422–­23) Despite this indictment of Freud, Goldenweiser ends his chapter on anthropology with the following conclusion: “It does not seem premature to hope that psychiatry, particularly psychoanalysis, purged of its own aberrations by the broadening anthropological vision, may yet show the sociologists and cultural anthropologists the way to a deeper insight into what is suggested by their own material” (1940b, 490). The third chapter also offers a detailed overview of the history of anthropology, from its precursors in ancient Greece through eighteenth-­ century philosophers to nineteenth-­century evolutionists and more recent diffusionists. Of special interest, in my view, is the latter part of 166 | The West Coast Exile

this chapter, which examines “the heuristic concepts of American ethnology.” Here Goldenweiser takes issue with such critics of Boas’s own anthropological work as Kroeber and Radin, who viewed it as not being historical. Goldie’s own view is that it is in fact historical. In his words, “To the best of my knowledge and understanding, based on eighteen years of association and many more literary contacts, Boas’s orientation is ‘historical’ in the sense in which I understand the term and in which it is understood by many historians with whose work I am familiar. If Boas is at times overcautious in his estimate of historical reconstruction, this is due to his dislike of speculative constructs, but does not argue against his historical point of view” (1940b, 462). Goldenweiser also offers a cautiously positive evaluation of the diffusionist approach and the culture area concept. On the one hand, he describes the latter as “an important sociological concept with an objective and a psychological reference.” On the other, the author points out that this concept, “although rooted in realistic features, is not wholly free from certain elements of subjectivity. The evaluation of the traits selected and to a degree even the very selection of certain traits as characteristic of an area, are based on judgments which are, within limits, subject to the caprice of a personal equation” (1940b, 463). Another concept developed by American anthropologists of Goldenweiser’s own times, which he evaluates in positive terms, is that of pattern. By “pattern” he means “that certain elements of form in objects or of functions in social and intellectual affairs are developed and subsequently standardized in a locality of tribe. Henceforth such standardized forms serve as a pattern or model for other objects or functions that may develop in the same domain of culture, and also exercise a sort of cultural alliterative effect on traits or functions, of local or foreign provenience, which though originally different from the pattern, become in due time subject to its influence” (464). According to Goldenweiser Lowie applied this concept to his study of Plains ceremonialism, while Wissler did so in his detailed investigations of Native American material culture, and Goldie himself made extensive use of it in his theory of totemic origins.17 The chapter closes with a discussion of such recent trends in anthropology as functionalism. As Goldenweiser points out, Boas and his students (Goldenweiser included) “all partook of functionalism once—­before it acquired a capital F” (1940b, 471). As an example of such “partaking,” The West Coast Exile | 167

Goldenweiser uses his own work on totemism and, more specifically, its discussion of the function of the guardian spirit beliefs among several Indigenous Northwest Coast and Subarctic peoples (1910, 218–­19). As far as the Malinowskian version of functionalism, Goldenweiser argues that some of its aspects would be acceptable to most anthropologists, while others contain “items of lop-­sidedness and exaggeration of the sort responsible for the equivocal status of the new Functionalism” (1940b, 472). Specifically Goldenweiser objects to Malinowski’s “misreading of culture,” which he does by “reading meaning and univocal determination into every bit of it. Here organism is made to defeat history by forcing upon it an illusory unity and preordained specific significance which, in fact, it does not possess—­except in spots” (473). Goldenweiser’s final verdict on functionalism is the need to make a distinction between “the functional approach, as one of the indispensable tools of the ethnologist, and Functionalism with its sometimes exaggerated pretensions and dogmatic dicta” (475). In his discussion of the recent work on the role of the individual in culture, Goldenweiser praises the recent ethnographic research, which, contrary to Durkheim and Lévi-­Bruhl, has amassed “incontrovertible proof of individuality, variability, personal determination” among members of “primitive society” (1940b, 480). Here Goldie reminds the reader of his own recent argument about the key role of the individual in society and culture as exemplified by a discussion in his 1937 Anthropology textbook. As he put it there, “Society can prescribe a form, set a pattern, preside over a process, but the actual dynamics of it all, eludes society. When all is said and done, the day’s work and play are in the hands of individuals, particular persons. . . . The individual starts out with his [culture’s] patterns, but within these limits he must meet the emergencies of time, place, and event. It is the difference between . . . learning how a pot is made and how to make a pot” (1937a, 413). He also refers the reader to his discussion of the existence of “nonconformists, offenders, heretics” in primitive society (413). Next Goldenweiser singles Paul Radin’s Winnebago (Ho-­chunk) work, referring to it as “little short of epoch-­making.” He praises his collection and publication of an Indigenous autobiography as well as his argument about the presence of significant “individual variability” and of true intellectuals in “primitive society” as presented in Primitive Man as 168 | The West Coast Exile

Philosopher (1927) and Primitive Religion: Its Nature and Origin (1937). From Radin’s contributions Goldenweiser moves on to Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture (1934) and her concept of configuration. He finds her approach to the relationship between the individual and his or her culture “distinctly original” and devotes a large final section of his chapter to spelling it out (1940b, 482–­90). He finds the following passage from the Patterns of Culture particularly interesting and promising: A culture, like an individual, is a more or less consistent pattern of thought and action. Within each culture there come into being characteristic purposes not necessarily shared by other types of society. In obedience to these purposes, each people further and further consolidates its experience, and in proportion to the urgency of these drives, the heterogenous items of behavior take more and more congruous shape. Taken up by a well integrated culture, the most ill-­assorted acts become characteristic of its peculiar goals, often by the most unlikely metamorphoses. The form that these acts take we can understand only by understanding first the emotional and intellectual mainsprings of that society.18 (Benedict 1934, 46) If Goldenweiser’s contribution to the Contemporary Social Theory volume were not aimed specifically at anthropologists, his very last published work, “Recent Trends in American Anthropology” (1941), also published posthumously, read as his verdict as well as a parting shot at the field and its practitioners, best known to him. Following a brief summary of the early American anthropologists (covered under the subtitle “The Ancients”), Goldenweiser turned his attention to “The Man”—­that is, Franz Boas himself. Comparing his mentor to a mythical culture-­hero, Goldie stated that he “bestowed upon American anthropology that clarification of issues and stiffening of scientific fiber which it stood so sorely in need of” (1941, 153). When it came to Boas’s ethnographic works, Goldenweiser characterized them as “immensely useful,” even though “deficient in form and organization” (155). He also describes them as “strictly factual, comprehensive in scope and detailed in execution” (1941).19 In the next section of the paper, titled “The Disciples,” Goldenweiser offers some strong words of praise as well as some serious criticism The West Coast Exile | 169

of his fellow Boasians. The first among them to be evaluated is Clark Wissler, whom Goldenweiser praises for his work on the role of the horse in Plains Indian culture as well as his “masterful synthetic picture” of Native American cultures presented in his book The American Indian (1917). Next to be evaluated is Kroeber, whom Goldenweiser compares to Boas, as far as the many-­sidedness of his contribution to anthropology is concerned. His Handbook of the Indians of California is lauded for its “broad synthetic standpoint” as well as for the author’s ability to characterize an individual culture or a “complex cultural situation” “in a few well chosen sentences or paragraphs” (1941, 158). As a theoretician Kroeber is described as both productive but also not always successful. Reminiscent of Goldie’s critique of Kroeber’s ideas of culture as superorganic is his criticism of Kroeber’s view of the autonomy of culture. On the other hand, Goldenweiser says, “there is in this man [Kroeber] an artistic component, a trait often inimical to a purely analytical approach. When we find this rich personality spending years on the devastating task of tracing culture trait distributions, the most charitable interpretation, perhaps, will be to regard this as a deliberate attempt to restrain his more natural if less ‘safe’ tendencies” (158). According to Goldie, the “Boas school in the narrow sense” was comprised of Robert H. Lowie, Paul Radin, Edward Sapir, F. G. Speck, Truman Michelson, and himself. His discussion of the school is limited to the first three. He reserves his highest praise for Sapir, who, in his words, “stands out as a supreme talent, a talent so marked that nothing, but his premature death could account for anyone’s hesitancy about calling him a genius.” Furthermore, according to Goldie, Sapir’s “mind was so richly sensitive to all matters of form that the professional accomplishments of the philologist passed without apparent break into the avocational by-­play of a poet, a musician, a mathematician” (1941, 159). Goldie’s old friend Lowie does not fare as well. Here is his verdict: In Lowie we find a very different scientific personality. No so richly endowed by nature and markedly unimaginative, he is scholarly by life-­long inclination and deeply steeped in the properties of scientific procedure. In the course of years he became a sort of Gibraltar of scientific orthodoxy in American anthropology. His prolonged and thorough but not exciting field work carried him to 170 | The West Coast Exile

the Shoshone, the Hopi, the Crow. He spent years, all told, among the latter and produced in monographic form a comprehensive picture of all aspects of Crow culture. His The Crow Indians (1935) is well calculated to interest the layman, while ridding him of not a few prejudices and misunderstandings in re Indians. In general ethnology Lowie is at his best in his early monograph on Plains Indian Age-­Societies (1916), one of the best studies we have of culture trait diffusion within a narrow geographical region, and in his papers on relationship terms and systems. In the latter subject, an enormously intricate one and to the layman wholly esoteric, Lowie’s scientific acumen functions with signal success. (1941, 159) Finally, when it comes to Radin, Goldie’s evaluation is quite different: In Paul Radin we have once more a case of talent, not of pure water, as with Sapir, but pure enough to be exceptional and most valuable. To understand his contribution, one must first of all be cognizant of the fact that he is a man of culture, not merely broad but deep, that he is sensitized to the whole gamut of human traits and cultural values. As in all men of such equipment, the aesthetic component is strong if not predominant. Furthermore, his rare memory, almost photographic in its accuracy, makes it possible for him to keep simultaneously before his mind a large number of perhaps disconnected factors. It is this sort of mental panorama which often results, as in the case of talented historians, in sudden insights. This is Radin’s long suit. The companion vice of this virtue is a certain impatience as to certainty. Hunches are hunches and proofs are proofs. But also, there are all the stages in between. Much depends on where a man is able or willing to make a halt. A student like Lowie is not satisfied with anything short of demonstrability, trademark of the scientist; Radin accepts or at least gives official status to a hunch, though he may not be able to make it more than probable. There is something to be said for both. Demonstrable truths are, of course, worth their weight in gold: the more of them the better. Hunches are, after all, only hunches. But then there is the matter of imagination. An anaemic one like Lowie’s, fewer hunches, fewer demonstrable truths (for all truths are born of hunches); an The West Coast Exile | 171

exuberant one like Radin’s, more hunches, more truths, at least potentially. There are more truths in the world than are demonstrable. In the social disciplines, the humanities, culture, this is emphatically so. By restricting our catch to demonstrable truths we allow many truths to escape us. It is men like Radin who gather them, if at times incognito. . . . All in all, Radin must be recognized as our most inspired field-­worker, and his ethnological thought rings the truer the closer he keeps it to the primitive reality as lived. (1941, 160–­61) The last section, titled “The Moderns,” is brief and focuses on the latest work by American anthropologists. Here Goldenweiser singles out several recent studies, which he views as having been inspired by the “more modest” version of British functionalism without succumbing to its “rather inchoate set of propositions, ill-­founded and badly coordinated” (1941, 162). They include W. Lloyd Warner’s A Black Civilization (1937) and Hortense Powdermaker’s Life in Lesu (1933), among several others. The other approach by the younger American anthropologists, which Goldenweiser singles out for praise, is Benedict’s Patterns of Culture. In his words, “The author holds out hope that similar studies of cultural types, based on characteristic, perhaps unique, value systems may result in broadening and deepening our insight into the phenomenon of culture through which we explain so much, or think we do, but which, in truth, we understand so little. Not the least valuable aspect of this lead lies in the fact that it inducts us into a comparative study in which all cultures, primitive, ancient and modern, will figure as equally significant source material” (163).20 Equally praiseworthy, in Goldenweiser’s view, is the work of those younger anthropologists, who were interested in the role of the individual in society and combined anthropological and psychological approaches. He mentions among them Benedict, Mead, Linton, Hallowell, and Kardiner.21

Political Views of the 1930s While in the 1930s Goldenweiser continued to pen articles on burning political issues of the day, his output in that area was more modest than in the previous decade. The reason for that was most likely a serious shortage of time, due to a heavy teaching load plus a focus on scholarly 172 | The West Coast Exile

work, whenever such time became available. Nonetheless he did manage to produce a brochure on the subject of race for the left-­leaning Institute of Pacific Relations, a Popular Front organization with ties to the Communist Party (1931b) as well as an article titled “The Problem of Peace” for a liberal pacifist organization, the Institute of World Affairs (1932). Whereas the piece on race reiterated standard arguments that he had made before, about the nonscientific nature of the racist arguments about the inferiority of certain races and the danger of miscegenation for the “white” race, a brief article on peace did introduce some new ideas. In it he argued emphatically against the arms race and advocated total disarmament. He also called for the creation of “an effective international and super-­national organization to create and maintain law between nations” and for the promotion of an “international conscience”: in other words, “a public opinion attuned to thinking in international terms” (100). The piece also pointed out that one of the major causes of war was the idea of national sovereignty. The article ended with a passionate plea addressed to the ordinary people to fight for the cause of peace instead of relying on the politicians, the diplomats and the experts. As he put it, Who then will do it [fight for peace]? You and I—­the common people. To stop war, to realize its viciousness, frivolity, idiocy, and criminality requires no special equipment, no extraordinary wisdom, no unusual talents; all that is needed is ordinary common sense, ordinary humanity. We must do this by education, the human word, organization, propaganda, sacrifice of wealth, freedom, life itself. What we have sacrificed for war we should be prepared to sacrifice to end it. The occasion will not be lacking, I assure you! (101) Although Goldenweiser did not radically change his political views in the last decade of his life, one can detect a certain transformation in them. For example, with the arrival of the Stalin-­Hitler pact and the onset of World War II in 1939, he began to modify his pacifism with the realization that Nazi Germany had to be defeated (see chapter 5). Moreover, as Stalinism set in, his attitude to Soviet Russia became more critical. The West Coast Exile | 173

The clearest statement of Goldenweiser’s political credo during this era was his 1935 paper “Why I Am Not a Marxist.” Published in Calverton’s Modern Monthly, it was part of a symposium in which six left-­leaning intellectuals were asked whether or not they considered themselves Marxists and why. The three who explained why they were not Marxists included Goldenweiser, George Santayana, and H. G. Wells. Goldenweiser began his essay by stating that he attributed the current popularity of Marxism among intellectuals to the social injustice of the capitalist system in general, and of the current economic depression in particular, and added that “as an emotional reaction and a social aspiration it [Marxism] has my unmitigated sympathy.” What he rejected, however, was Marxism as “an ambitious and carefully compacted theory of history” as well as an ideology used by “Stalin’s communist dictatorship” in its “most daring experiment of social control and culture building” (1935b, 71). Goldie’s criticism of Marx’s theory of history was based on his neo-­ Kantian and Boasian view that history had no laws. Goldenweiser, who clearly had a good grasp of Russian socioeconomic history, argued that the Bolshevik Revolution (coup) undermined Marx’s theory of class struggle and of “the iron laws of history.” Russia, after all, was one of the most backward of European countries and, consequently, according to Marx, was not a prominent candidate for a socialist revolution (1935b, 74). He also, as we have already seen, rejected all theories of economic determinism, including Marx’s. In his words, while it was true that “the economy constituted the very life blood of the social process, . . . to say that man cannot get along without a thing is not to say that the thing determines the man” (72). What also troubled Goldie, as an anarchist, a libertarian, an individualist, and a Boasian, was Marx’s “featuring of the group as against the individual and his conception of spiritual values and ideas in general as epiphenomenal and non-­causal” as well as his efforts to “explain away” such key aspects of human life as science, philosophy, art, literature, religion, and the personal relations between human beings (73). In the end Goldenweiser saw Marxism as nothing but “a conceptual precipitate of the eras that followed the Industrial Revolution” and “an ideological expression of a particular and passing phase in the history of science” (72).

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As far as Marxism, as it had been put into practice in the USSR, Goldie had very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, he did give the Soviet Union some credit for allegedly abolishing economic exploitation—­ “that abomination of the capitalist word,” as he put it. What he strongly opposed, however, was the proletarian dictatorship, which, despite the official Soviet rhetoric, remained the rule of a minority over the majority. Moreover, he argued that “it is a rule by force, duly flavored with ruthlessness,” in which the government relied on a “many-­headed bureaucracy.” What troubled him most was the use of violence by this new bureaucratic state to maintain control over its citizens. He wrote, No dictatorship, moreover, could sustain itself in power unless shielded by the protective mechanism of a secret service organization. This is so in the Soviet Union, as in Italy, as in Germany. What is worse, such a bodyguard of the dictatorship can operate successfully only when supported, at least to a degree, by the general population. And so, we find in the Soviet Union—­as in Italy and Germany—­a moral code that takes root and is officially propagated which puts a premium on one of the most loathsome forms of behavior, namely, spying on one’s neighbor with the intent to hurt him. And let me repeat, this is not incidental but, as it were organic. Without this accessory the dictatorship would perish. He also pointed out that such a political system “invariably included a system of education intended to perpetuate the social order represented by the dictatorship” (1935b, 73). Goldenweiser’s criticism of the Stalin regime was strong and consistent. In his brief paper on Stalin and Trotsky, he lamented the fate of the industrial workers under Stalin’s five-­year plan and of the peasantry under his ruthless policy of collectivization. “The industrial laborer,” he wrote, “while building socialism, finds himself working in time and over time, harder than ever before and the peasant, though collectivized, sees all but his barest necessities disappear over-­seas in payment for machines.” As an intellectual Goldie was also appalled by the ideological control exercised by the regime over all spheres of science, education, and art. In his words,

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Things of the spirit may be epiphenomenal, non-­causal, according to Marx, but they count so patently that they will be recognized even in Communist Society, but in Marxian garb. So there emerges Marxian history, Marxian literature, Marxian drama, Marxian art. Drive-­psychology may accomplish much, but it cannot obliterate all differences. Here the Gay-­pay-­oo enters upon the scene.22 Firmly rooted in the still fresh memories of the Cheka and the traditions of the Tsarist Secret Police, the Gay-­pay-­oo officials see to it that people in the USSR do not differ too much.23 In this they are assisted by a moral perspective which elevates to a duty . . . the lovely practice of spying and telling upon one’s neighbor. Goldenweiser’s final verdict on the land of socialism was harsh and very much in sync with his libertarian, anarchist advocacy for a free life of the spirit as a prerequisite to human happiness. According to him, while Stalin might have succeeded in erecting a socialist state in which workers and, perhaps, peasants enjoy more wealth and power than ever before, and capitalists will become an extinct species, “wealth and power are not wisdom, nor beauty, not free creativeness, not sensitivity, or human sympathy, or open-­mindedness, or the rights of the individual, or peace. How these values,—­and are they not as important for civilization as the proletarian surgery upon capitalism?—­are to be maintained or developed in a Socialism such as Stalin is building, it is not easy to see” (1933c, 8). As a product of the Russian intelligentsia, Goldenweiser was also very concerned about the fate of that class in the new Russia. We have already seen how that concern encouraged him in the early 1920s to give public lectures in order to raise money for the destitute Soviet scientists. Moreover, Goldenweiser kept a close eye on the developments in the Soviet Union and especially on the process of its evolution toward a dictatorship. He was also well aware of the creation of a vast network of concentration camps in that country. Thus his personal library at Reed College included one of the very first memoir published in the West of the misery of life in one of the first Soviet labor camps and a daring escape from it by Vladimir Tchernavin (1887–­1949) and his wife, Tatiana Tchernavin (1887–­1971; Tchernavin 1934).

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Of course Goldenweiser was not alone in his condemnation of Stalinism. However, he was rather unique in his deep understanding of the nature of the Stalinist dictatorship within the context of Russian and early Soviet political and economic history. In an era when, as I have already mentioned, many American liberals still retained a rosy view of the Soviet regime and were unwilling to condemn the infamous show trials of the mid-­1930s, Goldenweiser stood firm in his anti-­Stalinism. Not surprisingly this was also the time when he befriended a number of anti-­Stalinist leftists, including Sidney Hook, and (without being a Trotskyite) signed a statement issued in 1937 by the American Committee in Defense of Leo Trotsky. This committee, organized in 1936, was a group of Trotsky followers and other anti-­Stalinist leftists as well as liberals who wanted to give Trotsky a chance to be heard. The original statement of the committee was signed by a number of prominent liberals such as John Dewey, Horace Kallen, Sidney Hook, and Norman Thomas. Even Boas joined, although he did not take an active part in its deliberations. Dewey became the head of the committee and chaired a special commission of inquiry charged with investigating the accusations against Trotsky aired at the Moscow show trials. Several members of the commission traveled to Mexico City to interview Trotsky. The commission purported to clear Trotsky of all charges made during the Moscow trials and, moreover, exposed the scale of the blatant frame-­up of all other defendants (see Wald 1987, 128–­39; Kutulas 1995, 116–­21). Goldenweiser also signed one of the public statements by anti-­Stalinist intellectuals condemning the Soviet show trials of the late 1930s (Goldenweiser to Hook, February 24, 1937, shp). Finally, he was a strong supporter of the Committee for Cultural Freedom, an organization of liberal and left-­leaning intellectuals, led by Dewey and Hook, that was equally critical of Stalin’s regime as of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s (Goldenweiser to Hook, December 12, 1939, shp; see also Kutulas 1995, 157–­ 63; Bullert 2013). The establishment of that committee was a response to the Moscow show trials as well as to an organization established by Boas in late 1937 under the title “the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom” (acdif). Increasingly preoccupied in the late 1930s and

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early 1940s with what he saw as a systematic infringement on personal and intellectual freedom in the United States, Boas envisioned his committee as a group that would monitor and protest against such violations. While Boas was still willing to criticize the Soviet restrictions of intellectual freedom and the persecution of its scientists, he preferred to do so only in private, reserving his public statements to condemnations of such violations either in fascist countries or the United States (Kuznick 1987, 170–­94; Kan 2015b; Kan 2021b). For this reason, as well as because of Boas’s willingness during this era to cooperate with the Communist Party, the acdif increasingly came to be seen by anti-­Stalinist intellectuals as a Communist front (Kan 2015b). It should be pointed out that Boas’s attitude toward the cp usa was ambivalent. On the one hand, he resented some of the methods used by it. On the other, he viewed the Communists as important allies in his fight for human rights, democracy and political freedom in the United States. As he wrote in an essay titled “Education and Democracy,” later reprinted in his Race and Democratic Society, “It has always seemed to me that, if I agree with a person in regard with one specific problem in which we wish to cooperate, his political, religious or social views in regard to other matters are irrelevant” (1945, 117). Interestingly enough Dewey and Hook made a strong effort to enlist Boas in the ccf, but he refused (Hook 1987, 248–­274; Kan 2021b). In addition to Goldenweiser, several of his friends and colleagues, such as Calverton, Shapiro, and Lowie, signed the ccf’s public statement. As Hook wrote in his obituary of Goldenweiser: “He was never naïve in politics. He could smell a totalitarian under any disguise, particularly during the Popular Front period in which the Stalinists took into their camp several eminent scientists, including the Dean of American anthropologists [i.e., Boas]. He was one of the few American liberals who had always known the truth about Russia. It did not require Hitler’s terror to awaken his social consciousness. He brought to political and social problems knowledge and wisdom, and not merely stubborn and purblind indignation” (1940, 31–­32). While critical of Stalinism, Goldenweiser remained enamored with Russian culture and especially its glorious nineteenth-­century literature. In January 1937, along with the Russian people at home and abroad, he marked the hundredth anniversary of the death of the great Russian 178 | The West Coast Exile

poet Alexander Pushkin by giving a lecture at Portland’s Congress Hotel that was followed by dancing and Russian-­style singing (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, January 6, 1937, lefa). And in a 1933 review of the memoirs of Leo Tolstoy’s youngest daughter, published in the United States, he wrote that reviewing such a book, for “an old Russian” like himself, was like reviewing the Bible (1933b). A special concern with dictatorship and totalitarianism, whether left-­ or right-­wing, was not only central to Goldenweiser’s political views in the 1930s but his intellectual pursuits as well. Thus, in a number of letters sent to friends and relatives in the mid-­to-­late 1930s as well as his paper on “The Future of the Social Sciences,” given at a sociological conference in 1934, he kept returning to the issue of, in his words, “unprecedented control of large masses of men by a central authority” (1934a, 9). In this paper he not only condemned the rabid nationalism, which served as the foundation of both Mussolini’s and Hitler’s fascism, but he also correctly identified Stalin’s rejection of the ideology of the world revolution and promoting the one focused on “building socialism in one country” as a form of new Russian-­Soviet nationalism (1933c; see also Goldenweiser 1936–­37, 28). An unreconstructed anarchist and libertarian, Goldenweiser went as far as criticizing what he viewed as dictatorial tendencies in Roosevelt’s presidential politics. He wrote, “An equally significant instance of group control is presented by the United States in which a semi-­dictatorial executive branch is assuming unprecedented functions of transformation and control checked only by the surviving fragments of democratic ideology and the rapidly fading ghost of what was once the economic doctrine of laissez-­faire” (1934a, 9). American society as a whole, as well as other Western capitalist societies, did not escape Goldenweiser’s criticism either: he saw them as lacking a true democracy. According to him, “Individual liberty in its rugged variety, when functioning under our brand of capitalism, results in a virtual enslavement of the majority of the people” (1936–­37, 31). And as far as the “foremost duty of a democracy” being the preparation of its “citizenry for life in a self-­governing society,” modern democracies were, in his view, a failure (30). Among the urgent tasks of improving the American socioeconomic and political system, he included the following: “The abolition of the Georgia chain gangs, the reform (shall I say cancellation?) of prisons, the cessation of child labor, the raising The West Coast Exile | 179

of the courts, especially the criminal courts to a level compatible with modern knowledge and insight, the extermination of the racketeer, the strike-­buster, the criminally cynical publicist, the removal of a cruel legal and social opprobrium from birth-­control and illegitimacy” (34). In these words one can clearly hear echoes of Goldenweiser’s father’s concern for the rights of the imprisoned criminals and excesses of the prison system. Goldenweiser’s papers of the mid-­to-­late 1930s shed light not only on his critical stance toward Marxism and Soviet-­style socialism as well as any form of “group control” but also his own political credo of a progressive public intellectual. As he phrased it in the “Why I Am Not a Marxist” paper: Confronted for a generation with the different phases of the modern social scene, I have long ago reached the conclusion that in social affairs mere objectivity and rationality cannot open the door to insight and salvation. Personal attitudes based on temperament and, shall I say, taste, inevitable play a part. It is sheer sham to attempt to squeeze one’s social opinions into a frame of cold objectivity or logical finality. Before closing this writing, therefore, I feel no hesitancy in setting down in briefest possible compass my own view of the social whole in its relation to the individual and to culture, against the background of which my disagreement with Marxism should become clearer if not more convincing. I am an individualist. As such I place the individual both at the beginning and at the end of the social process. Human society was built of the needs, proclivities and achievements of individuals, and it must return to them for a test of its changes or achievements. In the modern world, for the first time in history perhaps, the individual is coming into his own, in so far as creativeness, self-­ expression, intellectual grasp, and a rich adventurous life become possible, at least as a feasible ideal. This, I regard as a true differential of humanity which should under no conditions be swept aside. Should it prove necessary to put the brakes on individual freedom, this operation should be performed in the realization that a necessary evil is being perpetrated.

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He went on to say that, from this point of view, culture to him fell into two major compartments. One comprised the whole range of manifold human achievements and potentialities, “cultural” in the narrow sense, such as science, literature, philosophy, art, music, and the more personal aspects of human intercourse. In this range no checks should be permitted to interfere with the free expression of creativeness or personality, barring only those automatic and traditional patterns that culture and convention inevitably impose and always will impose. The other compartment comprised the economic-­political activities and the major social relations therein implied. Here a certain restriction of individual freedom seemed necessary, in so far as unencumbered individuality inevitably resulted in one’s stepping on his neighbor’s toes. He admitted that every form of social planning—­“without question the great task before society today”—­would, of course, involve a certain degree of compulsion. This, he argued, should be exercised as a necessary evil, and the recognition of this fact should keep the compulsion from outrunning the absolutely essential minimum. He also emphasized that he abominated the use of force in human affairs, as well as more broadly all forms of “human engineering” that implied the “robotization” of the individual. He did admit that, under certain conditions, social effectiveness could be thus achieved, but argued that mere social effectiveness left him “quite unmoved if accompanied by a loss of individual initiative and a hindrance to the unfolding of man’s capabilities” (1935b, 75–­76). Echoing the argument made in his earlier work “Robots or Gods?” Goldenweiser, in his last papers dealing with the individual and society, repeatedly juxtaposed his idea of “a living, organic, historic society” to “an aggregate of individual robots, units of a mechanical system controlled by a social engineer” (1934a, 9). He also offered the following definition of a progressive society: as one that “possesses the insight to know its own faults, the courage to admit them, the mechanism to remedy them, and a public opinion favorable to the application of such mechanisms” (1936–­37, 31). Goldenweiser’s objections to mainstream Marxism and Communism are reminiscent of those expressed by such American philosophers as John Dewey and Morris Cohen, both of whom he knew well and must

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have been influenced by. Dewey objected to the Communists’ “monistic and one-­way philosophy of history”—­more specifically, the thesis that all societies had to exhibit a uniform social development from primitive communism all the way to socialism. He also argued that from that philosophy of history there followed “a uniform political practice and a uniform theory of revolutionary strategy and tactics” (1934, 87). He also rejected the Communist ideology of dictatorship and violence. Finally, Dewey found “the emotional tone and methods of discussion and dispute” characterizing Communism to be “extremely repugnant” (89). As for Cohen, he strongly objected to the violent means that the Communists intended to use to overthrow the existing political system in the United States and elsewhere. In his words, “When the communists tell me that I must choose between their dictatorship and fascism I feel that I am offered the choice between being shot and being hanged” (1934, 100). Goldenweiser’s critique of classical Marxism and of the Soviet brand of socialism also bears some resemblance to that of libertarian and anarchist socialists who have emphasized the antiauthoritarian and libertarian aspects of Marxism (Screpanti 2007; Prichard et al. 2017). They have tended to draw on Marx’s and Engels’s later works such as Grundrisse and Civil War in France. Libertarian socialism, also referred to as “anarchist socialism,” “free socialism,” “stateless socialism,” and “socialist libertarianism,” has been an antiauthoritarian political philosophy within the socialist movement that rejects the state socialism view of socialism as a statist phenomenon where the state retained the centralized control over the economy and the political life. Overlapping with anarchism and libertarianism, libertarian socialists have criticized wage slavery relationship within the workplace and emphasize workers’ self-­management and the decentralization of political organization. They have generally rejected the concept of a state and asserted that a society based on freedom and justice can only be achieved with the abolition of authoritarian institutions controlling the means of production and subordinate the working-­class majority to a financial and political elite. Libertarian socialists have favored decentralized structures based on direct democracy, such as citizens’ assemblies, cooperatives, trade unions, and workers’ councils. They have also called for liberty and free association through the criticism and eventual dismantling of illegitimate authority in all spheres of human life. 182 | The West Coast Exile

Libertarian socialism has been a philosophy characterized by diverse views, but some general commonalities can be found in its many incarnations. For example, it tends to advocate a worker-­oriented system of production and organization in the workplace that in some ways departs radically from neoclassical economics in favor of democratic cooperatives or common ownership of the means of production. Libertarian socialists argue that this socialist economic system would maximize the freedom of the individuals and minimize the concentration of power or authority. They propose to achieve this through decentralization of political and economic power, usually involving the socialization of most large-­ scale private property, while retaining personal property. Libertarian socialism tends to deny the legitimacy of most forms of economically significant private property, viewing capitalist property relations as a form of domination that is antagonistic to individual freedom. Libertarian socialist philosophy has emphasized antistatism, regarding the concentration of power as a major source of oppression that must be constantly challenged and justified. Most libertarian socialists believe that when one individual exercises power over another, the burden of proof is always on the former to justify his action as legitimate when viewed against the effect of limiting the scope of human freedom. Libertarian socialists also tend to oppose any rigidly stratified structures of power and authority, whether economic, political, or sociocultural. Instead of corporations and states, libertarian socialists propose to organize society into voluntary associations (e.g., collectives, communes, cooperatives, municipalities, syndicates) that use direct democracy or consensus for their decision-­making process. Some libertarian socialists advocate combining these institutions using rotating and recallable delegates to higher-­level federations. Spanish anarchism of the 1930s is a major example of such federations in practice. These kinds of socialists have been strong advocates and activists of civil liberties that guarantee the individual specific rights and freedoms, such as the freedom in issues of sex and life and of conscience and thought. Libertarian and anarchic socialists tend to favor pacifism, rejecting the use of violence to achieve social change. Here the main influence is the thought of Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy. Instead of violent revolutionary activities they advocate the anarcho-­syndicalist idea of the general strike as the major revolutionary weapon. The West Coast Exile | 183

Libertarian Marxism includes such currents as autonomism, council communism, De Leonism, parts of the New Left, Socialime ou Barbarie, and workerism. It has had a strong influence on both post-­left and social anarchists. Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism include Maurice Brinton, Cornelius Castoriadis, Herbert Marcuse, Guy Debord, Ernesto Screpanti, Raya Dunayevskaya, and Rosa Luxemburg, who claim that Marx himself was a libertarian Marxist. Libertarian socialists have been strong critics of the Soviet economic and political system. For example, Castoriadis (1997) points out that while the mode of production in the USSR was socialist, the mode of distribution was not. Since the mode of distribution of the social product is inseparable from the mode of production, the claim that one can have control over distribution while not having control over production is meaningless. He also argues that the Soviet Union was not a communist but a bureaucratic capitalist state, which differed from Western powers mainly by virtue of its centralized power apparatus. Having stated his own position on these issues, Goldenweiser raised a classic question of the Russian intelligentsia: What is to be done? His answer included the assertion that he was not yet prepared to give up on modern Western democracy. As he put it, “The reason for this attitude lies in the fact that democracy has not yet in any true sense been tried.” The responsibility of a true democracy, in his view, was “in fitting the citizenry for an intelligent and courageous participation in the social life of the community” (1935b, 76). To accomplish this Goldenweiser called for a radical innovation in the educational system. Progressive education, in his view, meant the focus on “the child rather than the system, creativeness rather than reproduction, exploration rather than reception, criticism rather than authority, thinking rather than mere knowing” (1936–­37, 32–­33). Equally important, in his opinion, was adult education. The social sciences were, according to Goldenweiser, central to this program of rejuvenating and radicalizing the American educational system. A serious in-­depth study of the modern social sciences by high school as well as college students was for him the way a democracy would “fulfill its only basic responsibility”—­“the fitting of the citizenry for the art of self-­government” (1934a, 10). Here is how he envisioned the social scientist in this new educational system:

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The social scientist must be a student, of course, but he must also be a person and a personality, a human and a humanist to whom nothing human is foreign. The process of imparting the social scene to the pupils cannot possibly be restricted to a mere pouring of a given content of knowledge into passively receptive minds, but must consist in an active, honest and courageous cooperation between teacher and pupil. . . . The new program in education must be conceived as the essential first step in trying a real democracy. Nor can any sort of long-­term planning prove anything but abortive unless supported by the kind of public opinion fostered by such an educational scheme. Does it not seem feasible and fair that some of the billions absorbed in our efforts to navigate through the present social emergency might well be diverted into this channel? (11) It is clear that education was a major interest of Goldenweiser’s in the 1930s. In 1938 he gave a lecture at Stanford on the subject of “Culture and Education” (“in connection with the problems of the progressive modern democracy”) and was also planning to write a book titled “The Teacher in a Modern Democracy” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, February 22, 1938, agp). He had many other plans, not realizing how little time he had left to live.

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5 The End The Last Years As Europe descended into a devastating war, Shoora was living the last year of his life. What was on his mind at that time? In 1939 he was still a happily married man, and he and Ethel had just moved to a new and bigger house, which they were renting but planning to buy. As he wrote to his daughter, “Before long we shall be the proud occupants of a first class bourgeois ménage” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, June 12, 1939, lefa). In late January 1940, Goldie’s sixtieth birthday was celebrated with a surprise party of eighteen and a huge turkey. He drank champagne from his wife’s slipper and then broke a glass in the nineteenth-­century Russian military officers’ fashion. However, without the renewal of the Reed appointment, there were real concerns about his income. Goldenweiser’s health had not been very good, and these worries undoubtedly aggravated his physical condition. As he wrote to Alexei, “Like you, brother, I never managed to amass any capital. It seems I did learn to speak, write, a lot of people sing me praises, but there is no money and there never will be. And yet it would have been nice to throw some money around at the end of my life—­that is the only good thing about it for honest people” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexis Goldenweiser, March 26, 1939, agp). On the other hand, he was full of plans to do new research and write books on topics ranging from “Footprints: A History of Civilization from the Point of View of the Roads” to the “History of Mental Healing” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, [1939?], lefa; Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexis Goldenweiser, February 22, 1938, agp). There was also a plan to write a “magnum opus” on the theory of social evolution. To work on it Goldenweiser was hoping to use a Guggenheim Fellowship that would 187

have enabled him to take time off from teaching and settle down in Washington dc, where he would have access to the Library of Congress. In a letter to his daughter, Goldie explained that this monumental study would consist of three volumes: vol. 1, History and Critique; vol. 2, Neo-­ Evolutionism; and vol. 3, Social Theory and Social Control. The entire project was supposed to take him three years (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, April 14, 1937, lefa). Unfortunately, he did not receive the fellowship. Commenting on the fact that he failed to get it, he wrote to Alexei: “Will I be able to write a book now, I do not know. . . . And this book on the theory of evolution could have become my magnum opus—­my working capacity is still high and my brains seem to work fine, but how much longer with this last? It seems to me that, given my experience (of lectures, articles) and a large body of accumulated facts, it could become a bestseller. This would have solved many problems” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexis Goldenweiser, April 19, 1940, agp). One wonders why this staunch opponent of evolutionism decided to devote three volumes to the subject. There was still other writing to be done. As he wrote to his brother in the spring of 1940, he had three articles to write for a book to be published by Barnes: one on Wundt, one on Lévi-­Bruhl, and one on [Pitirim] Sorokin; an article on causality (a critique of Wundt, Rickert, and Max Weber) for a new Journal of the History of Ideas; and an article on the newest trends in anthropological thought for the Partisan Review.1 There were also three chapters to add to the third edition of his textbook (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, March–­ April 1940, agp). However, with his poor health, Goldie was getting tired. In his words, “There is still plenty of work to do but I feel like a living corpse. I am unable to convince my numerous friends and admirers that I am living creature. The situation is peculiar: a myth about Goldenweiser the anthropologist continues to exist, in the last few years it has even acquired a classical (or pseudo-­classical) form. Yet nobody wishes to think about the fact that the protagonist of this myth needs not only recognition but a [decent] salary” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, January 19, 1940, agp). In a letter to his daughter, he complained, “I wonder when (if ever) I shall be liberated from this constant dissipation of energy in a hundred different directions” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, June 12, 1939, lefa). 188 | The End

And then there was the issue of the European war. In anticipating it Shoora wrote to Alexei: “World affairs are rapidly getting ominous. I now feel that I can no longer wish for peace as before—­our dictators have gotten too out of hand. Yet the war is such a horrible thing. And what will happen after it? The same thing all over again. One feels compelled to repeat after our father (from his last letter to me written after Italy had entered the Great War) that it is becoming increasingly difficult to live while thinking [zhit’ dumaia]. Yet we keep on living” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, March 26, 1939, agp). Six months later, after the war had already started, in another letter to Alexei he complained of being depressed and added, “I have always told my students that the primary duty of social reformers is to be optimists, since there are so many reasons to be pessimists. I admit, at the moment it is difficult to fulfill this professional obligation” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, September 16, 1939, agp). The Stalin-­Hitler pact must have given Shoora pause. As he asked his daughter, who at the time was strongly pro-­Communist, “Can you tell me what your friend Stalin is up to? I mean it. Tell me how you interpret the latest stunts of the Russian Bear, USSR” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alice Goldenweiser, September 16, 1939, lefa). In one of his last letters to Alexei, Shoora blamed the Allies for the indecisive nature of the war and added that the European affairs troubled him greatly. He was still hoping for a quick end to the war, but the events in Europe gave him pause: “Hitler, of course, cannot last very long; but even not very long could turn out to be too long. And that would mean horror, a bottomless pit, total barbarism, etc.” (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, May 21, 1940, agp). Shoora’s very last letter to Alexei aptly sums up the state of his mind and of his affairs just less than a month before he died and hence should be quoted in its entirety: Dear Alia: At last, we have more or less settled in the new apartment. The house is indeed charming. If the fate decides to have me live the remaining years here in Portland, we will probably manage to buy this house for good. It seems that this is not very difficult now, since the Government almost pays the purchaser for his service. The End | 189

Incidentally, we bought a croquet set (there is a small but satisfactory lawn near the house). There was a time when we could play 24 games before lunch, in the burning sun at that (remember?). Well, tomorrow I have once more to go to work for six weeks. As usual, this does not bring much comfort in the summer, but everything straightens out as soon as the students appear. Am I not teaching for thirty years? An old battle horse runs into the fight the minute it hears the trumpet call, with all its fire and passion. . . . Although there is not much to be allured by. It is difficult to write about the war, while everybody is talking almost only about it. These faraway events are at the same time so close and painful. I would say nevertheless that, notwithstanding all the unsatisfactory aspects of our democracies (which will make victory a moderate delight), I still believe in their ultimate triumph. Meanwhile, there is no cause for surprise in what is happening right now. Only dictatorship, aided by an immense development of industry, could give Hitler such a superiority of military might, which was built for the account of the national welfare. But he had been ruining Germany economically for many years and is squandering his uniformed masses of humanity in the manner of a criminal gambler. France is not Czechoslovakia, and England is not a Belgium or a Norway. Helas! Paris is temporarily lost, but it will emerge again. France has not perished, and England was always winning its wars the long and hard way of defeats. Apparently, she needs this as an antidote to her traditional conceited spleen. In good time, the ocean will triumph over the fortress. With a good hug and kiss to you both, and with regards from Ethel, Shoora (Alexander Goldenweiser to Alexei Goldenweiser, June 16, 1940, agp; italics mine) Goldie’s transition in 1939–­40 from pacifism to a strong pro-­Allies stance and his desire to see the United States enter the war on the side of the antifascist coalition contrasted sharply with that of his mentor Franz Boas and a number of other liberal and leftist advocates of America’s neutrality during the first two years of World War II. Viewing World 190 | The End

War II through the lens of World War I, Boas believed that the victory of the Allies, whom he did not trust, would be almost as bad as Hitler’s. Responding to a letter from mathematician Oswald Veblen, who had encouraged him to add his voice to those supporting America’s joining the Allies in their anti-­Hitler fight, Boas argued that an Allied victory would result in a “retaliatory peace under conditions that will breed wars and revolutions without end and which will affect our internal affairs no less deeply than a Nazi victory. . . . Whatever the outcome of such a revolution may be, it is certain that the liberties which we cherish will be lost for many years.” He concluded his rejection of Veblen’s plea with a paraphrase of Bismarck’s remark, made during the Balkan wars: “Europe is not worth a single American soldier” (Boas to Veblen, May 24, 1940, fbp). For a dedicated and harsh critic of the German fascism such a position was quite surprising. Yet much of Boas’s political activity between the start of World War II and June 22, 1941, when Germany attacked the USSR, was aimed at advocating America’s neutrality. Thus, he was among the sponsors of the Committee to Defend America by Keeping Out of the War formed in January 1940 by a group of left-­leaning writers. In September 1940 this group organized the Emergency Peace Mobilization, which opposed the White House’s plans to aid Great Britain. And in April 1940, as a member of the executive committee of the American Council Against Nazi Propaganda, Boas supported its resolution to disband due to “the desirability of maintaining a neutral position in the present international situation” (Kahn to Boas, April 26, 1940, fbp). A month later Boas joined five hundred scientists who supported an antiwar resolution proposed by the American Association of Scientific Workers advocating the maintenance of strict neutrality by the United States (Kuznick 1987, 244–­52). Throughout 1940 Boas was seen sporting a button that read “Roosevelt Is a War Monger.” To make sense of Boas’s position one ought to keep in mind not only his long-­standing pacifism and a fear of the Allied victory bringing about another Versailles Treaty, but also his increasingly pro-­Communist tactics. Thus, writing in 1940 to Alice L. Dodge, he dismissed the criticism of the Communist Party for its August 1939 flip-­flop on the issue of an antifascist program. In his words, “I do not care whether the Communists have changed their point of view during the last year; if they are at present time honestly against the war there is no reason why you should The End | 191

not cooperate with them.” He went on to say that “the ultimate aim of Communism did not conflict with liberty and with attempt to attain the greatest happiness for everybody.” This is why he was willing to cooperate with them despite his strong dislike of intellectual and political “tyranny of any party no matter whether they are reactionaries or Communists” (Boas to Dodge, August 5, 1940, fbp; see Kan 2015a, 2021b). Such a stance cost Boas a great deal, since many of his colleagues and former political allies turned away from him.2 For example, in May 1940, Albert Einstein and seventy other scientists publicly repudiated Boas’s position (“Scientists Assail Peace Manifesto,” New York Times, May 22, 1940). Fortunately, as the war intensified, he seems to have changed his mind to some extent. He began accepting America’s involvement in the war as something unavoidable and urged that it be conditioned upon the Allies’ promising not to impose a “vindictive peace if Germany should succumb” (Boas 1940, 2). Once the Soviet Union had been attacked by Nazi Germany and America by Japan, Boas changed his attitude completely. In the words of George Stocking (1992, 109–­10), “Whatever ambivalence this posture may have entailed was resolved for Boas by the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and then by Pearl Harbor. His commitment to the universal ideals imperfectly embodied in American political democracy, Soviet socialism, and classical German culture could now be integrated in the ‘enthusiastic support of the fight against Hitlerism and all it stands for.’” Unlike Boas, Goldenweiser did not live to witness Nazi Germany’s attack on his country of birth. On July 6, 1940, he died of either a heart attack or a ruptured aorta.

Reactions to Goldenweiser’s Death Goldenweiser’s family was devastated by the news of his passing. As his brother Emmanuel wrote to his brother Alexei, “Poor Shoora . . . ended his life without accomplishing the things he wanted to accomplish. And yet he was happy in the last years of his life. . . . I envy Shoora. To disappear without suffering—­what could be better! He left behind warm memories among his countless students and friends” (Emmanuel Goldenweiser to Alexie Goldenweiser, July 8, 1940, agp). Ethel Goldenweiser was very distraught and within a year moved from Portland to Washington dc.

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Nothing is known about her life after 1940, and there is no record of the date of her death.3 The second Goldenweiser brother, Emmanuel, died in 1953; several obituaries described him as one of the country’s leading economists. Ironically, in 1940 his only son, Alexander, officially changed his name to John Alexander Allen (1922–­93) in order to avoid complications of having a Jewish-­sounding last name. With Emmanuel’s only other child being a female and with Alexei, the third Goldenweiser brother, having no children, the Goldenweiser family name thus ended, at least in the United States.4 Alexei Goldenweiser outlived his brothers by many years and died in 1979 at the age of eighty-­nine. Most tragic was the fate of the two Goldenweiser sisters, Elena and Nadezhda. During the war they moved to Nice, where in December 1943 they were betrayed by neighbors and arrested by the Vichy police. Deported to the Drancy detention camp near Paris, they were eventually sent to Auschwitz, where both of them perished. Throughout the war Emmanuel and Alexei tried their best to help their sisters come to the United States, but to no avail (Budnitskii 2020). Nadezhda left behind two daughters, Vera and Alice. Vera, in turn, had a daughter, Jacqueline, and a granddaughter, Claudette. Alice had four children, who live in France, with the exception of her daughter Claude, who eventually moved to the United States and is still living there today. Thus the Goldenweiser line continues in two countries, even though the Goldenweiser name is no longer being used. News of Goldenweiser’s death reached Boas a few days later via a letter from Marvin Opler, who was then teaching at Reed. He wrote, “Dr. Goldenweiser died Saturday, July 6, very suddenly and very unexpectedly. Since he had spoken of you with great respect and affection many times, I thought you should be the first of the Columbia group to hear of this event, sad as it is” (Opler to Boas, July 10, 1940, fbp). Having received the sad news, Boas sent a condolence letter to Goldenweiser’s widow. Besides the usual words of sympathy, it contained the following sentence, which summed up Boas’ feelings about the deceased’s life and career: “If conditions had been more favorable, your husband might have done much more important work” (Boas to Ethel Goldenweiser, August 5, 1940, fbp). Ethel’s response is worth quoting in its entirety,

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as it sheds light on Shoora’s feelings toward his mentor as well as his state of mind in the last decade of his life: Dear Dr. Boas Thank you for your kind expression of sympathy. Dr. Goldenweiser loved and admired you so much and many times spoke at great length to me about you and your family . . . and those years at Columbia. During the past year he produced more than at any other given period and seemed at last to have found his stride. What a pity! Only because you too loved him, would I like to tell you that the last ten years were peaceful and gracious ones for him. How cruel he couldn’t have had a bit more! Sincerely, Ethel Goldenweiser (Ethel Goldenweiser to Boas, August 18, 1940, fbp)5 I have already cited Boas’s letter to Benedict in which he described Goldenweiser’s life having been “wasted on account of self-­indulgence” (see introduction). A couple of weeks later, in another letter to Benedict, Boas wrote that he had just turned down Freda Kirchwey’s request to a write a note about Goldenweiser for the Nation: “I simply cannot do it. I feel so bitter about that wasted life and all personal conflicts due to his lack of all [illegible]. . . . I simply cannot do it. Would you do me the great favor of taking this burden off my shoulders” (Boas to Benedict, August 17, 1940, fbp).6 Robert Lowie was equally critical of his old friend and colleague. In a letter to his own sister, he wrote, “Such a failure in outward circumstance and at least in strictly anthropological achievement.” He also explained why he had turned down Ralph Linton’s request to write Goldie’s obituary: “Friendly enough in recent years, we had grown so far apart in our professional outlook” (Robert Lowie to Risa Lowie, July 20, 1940, rhlp). Neither Kroeber nor Radin, the two remaining members of the first generation of Boas’s students, offered obituaries for a colleague they had known for four decades. Ruth Benedict, as I have already mentioned, did pen two obituaries of Goldenweiser, but neither of them for the American Anthropologist. Could 194 | The End

it be that Linton, the journal’s editor, who disliked Benedict, decided to give the job to someone else? That task actually went to Wilson D. Wallis (1886–­1970), who knew Goldenweiser but was not particularly close to him and was not a Boas student. Wallis wrote a piece that, while giving Goldenweiser credit for his major ideas and publications, also cast some doubt on his major contribution, the seminal work on totemism. In his words, “It remains doubtful to this day whether Goldenweiser’s study sheds more light on the essential phenomenon of totemism than does Frazer’s study which appeared the same year, or Durkheim’s, or Van Gennep’s” (1941, 251). He also pointed out that “in the latter years of his life Goldenweiser gave much attention to cultural movements in Western European civilization,” including Freudian psychology (“notably introversion and extraversion”), and that “his abiding interest was social theory” (253). According to Wallis, Goldenweiser, whom he also described as “picturesque,” had confided to him recently that “he was so much interested in social theory that he derived a satisfaction from reading any of it, however ill it might be” (253). The obituary ended on a more personal note, which described Goldie the man: “He was a popular speaker, and easily established rapport with his audience. His many friends and acquaintances recall delightful conversations with him, an art in which he exceled; and all who knew him found him stimulating, entertaining, and a genial companion. His humanity, learning, and literary accomplishments helped to humanize anthropology and familiarize others with its problems and conclusions” (253). It was Goldie’s good friend Calverton who solicited the three brief obituaries from Benedict, Mead, and Hook for his Modern Quarterly (formerly Monthly Quarterly). Calverton learned of Goldenweiser’s death from Shoora’s brother Alexei, whose letter to him stated: “My brother Shoora died suddenly in Portland of a heart attack on July 6. Ethel sent a telegram to Alice. I do not know any details. There were no obituary notices in New York daily papers, which makes this terrible event still more unreal. I have written a biographical notice for the Russian Newspaper ‘Novoe Russkoe Slovo’ published in New York. I tried to reach you by telephone but could not find your number” (Alexei Goldenweiser to Calverton, July 11, 1940, vfcp). Calverton was clearly devastated—­across Alexei’s letter he wrote “Never lose this letter—­it broke my heart.” (Ironically Calverton himself died in November 1940.)7 Emotional words of The End | 195

praise about Goldenweiser as a scholar came from his colleagues in sociology, who described him as “the most scholarly and gifted, from the standpoint of analytical ability, of all contemporary American ethnologists” (Barnes, Becker, and Becker 1940, xvii–­xviii). Ruth Benedict’s obituary, which has already been quoted in full, was the most heartfelt. However, surprisingly, it mostly dealt with Goldie’s talent as a teacher. Hook wrote warmly of the influence of Goldenweiser’s works on him as well as on his personality. In his words, Goldenweiser “showed the same lovable characteristics to be found in the pre-­revolutionary Russian intellectual as depicted, say, in the writings of Chekhov, generous, sentimental, eager to build bridges over positions separated by an infinite abyss” (1940, 31). Mead spoke of him as both scholar and teacher, but, as we have already seen, she perpetuated a false notion that Goldenweiser did not like ethnographic fieldwork (see chapter 4). Moreover, like Wallis, her (impressionistic) evaluation of Goldenweiser gave him a mixed review: “For the last fifteen years, Goldenweiser had been living by a gift which was genuine enough, the capacity to make the social sciences seem vivid and intelligible, when presented superficially and schematically to large audiences and beginning students. His other gift, the ability to make scientific thought exciting to those who were themselves committed to the demanding task of trying to think scientifically, had lain dormant” (33). Twenty years later, in a brief introduction to some excerpts from Goldenweiser’s writing that appeared in the collection The Golden Age of American Anthropology, Ruth L. Bunzel (who coedited this volume with Mead) repeated Mead’s evaluation of the man and his contribution to anthropology: Goldenweiser was described by one of his contemporaries as “the most philosophical of American anthropologists.” . . . He was distinctly uninterested in salvaging the remnants of Indian cultures; the inconveniences and restrictions of life in the field were not for him, the recording of texts bored him to distraction. The library, the lecture platform, the coffee house—­these were his milieux. There was something of the perpetual European student in him—­ the student who would go without dinner to buy a book, and go without sleep in order to talk. 196 | The End

Goldenweiser was preoccupied with theory. To him it had no national limits; he knew and used French, German, Russian and Dutch theoretical writings. His papers are models of logical presentation. The argument proceeds in perfect progression, the evidence carefully marshaled at each step and documented in illuminating footnotes that spread out before the reader the world of international scholarship. Bunzel went on to say that Goldenweiser’s theoretical writing was “somewhat arid” and “opened no new avenues of investigation.” She contrasted him to Boas, who, in her view, “constantly opened doors on new problems.” Unlike Boas, Goldenweiser, in her opinion, was less interested in exploring new problems than in ordering systematically and coherently the vast body of ethnographic data. The last sentence of Bunzel’s evaluation echoed Boas’s: “Goldenweiser, unfortunately, was never able to order his own life satisfactorily, and his problems of living interfered with his productivity. He never reached the full development which his unquestioned brilliance and learning promised” (1960, 508).8 The last word in a dialogue between Goldenweiser and his colleagues and contemporaries, in which the latter evaluated the former, belonged to his old friend Lowie. Clearly offended by a rather lukewarm and even caustic characterization of him by Goldenweiser in the posthumously published paper on the recent trends in American anthropology, discussed earlier (see chapter 4), Lowie composed a paper of his own to refute its evaluation of himself and several others. Titled “Reflections on Goldenweiser’s ‘Recent Trends in American Anthropology,’” it was not meant for publication, but was sent by Lowie to several of his colleagues. In 2012 I discovered the text of this paper among Lowie’s papers at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and given its value as a document in the history of American anthropology, I decided to reprint it in an appendix to my paper on Lowie and Goldenweiser (Kan 2015a, 15–­24). In his piece Lowie responded to Goldie’s ranking of him below Sapir, Radin, and even Kroeber. Repeating his criticism of Goldenweiser’s History, Psychology, and Culture, he characterized the collection as “the holiday ramblings of a sensitive intelligence” and said that by the early 1930s he could no longer take Goldenweiser seriously (2015a, 17–­18). He The End | 197

also strongly disagreed with Goldenweiser’s argument that he lacked imagination. According to Lowie, while several other of Boas’s students also implied this, Boas himself referred to Goldenweiser (presumably in contrast to Lowie) as “markedly imaginative.” And so Lowie took issue with the entire notion that anthropologist needed to possession imagination. His final verdict was as follows: The scientific imagination, then, cannot be gauged by the number of ideas expressed, partly because some of these ideas are not worth expressing, partly because certain temperaments check the expression of their ideas until they are perfectly satisfied so as to their tenability, whereas others speak out their thoughts untrammeled by such a sense of responsibility. Furthermore, it will probably be conceded that the scientific imagination ought to maintain some contacts with the world of reality. In this connection I offer my observation that “intuition” may be a magical gift, but that its efficacy is directly proportional to the investigator’s mastery of a factual field; negatively put, it is not a generic attribute that operates irrespective of concrete knowledge. (22) Lowie’s hurt ego can be felt when reading the following passage: “Despite Sapir’s, Goldenweiser’s and Radin’s unusual gifts, then, it is not a petty tu quoque [Latin for ‘you, too’ or ‘you also’] if I cannot call any one of them imaginative in a higher sense. Goldenweiser, e.g., went through the forms of trying to understand reality, but lived in the United States for forty years without grasping the essence of American life. Sapir and Radin rarely even strove for sympathetic empathy into sentiments fundamentally foreign to them, marvelously receptive as they could be to kindred souls” (23). Given such a mixed reaction to Goldenweiser’s passing, I would like to conclude this biography by reassessing his legacy and arguing that it was far more significant than Boas, Lowie, Mead, Wallis and several other scholars have claimed.

The Legacy of Alexander Goldenweiser Looking at Alexander A. Goldenweiser’s legacy, could one really agree with Boas, that his was a wasted life? I do not think so. To begin with 198 | The End

he left behind such important works as his monograph on totemism and several seminal papers, particularly on the principle of limited possibilities in the development of culture, on involution, and on the relationship between the individual and culture. Moreover, he was one of the first American anthropologists to offer a critical evaluation of psychoanalysis. In addition, as an editor and in a series of his own papers, Goldenweiser eloquently articulated the relationship between anthropology and other social sciences. He was also the author of the first American anthropological textbook and the thought-­provoking, semipopular book Robots and Gods. He should also be given credit for developing the plan for a major international social science encyclopedia. A Boasian by training and conviction, he nonetheless followed his own path as a maverick scholar open to new ideas, thus significantly expanding the Boasian scholarly paradigm. As a talented field ethnographer, he managed to collect a good deal of rich data on Iroquois social organization, mythology, and religion and leave behind warm memories in the minds of his Indigenous consultants and friends. As a charismatic educator, he exposed several generations of students to anthropology at several institutions and encouraged several key figures in American anthropology to pursue a PhD and a career in this discipline. It seems that some of his critics from among the Boasians and other anthropologists of his era were simply jealous of his brilliance. There also seems to have been a lack of appreciation among anthropologists (but not the other social scientists) of his contribution to promoting an intellectual dialogue between anthropology and other social science disciplines. As a public intellectual, he used his pen as well as his podium to promote progressive ideas about race, immigration, international peace, and education in an era when these were under serious attack. Thus, as one of Boas’s key students and heirs, he carried his views on these subjects further than his mentor and was willing to share them with a much broader and more diverse audience. Also, thanks to his Russian background and his unique brand of libertarian and anarchist socialism, he offered a unique and perceptive critique of Marxism and never viewed the Soviet Union through rose-­colored glasses, strongly opposing all forms of dictatorship, whether socialist or fascist. He also consistently advocated the inalienability of the rights of the individual in all political systems. The End | 199

Could he have accomplished more as a scholar, given a steadier academic career and a different personality? Definitely. Here he had mainly himself to blame. His weaknesses and mistakes were many, and he paid a heavy price for them.9 To conclude I would like to quote William Fenton, who did not know Goldie very well but was a fellow Iroqouianist and well acquainted with quite a few people who knew him well, from Edward Sapir to members of the John A. Gibson family: As the pieces of Goldenweiser’s personality begin to be assembled from those who knew him well, one recognizes a brilliant proud man capable of great humanity yet insistent on his right to live his life by his own personal standards. He was outspoken. Sure of himself and of his own perceptions he questioned the insights of the giants of his day including those of his own teacher Boas, of whom he was a particular favorite. Indeed, his work is perhaps more relevant today than it was in the twenties, and it may be that the man was ahead of his time. This, coupled with his inability to conform to the stringencies of authority, accounted for Goldenweiser’s failure to publish the corpus of his significant and brilliant work. (Fenton n.d., 8, wnfp)

200 | The End

Notes

Introduction 1. At the same time, there are still no biographies of such prominent female students of Boas as Gene Weltfish, Frederica de Laguna, and several others. A full-­length biography of Paul Radin, another brilliant and unorthodox Boasian, has not been written yet either. However, this author is currently researching one. 2. A summary of Goldenweiser’s biography along with an exploration of some of his seminal scholarly ideas can be found in an unpublished honors thesis by a Reed College undergraduate (Dobbin 1986), prepared under the direction of David French, who himself studied anthropology with Goldenweiser at Reed.

1. The Russian Beginning 1. The English translation of this book was done by Alexander Goldenweiser’s middle son, Emmanuel (A. S. Goldenweiser 1909). 2. Grigorii Muntshtein’s son, Leonid (1866–­1947), was a well-­known poet and playwright who published his works under the pseudonym “Lolo,” while his daughter Pauline married Grigorii Grigor’evich Bogrov, a wealthy Kiev lawyer and real estate owner. Their son Dmitrii (Mordka, 1887–­1911) became an anarchist who in 1911 killed Russia’s prime minister Petr Stolypin (1862–­1911). 3. Some of the Goldenweiser brothers must have converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity. Thus, a funeral service for Moisei, who died in 1903, was held in an Orthodox church (Alexander B. Goldenweiser 1995, 256–­57). Alexander B. Goldenweiser, a son of Alexander Solomonovich Goldenweiser’s brother Boris, wrote the following in his diary: “I absolutely never felt being Jewish: firstly, because of my Russian mother and, secondly, because of my upbringing and the atmosphere in my family” (1997, 220). 4. According to existing records, in 1896 Alexander’s younger brother Iakov, an apprentice lawyer, lodged an official complaint against Crown rabbi Joshua Tsukerman for refusing to register Iakov’s newborn son in the offi201

cial metric books because the baby had not been circumcised (Meir 2010, 170). 5. We know that Goldenweiser’s rank was that of a vol’noopredeliaiushchiisia, the lowest rank in the Russian army set aside for volunteers, who enjoyed certain privileges compared to the draftees. 6. Goldenweiser is referring to Etnograficheskoe Obozrenie, Russia’s leading anthropology journal. 7. Kurt Breysig (1866–­1940) was a German historian, sociologist, and anthropologist. 8. According to Anna’s divorce papers, the two of them had been engaged for four years. 9. Emmanuel and Sophie’s marriage ended in divorce in 1912. In 1916 Emmanuel married Pearl (Ann) Allen. The couple had two children, Margaret and Alexander (Lex). 10. Years later Anna Goldenweiser reminisced to her daughter that, during their courtship, Shoora would often carry her in his arms and play piano for her for hours (Leslie English, personal communication, 2018). On the other hand, according to Lowie, Alexander was allegedly carrying on an affair at the Waldorf Hotel while his wife was giving birth (Lowie to White, March 5, 1956, lawp). 11. Wilhelm Wundt (1832–­1920) was a prominent German physiologist and philosopher as well as one of the founders of modern psychology. He authored major works dealing with “ethnic psychology.” Ernst Mach (1838–­1916) was a prominent Austrian physicist and philosopher. Friedrich Wilhelm Oswald (1853–­1932) was a German chemist and philosopher. Henri Poincaré (1854–­ 1912) was a prominent French mathematician, theoretical physicist, and philosopher. Karl Pearson (1857–­1936) was a prominent British mathematician and philosopher of science. 12. Monquin was a New York restaurant located at Sixth Avenue and Twenty-­ Eighth Street in Uptown. 13. Given this friendship between the two young anthropologists, it is not surprising that when, in 1911, Goldie’s parents visited United States, where his father was attending an international penitentiary congress, they were eager to meet Lowie, whom Goldenweiser Sr. presented with an inscribed copy of his recently published work on criminology (Risa Lowie to Robert Lowie, 1911, rhlp).

2. Early Scholarship 1. See Goldenweiser’s obituary of Lang (1912b). 2. The purpose of Boas’s letter was to help obtain a job for Goldenweiser at the bae. As the head of the bae, Hodge was amenable to hiring the young

202 | Notes to Pages 15–24

Russian anthropologist but could not do so because this was a federal job while Goldenweiser had not yet applied for U.S. citizenship. 3. In addition to having studied with the same mentor and sharing common theoretical concerns, Sapir and Goldenweiser maintained friendly ties, which included their wives, both of whom were born in the Russian Empire. Thus, some of Goldie’s letters to Sapir, written in the 1910s, include brief Russian-­language messages from his wife, Anna, to Sapir’s wife, Florence, and her sister Nadya. 4. This summary of the history of the Grand River Six Nations is based primarily on the work of Sally Weaver (1978, 1994) as well Annemarie A. Shimony (1961) and Susan M. Hill (2017). 5. It appears from his letters that he was contemplating conducting ethnographic research on both sides of the U.S.-­Canada border. 6. Following his summer 1911 fieldwork, Goldenweiser and his wife sailed for Europe, where he attended a meeting of British anthropologists and then vacationed in Switzerland. He blamed the delay in submitting his report to Sapir on his travels and some “family trouble of an exceptional character” (Goldenweiser to Sapir, October 10, 1911, esc). Goldie was also rather cavalier in his attitude toward charging the Geological Survey for his expenses. At one point in 1912 he charged it for a bottle of expensive Chateau Laurier wine. 7. As linguist Hanni Woodbury (cited in Gibson 1992, xiii) indicates, “Gibson and Goldenweiser either never translated the work or the translation has been lost, for all that survives is the original Onondaga text. The manuscript remained in Goldenweiser’s possession until 1934 when he turned many of his Iroquois field notes over to William N. Fenton. Over an extended period of year, Fenton obtained a word-­for-­word translation of the text from Chief Gibson’s sons Simeon and Hardy, the late Howard Sky, and Howard Sky’s nephew James Sky, all of the Six Nations Reserve. While neither the original text not this translation were published, they provided data for a number of Fenton publications.” The original Gibson-­Goldenweiser manuscript (ms 1252.5) is held in the Canadian Ethnology Service Archives at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec. 8. An alternative scenario is possible as well: Goldenweiser used Sapir’s offer to improve his appointment at Columbia (see Goldenweiser to Sapir, November 27, 1912, esc). See also Goldenweiser to Sapir, December 21, 1912, esc. 9. In the 1930s, upon Goldenweiser’s suggestion, Fenton sought Simeon Gibson and his brother John to interpret the notes and texts, which Goldenweiser had turned over to him (Fenton 1944, 232). 10. According to Fenton this information about Goldie’s indiscretions came from a letter Fenton received from Hilton M. Hill, secretary of the council,

Notes to Pages 24–43  |  203

as well as from Sapir in the form of a personal communication (Fenton n.d., 6, wnfp). 11. On December 24, 1914, Goldie wrote to Sapir that he was planning to visit Montreal in March 1915 to stay there “indefinitely” in order to work on his Iroquois monograph and was asking his field to inquire with appropriate persons at McGill in order to perhaps arrange a couple of lectures for him “on social organization, or religion, or totemism, or Iroquois or Russian culture, or all of these” (esc). He said he was “very hard up” and hoped to be paid for such lectures. In a letter to Speck, dated May 21, 1915, Sapir complained: “Yes, Goldie is head over heels in debt. He owes me $50.00, also Barbeau. When I loaned him the money, I knew I might have to wait a decade or so before it returned. I really did not need to be ‘forewarned.’ He is in a very unenviable position. I don’t presume to judge people, so leave the question undecided whether he deserves sympathy or censure. Meanwhile, you might as well get a sense of honor out of a German as a one-­spot out of Goldie” (esc). 12. In 1922 Goldenweiser did publish a fictionalized account of Iroquois culture for a collection of such accounts by Americanists edited by Elsie Clews Parsons (Goldenweiser 1922c) and included a detailed sketch of the Iroquois culture in his first anthropology textbook (1922b, 70–­83). He also frequently used Iroquois examples in his lectures. Goldenweiser treated his field notes as personal property, which was not the agreement he had signed with the Geological Survey (Fenton n.d., 5–­6, wnfp). 13. See Theresa Mayer (Durlach) to Boas, April 3, 1918, fbp. 14. In the late 1970s, Fenton planned to publish Goldenweiser’s data as a book titled “Social and Ceremonial Organization of the Six Nations Reserve in 1910.” It was supposed to be prefaced with a biographical sketch of Goldenweiser as well as an evaluation of his scholarly contribution. For some reason this project of Fenton’s never materialized (see Fenton n.d., wnfp). 15. When it comes to Cattell, his own cantankerous and even occasionally rude conduct and numerous acts of attacking and needling Butler even before April 1917 were also responsible for his dismissal (see Sokal 2009). 16. In 1914 Farrand left Columbia to become the president of the University of Colorado. 17. Goldenweiser’s interest in “primitive law” pre-­dates that of Adamson Hoebel, who developed this subfield of anthropology in the 1940s (see Pospisil 1973). 18. In September 1912 Goldenweiser, busy with writing up his Iroquois data, requested a leave of absence from Columbia but his request was denied. Two years later Kroeber asked Boas whether Goldenweiser might be released from his Columbia obligations to serve as a visiting instructor at Berkeley for six or even twelve months to replace Waterman, who was on leave. 204 | Notes to Pages 43–51

According to Kroeber, Goldenweiser “was anxious” to spend time in California but for whatever reason this proposal did not materialize (Kroeber to Boas, December 3, 1914, fbp). 19. Goldenweiser’s sister-­in-­law, Sophie, lived with him and his wife for a few years, after divorcing Goldenweiser’s brother Emmanuel. 20. During that same year, Goldenweiser had to borrow money from Elsie C. Parsons to help his mother, who had emigrated from Russia after the 1917 revolution. 21. According to a letter by Nels Nelson, an amnh archaeologist, to Kroeber, “Boas cannot keep out of the papers and of course the patriots slug him for 2–­3 weeks afterwards.” He continued, “Some members of his classes walked out recently. In fact, things have gone so far that Columbia has appointed a committee to investigate what seditious doctrines are being taught, but this may not be aimed at B[oas]. I don’t know just how things are in your Bay Cities, but here sentiment is crystallizing rapidly, and lines are being drawn pretty sharply.” According to the same letter, “Goldenweiser is supremely happy of course since the ‘Revolution,’ but we have to keep clear of the war topic” (Nelson to Kroeber, 1917, Department and Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley, cu 28, Box 34). Unfortunately, we do not know when in 1917 this letter was written. In other words, it is unclear from it which Russian revolution Goldenweiser was so enthusiastic about: the February one or the October Bolshevik coup (I am grateful to Rosemary Zumwalt Lévi for this quotation). 22. As a matter of fact, a letter from Boas to Goldenweiser urged him “to get his Iroquois work out of the way” because “a long delay was not fair to Sapir” (August 6, 1917, aps). 23. This idea was suggested to me by Robert Brightman (personal communication, February 20, 2021). 24. Franklin Henry Giddings (1855–­1931) was a leading Columbia sociologist. James T. Shotwell (1874–­1965) was a prominent Columbia history professor. 25. Among Goldenweiser’s graduate students at Columbia was B. R. Ambedkar (1891–­1956), a well-­known Indian jurist, economist, and social reformer. A paper on Indian castes, which he wrote in Goldenweiser’s year-­long seminar, was later published. There was also at least one PhD thesis that Goldenweiser supervised: Morris Wolf’s political science thesis on Iroquois religion (defended in 1919). As Wolf wrote in his cv, “Without the assistance of Dr. Alexander A. Goldenweiser of Columbia University, the writer knows this paper could not have been prepared. Not only has it benefitted by his sympathetic advice concerning its proportions, points of view and arrangement, but almost every page has been bettered by his supervision. The writer is deeply grateful to Dr. Goldenweiser for his interest, kindness, and unstinted help” (cited in Dobbin 1986, 22–­23). Notes to Pages 52–59  |  205

26. In the introduction to his 1922 anthropology textbook, Goldenweiser referred to Robinson as a “friend and a colleague” (1922b, vii). 27. In a letter to E. C. Parsons, Goldenweiser characterized Bourne as “the apostle of the intellectual class in America” (March 12, 1920, ecpp). 28. Thanks to his work on totemism and his Iroquois research, Goldenweiser maintained a keen interest in the social organization of Native North Americans, as demonstrated by his detailed review article titled “The Social Organization of the Indians of North America” (1914c) as well as in a lecture read on February 19, 1914, before a joint meeting of anthropologists and geographers published two years later under the title “Culture and Environment” (1916a). In it Goldenweiser rejected environmental determinism. 29. This interesting idea was suggested to me by Matthew Bokovoy, for which I am grateful. 30. It does appear from the subsequent correspondence between Goldenweiser and Parsons that the latter did lend him the money he had asked for. 31. I discuss this falling-­out in detail in Kan 2015a. 32. Titled “Reflections on Goldenweiser’s ‘Recent Trends in American Anthropology,’” this paper is found among Lowie’s Papers at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and is reprinted in Kan 2015a. 33. In his review of Goldenweiser’s dissertation on totemism, Lowie did criticize what he saw as a narrow and confusing definition of exogamy (Lowie 1911). Not surprisingly Goldenweiser reacted very negatively to this critique, arguing that Lowie simply misunderstood him (Goldenweiser 1911a).

3. The New School 1. It appears from the exiting record that that once Goldenweiser had been hired by the New School, his salary no longer needed to be covered by fundraising. 2. In this obituary published in the Modern Quarterly, Benedict did not discuss Goldenweiser’s scholarly works, but she did do so in another one published in the American Sociological review (1940b). 3. It appears that some colleagues of Goldenweiser lobbied on his behalf with Seligman, trying to convince him to hire Goldie as the associate editor of the encyclopedia (see Ogburn to Goldenweiser, January 28, 1927, wfop). 4. The first volume of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences published in 1930 does not list Goldenweiser either among its assistant or advisory editors. When it comes to a long list of the editorial consultants, it is only his brother Emmanuel who is listed. On the other hand, the May 1928 issue of the American Political Science Review listed Goldenweiser as the associate editor of this encyclopedia and Alvin John as the assistant editor. 5. As Robert Brightman pointed out in his review of this book’s manuscript, “This is the first expression I know of the ‘more than one adjustment pos206 | Notes to Pages 61–103

sible’ argument later raised by Lucien Sebag” (personal communication, February 20, 2021). Sebag was a student of Lévi-­Strauss who tried to combine Marxism and structuralism in his anthropological theorizing. 6. Ogburn’s January 28, 1927, letter to Goldenweiser (wfop) indicates that it was Goldie who wrote the draft of the volume’s introduction. 7. See, for example, Ogburn to Goldenweiser, January 13, 1927; Goldenweiser to Mrs. William E. Harned, February 24, 1927; Mrs. William E. Harned, March 10, 1927; Ursula Willett to Mrs. William E. Harned, April 28, 1927, wfop. 8. “Another book which I imagine you must have seen is ‘A Young Girl’s Diary’ with a preface by Freud. It is a most interesting piece and in view of its obvious genuineness, highly instructive” (footnote by Goldenweiser). 9. The letter illustrates Goldenweiser’s lifelong interest in and affection for the classics of Russian literature, particularly Dostoevsky, his favorite author, along with Tolstoy. 10. Kroeber shared Goldie’s interest in psychoanalysis and encouraged him to publish his lectures on the subject (see Kroeber to Goldenweiser, March 10, 1921, alkp). 11. Goldenweiser is referring to Oscar Pfister (1873–­1956), an early associate of Freud. 12. According to Mead (cited in Lapsley 1999, 101), at the 1924 meeting in Toronto of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Goldenweiser and Sapir had lively arguments about Carl Jung. 13. See Goldenweiser to Sapir, June 28, 1923, esc. 14. See Goldenweiser to Kroeber, July 12, 1921, and September 13, 1921, alkp. 15. In his February 21, 1920, letter to Elsie Clews Parsons (ecpp), publisher Benjamin W. Huebsch wrote that he had recently held a long conversation with Goldenweiser about his writing a four-­volume book. The subject matter of such a book was not mentioned. 16. Kazin was referring to Max Forrester Eastman (1883–­1969), a poet and writer on literature, philosophy, and society as well as a leftist activist. 17. Eugene Lyons (1898–­1985) was an American writer and journalist. A fellow traveler of Communism in his younger years, he eventually became a harsh critic of the Soviet Union, having spent several years there as a United Press International correspondent. 18. In his letters to Sapir, Goldenweiser indicated that he was prepared to give public lectures not only on the subjects dear to an anthropologist of his ilk but on Russia-­related ones as well (Goldenweiser to Sapir, December 4, 1924, esp). 19. In the mid-­1930s Du Bois invited Goldenweiser to contribute to the Encyclopedia of the Negro (see Goldenweiser to Du Bois, October 14, 1935, webdbp). However, I was unable to find any entries he was supposed to submit Notes to Pages 106–112  |  207

to it. This might have been another one of Goldie’s unrealized projects. Still, the fact that Du Bois would call indicates his being recognized as an expert on racial issues as well as an ally of the African American activist intelligentsia. 20. Goldenweiser was equally pessimistic about the fate of the Australian aborigines (1925a, 462). 21. “The gods themselves fight in vain against stupidity” (German, my translation). 22. See also the American Israelite, August 21, 1924, 7, for a report on the 1924 aps race symposium. 23. I owe my colleague Kenneth Korey a word of gratitude for spelling out the details of this 1924 atmosphere (personal communication, April 21, 2008). 24. The Jewish readers, however, were very interested in his ideas. This fact is illustrated by the publication in 1920 of a Yiddish translation of his not yet published textbook on anthropology (1920a). 25. Goldenweiser’s undergraduate Reed College advisee Alvin Fine (a future rabbi), who in the 1930s wrote his thesis on the European Jewish immigrants in the States, stated that in the process of working with him, Goldenweiser became more interested in Jewish topics (cited in Dobbin 1986, 56). Nonetheless, in his private correspondence and at least one book review, Goldenweiser refers to himself as “an old Russian.” 26. Goldenweiser’s views on the Jewish question along with those of Horace Kallen and other contributors to the Menorah Journal received angry condemnation from Abba Hillel Silver (1893–­1963), a prominent Reform rabbi and an ardent Zionist (see Silver 1967, 379). 27. Goldenweiser’s essay was reprinted along with other pieces dealing with sex and gender originally published in the Nation in the collection Our Changing Morality, edited by Freda Kirchwey (1893–­1976), a well-­known feminist and the Nation’s editor (Goldenweiser 1924d; Kirchwey 1924). 28. Charles J. Liebman was a noted industrialist and a member of the board of the Joint Distribution Committee. He later became active in helping Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to resettle in the United States. 29. Cooper’s name appeared in the acknowledgments of Goldenweiser’s Early Civilization book. He thanked her for “typing and retyping the manuscript,” for reading the proofs, and for making “innumerable suggestions as to the form and content” of the book (1922b, vii).

4. The West Coast Exile 1. The date 1897 appears in the U.S. Census records; however, Alexander Goldenweiser’s naturalization records dating from 1936 list Ethel’s year of birth as 1899.

208 | Notes to Pages 116–145

2. Cantor received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia in 1921 and went on to do a doctorate in anthropology there under Boas. Goldenweiser left some of his field notes with Cantor, who turned them over to Fenton. 3. Reed did not have a separate anthropology or sociology department; these two disciplines were taught within the Department of History and Social Science. 4. According to Lowie’s 1938 letter to his sister, Goldenweiser made himself rather unpopular at Reed “partly because of his wife’s gaucheries” (Robert Lowie to Risa Lowie, June 12, 1938, rhlp). Lowie did not particularly care for Ethel, whom he described as “not very refined and a Communist” (Robert Lowie to Risa Lowie, January 5, 1935, rhlp). 5. It is worth noting that, despite Goldie’s frequent complaints about Portland being a godforsaken provincial place that lacked interesting people, according to Reed folklore, he was apparently a sought-­after guest at elite parties in Portland’s old-­moneyed West Hills, with his piano being much in demand by hostesses (Robert Brightman, personal communication, February 20, 2021). It must have been his talent as a pianist as well as his somewhat “exotic” conduct and aura that attracted his hosts. Goldenweiser also traveled throughout Oregon in a car driven by his local friend Alfred Powers (1888–­1984), an educator and historian who authored History of Oregon Literature (Goldenweiser 1935a). 6. See also Goldenweiser to Benedict, January 23, 1932: “The complete absence of interesting (or even civilized) people out here is beginning to get on my nerves” (rbp). 7. “A girl for everything” (my translation). 8. A reference to Pushkin’s exile from St. Petersburg mentioned in his famous work Eugene Onegin. 9. It appears that by “immunity to molestation” Goldenweiser was referring to the fact that, after his West Coast exile, he should be able to return east without fearing either his wife’s vengeance or the local colleagues’ criticism. 10. Lowie wrote in his published paper “Reflections on Goldenweiser’s ‘Recent Trends in American Anthropology’” that “about once a year during his Portland period he [Goldenweiser] visited me at Berkeley, and we would converse as quondam confidants, ignoring past personal differences, but quite clear as to the chasm that divided us professionally” (cited in Kan 2015a, 17). 11. Shoora’s letters to Alice were kindly shared with me by her daughter Leslie English. Unfortunately Alice’s letters to him did not survive. 12. One such family was that of Mark Wischnitzer (1882–­1955), a prominent Russian Jewish historian. 13. The book is dedicated to “E.C.,” which most likely are the initials of his second wife, Ethel Cantor.

Notes to Pages 145–159  |  209

14. James Branch Cabell (1879–­1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction. George Santayana (1863–­1952) was an American philosopher, novelist, and poet. 15. See also Goldenweiser’s review of Margaret Mead’s The Changing Culture of an Indian Tribe (1934b) 16. On Boas’s ideas about the influence of culture and psychology on “motor activities,” see Boas 1938 and Darnell 2017. 17. According to Goldenweiser (1940b, 465), a “striking instance of pattern dominance adduced by Wissler was that of medicine bags and associated rites among the Blackfoot Indians, where the acquisition of a medicine bag was controlled by a pattern of great rigidity.” 18. Robert Brightman pointed out to me the omission of the topic of acculturation studies, as exemplified by Ralph Linton and several other American anthropologists (personal communication, February 20, 2021). 19. In a footnote Goldenweiser mentions a forthcoming paper of his titled “Boas’s Contribution to Anthropological Theory.” Such a paper, however, was never published and could not be found in his archival collections. 20. It is worth noting that in his review of Patterns of Culture, Goldenweiser was more cautious in his evaluation of Benedict’s approach. As he put it, “There is great promise in this point of view, I think, but also there is danger: in view of the inapplicability to such studies of enumerative or measuring techniques the door is opened for subjectivism; again one is easily tempted to abide by hasty or dogmatic classification; and finally, a ‘pattern’ thus identified with a culture might easily be found to have been read into it rather than in it: what is taken for a central theme in a native culture might prove to be but a conceptual device of the investigator. Dr. Benedict is not unaware of these dangers and warns against them” (1937b, 803). 21. Benedict was actually only seven years younger than Goldenweiser, but for him she did belong to a younger generation of anthropologists, having been his student. 22. The reference is to the gpu—­Glavnoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie—­the Chief Political Office, the precursor of the kgb. 23. Ch. K. (Chrezvychainaia Komissiia) was the very first version of the Soviet secret police.

5. The End 1. Pitirim Sorokin (1889–­1968) was a prominent Russian and later American sociologist who taught at Harvard for many years. 2. A recent paper by Julia Liss, which tries to skirt the issue of Boas’s 1939–­ 41 opposition to America’s involvement in World War II on the side of the Allies, makes the following mind-­boggling statement: “I have found no public statement by Boas on the U.S. entry into the war” (2015, 317). 210 | Notes to Pages 159–192















As I have demonstrated here, there were a number of such statements, making Boas’s viewpoint on this issue very well known among American intellectuals. 3. According to Leslie English, Ethel Goldenweiser died alone in Washington dc, and Alice Goldenweiser had to travel there to identify her body (personal communication, 2018). 4. Fortunately, some fifty years later, Shoora’s great-­granddaughter (daughter of Leslie English) changed her last name from “English” to “Alexander” in his memory. 5. Having moved to the East Coast, Ethel Goldenweiser visited Boas in New York and in December 1940 sent him the following letter: “Dear Professor Boas. It was very soothing and nice . . . and hearthealing . . . to have had that little visit with you. Only one thing disturbed me. I later felt I had no ‘right’ to descend upon you with my agonies. In the last analysis, there is a good deal to be said for ‘Nordic’ reserve, you know. My fond greetings to you” (Ethel Goldenweiser to Franz Boas, n.d., fbp). 6. According to my own sources, Alexei Goldenweiser asked Boas to write an introduction to a new edition of his brother’s anthropology textbook, in which he would appraise his scholarly contributions, but this was never done. In the fall of 1941, Goldenweiser’s publisher asked Ruth Benedict to edit a revised version of his anthropology textbook. Her response was negative. As she put it, “My own preference would be to leave Dr. Goldenweiser’s work as he wrote it and not confuse it with posthumous editing. I have seen too much of the havoc that this has played in anthropological publications” (Benedict to Wilbur, October 1, 1941, rbp). 7. Here is the text of a joking telegram sent by Goldenweiser to Calverton on March 16, 1934, from Portland: “To Modern Monthly goes my greetings at its illustrious birthday meeting and to the day I drink my rum when sparks of Marx will overcome the complexes of Christendom” (vfcp). 8. Here is how Robert Brightman (personal communication, October 13, 2021) commented on Mead’s and Bunzel’s lukewarm evaluation of Goldenweiser’s contribution to anthropology: “Jealousy and offended sensibilities are mixed [here] with genuine, provincial incapacity to understand AG’s interdisciplinarity and theoretical horizons.” 9. Matthew Bokovoy (personal communication, April 1, 2021), who is currently writing a book on manic depression, suggested to me that Goldenweiser might have been suffering from this affliction. If that had indeed been the case, it might explain his notorious womanizing, borrowing of money right and left without ever trying to repay his debts, gambling, and making plans for numerous writing projects without ever seeing them through. While intrigued by this hypothesis, I am rather reluctant to diagnose him without more solid factual evidence. Notes to Pages 193–200  |  211

References

Archives and Manuscript Materials Alexis Goldenweiser Papers, Bakhmeteff Archive, Columbia University (agp) Alfred L. Kroeber Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (alkp) Columbia University Archives (cua) Department of Economics Records, University of Chicago Library (ucl) Edward Sapir’s Correspondence, Canadian Museum of Civilization (esc) Elsie Clews Parsons Papers, American Philosophical Society (ecpp) Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society (fbp) Henry Hurwitz Papers, American Jewish Archives (hhp) Leslie A. White Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan (lawp) Leslie English Family Archive (lefa) Melville Jacobs Papers, University of Washington Library (mjp) Morris R. Cohen Papers, University of Chicago Library (mrcp) New School for Social Research Archive (nsa) Reed College Archives (rca) Robert H. Lowie Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (rhlp) Robert Redfield Papers, University of Chicago Library (rrp) Ruth Benedict Papers, Vassar College Archives (rbp) Sidney Hook Papers, Hoover Institute, Stanford University (shp) Tamiment Library and Wagner Labor Archives, New York University (tl and wla) V. F. Calverton Papers, Archives and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library (vfcp) W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (webdbp) William Fielding Ogburn Papers, University of Chicago Library (wfop) William N. Fenton Papers, American Philosophical Society (wnfp) Fenton, William N., ed. n.d. “Social and Ceremonial Organization on the Six Nations Reserve in 1910.” Unpublished Goldenweiser notebooks. 213

Published Works Allport, Floyd H. 1924. “The Group Fallacy in Relation to Social Science.” American Journal of Sociology 29: 688–­703. Anderson, Mark. 2019. Boas to Black Power: Racism, Liberalism, and American Anthropology. Stanford ca: Stanford University Press. Arzyutov, Dmitry, and Sergei Kan. 2017. “The Concept of the ‘Field’ in Early Soviet Ethnography: A Northern Perspective.” Sibirica: Interdisciplinary Journal of Siberian Studies 16, no. 1: 31–­74. Baker, Lee. 1998. From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-­1954. Berkeley: University of California Press. Banner, Lois W. 2003. Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle. New York: Random House. Barkan, Elazar. 1992. The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnes, Harry Elmer. 1922. “Review of Early Civilization: An Introduction to Anthropology by A. Goldenweiser.” New Republic, November 29, 1922, 7–­8. Barnes, Harry Elmer, Howard Becker, and Frances Bennett Becker, eds. 1940. Contemporary Social Theory. New York: D. Appleton-­Century. Bellow, Saul, Gloria Cronin, and Ben Siegel. 1994. Conversations with Saul Bellow. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Benedict, Ruth. 1923. The Concept of the Guardian Spirit in North America. Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, no. 29. Manasha wi: American Anthropological Association. —. 1933. “Review of History, Psychology, and Culture by Alexander Goldenweiser.” New York Herald Tribune, March, 26, 1933, h13. —. 1934. Patterns of Culture. New York: Houghton Mifflin. —. 1940a. “Alexander Goldenweiser.” Modern Quarterly 11, no. 6: 32–­33. —. 1940b. “Obituary Notice: Alexander A. Goldenweiser (1880–­1940).” American Sociological Review 5, no. 5: 782. Blatt, Jessica. 2009. “How Political Science Became Modern Racial Thought and the Transformation of the Discipline, 1880–­1930.” PhD diss., New School for Social Research. Boas, Franz. 1911. The Mind of Primitive Man. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan. —. 1916. “The Origin of Totemism.” American Anthropologist 18: 319–­326. —. 1940. “Britain’s War Aims?” pm, October 4, 1940, 2. —. 1945. Race and Democratic Society. New York: J. J. Augustin. Boginskii, Aleksandr. 2012. “Istoriia sem’i Goldenweiser: XIX–­XX vv.” [History of the Goldenweiser family: XIX–­XX cc.]. In Nauchnye Trudy po Iudaike, tom 3, 218–­34.

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228 | References

Index

Ambedcar, B. R., 205 American Philosophical Society symposium on race (1924), 116–­19 anti-­Stalinist Left, American, 143–­44 Arragon, Reginald F., 148 Bandelier, Adolph F., 49 Barnes, Harry Elmee, 86, 105, 166 Beach, Emily Green, 58 Beard, Charles, 47, 60–­61, 85–­86, 144 Beard, Mary Ritter, 61 Beilis trial, 13 Bellow, Saul, 151–­52 Benedict, Ruth, 17, 92–­94, 129, 165, 194–­96, 206n2, 211n6 Berlin Ethnological Museum, 14 Boas, Franz: on Alexander A. Goldenweiser, 1, 14–­16, 22–­24, 45, 49–­60, 73, 87–­88, 97–­98, 193–­94, 198, 200, 202n2; and American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, 177–­78; and the Cattell affair, 47, 52, 59; at Columbia University, 48–­60; and Communist Party, USA, 178, 191–­92; and Goldenweiser’s divorce, 129–­38; opposition of, to United States entering World War I, 48, 205n21; opposition of, to United States entering World War

II, 191–­92; on race and racism, 116–­19; relations of, with Goldenweiser, 14–­16, 109, 130, 155–­56 Boasian anthropology and the Boasians, 5–­6, 21, 42, 71–­72, 75, 78, 115, 123–­24, 163, 165, 170 Bogoraz (Bogoras), Vladimir, 16 Bokovoy, Matthew, xv, 206n29, 211n9 Bourne, Randolph, 62, 74, 206n27 Breysig, Kurt, 15, 202n7 Brightman, Robert, xv, 21–­22, 70, 160–­61, 205n23, 206n5, 210n18, 211n8 Bunzl, Ruth L., 196–­97, 211n8 Butler, Nicholas Murray, 46–­48, 52–­60 Calverton, V. F., 110, 124, 142, 195 Cantor, Nathaniel, 145, 209n2 Cattell, James K., 47, 52, 59, 204n15 Civic Club, 74 Cohen, Morris R., 17, 86, 109, 144, 153, 155, 182 Columbia University, history of, 45–­48 Communist Party, USA, 82, 140–­42, 147, 173, 178 Dana, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 47, 86

229

Danford, John, 38 Darnell, Regna, 70 Deganawi:dah myth, 37, 40, 203n7 Dewey, John, 86, 142, 144, 181–­82 diffusionist theories, 64–­65, 68, 72, 77, 99–­106, 164–­66, 171 DuBois, W. E. B., 112 Durkheim, Émile, 20, 23, 66–­67 Elliott, John W., 41 Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 95–­99 English, Leslie (AAG’s granddaughter), xvi, 3, 202n10, 211nn3–­4 evolutionist theories, 5, 19, 21, 65–­ 66, 72, 77, 99–­106, 166, 187–­91 Farrand, Livingston, 49–­51, 204n16 Fenton, William N., 32, 42, 54, 98–­ 99, 200, 204n14 Fogelson, Raymond D., 11–­12 Frazer, James G., 20 Gibson, John Arthur, 25, 28–­33, 35, 39, 41, 203n7 Gibson, Simeon, 39–­40, 203n9 Giddings, Franklin H., 61–­62, 205n24 Goddard, Pliny, 17 Goldenweiser, Alexander A. (AAG): adoption of, by the Senecas, 37–­ 38; on African Americans, 89, 111–­15, 121; on Alfred Kroeber’s research, 67–­70, 167; and Andrew Lang, 23; Anthropology: An Introduction to Primitive Culture, 162–­64; behavior and personality of, 12, 98–­99; in Berlin, 14–­15; on Boasian anthropology, 18, 89, 100–­102, 105–­16, 168; on Clark Wissler, 101, 170; on colonialism, 90; as Columbia Univer-

sity student, 14; on culture area approach, 167; death of, 192–­94; on diffusionism, 64–­65, 68, 72, 77, 99–­106, 167; divorce of, 127–­ 38; Early Civilization: An Introduction to Anthropology, 102–­6; early education of, 11–­12; on education, 126–­27, 184–­85; and Edward Sapir, 16, 24, 33–­38, 107–­ 8, 161, 170, 207n12; and Edwin R. A. Seligman, 96, 130, 135–­36, 206n3; and Elsie Clews Parsons, 17, 74–­75, 87, 91, 204n12, 205n20, 206n30; on Émile Durkheim, 66–­67, 168; and the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 95–­98, 130, 135–­36, 206n4; on evolutionist theories, 5, 19, 21, 65–­66, 72, 77, 99–­106, 166, 187–­91; family history of, 8–­11; on functionalism, 167–­68; on gender and sex, 123–­25, 208n27; as Harvard University student, 13–­14; and the Heretics discussion club, 74–­75; History, Psychology and Culture, 165; on immigration, 119–­20; on individual’s role in culture, 67–­ 70, 168; on involution in culture, 157–­59; and Iroquois consultants, relations with, 32–­33, 38–­42; Iroquois research by, 24–­45; on Jewish issues, 120–­23, 208nn25–­ 26; and John Arthur Gibson, 32–­ 33, 35–­37, 39–­40, 203n7; on John Collier and the Indian Reorganization Act, 163–­64; and left-­wing and liberal periodicals, 17, 111; and Liberal Club, 17; linguistic research by, 36–­37; on Lucien Lévi-­Bruhl, 65, 168; and Margaret Mead, 92, 94–­93, 210n15; and Marxism, 85, 174–­75, 180–­81; and

230 | Index

Melville Jacobs, 154–­55; military service of, in Kiev, 15, 202n5; on Native North Americans, 116, 161; on Nazi Germany, 173, 189–­ 91; on neo-­Kantianism, 166; as nineteenth-­century European gentleman, 12; on patterns of culture, 93–­94, 157–­59; on Paul Radin, 64, 168–­69, 171–­72; and the Pearson Circle, 17, 74; as pianist, 12, 18; political views and activities of, 64, 82–­85, 148, 172–­84; on Portland life, 149–­50, 179, 209n5; on “primitive mentality,” 65–­66, 103–­4; on “primitive religion,” 66–­67; on the principle of limited possibilities, 64–­65; on psychology, 63, 71, 106–­7; public lectures by, 110, 138, 204n11, 207n18; on race racism, 73–­74, 90, 111–­18, 121, 123; on Randolph Bourne, 62, 206n27; on “religious thrill,” 67; and Robert Lowie, 14–­18, 64, 66–­67, 167, 170–­71, 206n33; Robots and Gods, 159–­61; and Russian culture and literature, 12, 154, 178–­79, 187, 207n9, 209n8; on Russian/Soviet politics, 15, 72, 83–­84, 125, 173, 175–­79; and Ruth Benedict, 6, 92–­94, 101, 149, 152, 155–­56, 169, 172, 194–­96, 210n20; and Saul Bellow, 150–­51; Seneca name of, 37; on Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, 71, 103, 107–­9, 166, 207n8; and the “Socialism in Our Times” symposium, 83–­85; on Stalin-­Hitler Pact, 142, 173, 189; at St. Vladimir University of Kiev, 13; teaching at Columbia University by, 45–­60; teaching at the New School by, 87–­96, 109; teaching at the Rand

School by, 61–­64, 138; teaching at Reed College by, 146–­54; teaching at suny Buffalo by, 150; teaching at the University of Oregon by, 145–­46, 149, 152; teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, by, 150–­51; teaching at the Walden School by, 95; on totemism, 20–­24; as translator of ethnographic works from Russian into English, 15–­16, 72; on United States, 179; and V. F. Calverton, 83, 110, 195, 211n7; on war and pacifism, 74, 173, 189–­90; and W. E. B. Du Bois, 112–­13, 207n19; on Wilhelm Wundt, 67; and William F. Ogburn, 66, 106; and William N. Fenton, 44; on World War II, 189–­90 Goldenweiser, Alexander B. (AAG’s cousin), 8, 202n2 Goldenweiser, Alexander S. (AAG’s father): biography of, 9–­10; death of, 76; Jewish identity of, 11; as lawyer and legal scholar, 9–­10; and Leo Tolstoy, 9; political views of, 9–­10, 189; visit of, to United States in 1910, 75–­76, 202n13 Goldenweiser, Alexei A. (AAG’s brother), 3, 76, 145, 157, 187, 193, 195, 211n6 Goldenweiser, Alice Rosalind (English) (AAG’s daughter), 4, 16, 75, 151, 156–­57, 209n11 Goldenweiser, Anna G. (Hallow, Golovchiner) (AAG’s first wife), 16, 33, 39, 60, 75–­76, 127–­38, 202n8, 202n10, 203n6 Goldenweiser, Elena (AAG’s sister), 13, 193 Goldenweiser, Emmanuel A. (AAG’s brother), 13–­14, 16, 75–­76, 132–­33,

Index | 231

Goldenweiser, Emmanuel A. (cont.) 145, 192–­93, 201n1, 202nn9–­10, 205n19 Goldenweiser, Ethel (Cantor) (AAG’s second wife), 145–­46, 148, 192, 208n1, 209n4, 209n13, 211n3, 211n5 Goldenweiser, Nadezhda (Nadine) (Feldser) (AAG’s sister), 13, 76, 193 Goldenweiser, Sophia G. (Muntshtein) (AAG’s mother), 10–­11, 52, 75–­76, 202n13 Graebner, Fritz, 99–­100 Grant, Madison, 111 Hale, Horatio, 31 Hall, Henry Usher, 116–­17 Hallowell, Irving A., 6, 91 Herskovits, Melville, 6, 91 Hewitt, J. N. B., 29 Hook, Sidney, 99, 143, 195 Jacobi, Abraham, 48 Jacobs, Melville, 6, 91, 154–­55 Jochelson, Vladimir, 15–­16, 72 Johnson, Alvin, 86, 96–­98, 125, 127, 130, 134–­35 Johnson, James Weldon, 111 Kallen, Horace, 144 Kardiner, Abraham, 6, 91 Keezer, Dexter Merriam, 148–­49 Kiev, 7, 11, 13 Kirchwey, Freda, 74 Knowles, Francis H., 24–­25 Kroeber, Alfred, 45, 51, 69–­72, 107, 109, 154, 161 Landes, Ruth, 91 Lang, Andrew, 19–­20, 23 Lesser, Alexander, 6, 91 Lévi-­Bruhl, Lucien, 65

Lévi-­Strauss, Claude, 22, 24 Liberal Club, 74 libertarian socialism, libertarian communism, libertarian Marxism, 182–­84 Liss, Julia, 210n2 Low, Seth, 45 Lowie, Risa, 17 Lowie, Robert: on Alexander A. Goldenweiser, 23, 60, 78–­79, 165, 194, 206n33; relations of, with Goldenweiser, 16–­17, 77–­79, 109, 154, 194, 202n13; response to “Recent Trends in American Anthropology,” 197–­98, 209n10 Mach, Ernst, 17, 202n11 Marshall, Leon C., 127–­28 Marxism, 85, 143, 174–­75 McLennan, John F., 19 Mead, Margaret, 43–­44, 92–­94, 195–­ 96, 211n8 Meyer, Theresa (Durlach), 58–­59, 87–­88 Montague, William P., 61 Muntshein, Leonid (“Lolo”) (AAG’s maternal uncle), 201n2 New School for Social Research, history of, 85–­87 Northcott, Clarence H., 59 Ogburn, William F., 106, 109 Opler, Marvin, 152, 193 Oswalt, Friedrich Wilhelm, 17, 201n11 Parsons, Elsie Clews, 17, 74–­75, 87, 91, 204n12 Pearson, Karl, 17, 201n11 Peck, Harry T., 47 Perry, William James, 100

232 | Index

Poincaré, Henri, 17, 202n11 Powdermaker, Hortense, 172 Rand School, 60–­64 Redfield, Robert, 152–­53 Reed College, history of, 146–­47, 209n3 Rivers, W. H. R., 100 Robinson, James H., 47, 61, 85–­86, 109, 206n26 Rosenfeld, Isaac, 151 Sahlins, Marshall, 70 Sapir, Edward, 31; on Alexander A. Goldenweiser, 24–­25, 44–­45, 128, 138, 204n11; on Goldenweiser’s Iroquois research, 24–­25, 35, 44–­ 45; on Goldenweiser’s publications, 21–­23; relations of, with Goldenweiser, 202n3 Saville, Marshall H., 49 Seligman, Edwin R. A., 96–­98, 130 Shapiro, Salwyn J., 74, 109 Shapiro, Warren, 22 Shotwell, James, 61, 205n24 Shternberg, Lev, 72 Six Nations Reserve at Grand River, history of, 25–­32 Smith, Grafton Elliott, 100

Socialist Party of America, 60–­64, 82 Sorokin, Pitirim, 188, 201n1 Spingarn, Ellias, 47 Steinen, Karl von den, 14–­15 Tolstoy, Leo, 2, 8–­10, 114, 183, 207 totemism, anthropological theories of, 19–­20 Trotsky, Leo, 177 United States: 1920s political atmosphere of, 81–­82; 1930s political atmosphere of, 139–­45 USSR and American intellectuals, 83, 139–­41 Wallis, Wilson, 22, 24, 195–­96 Warner, Lloyd W., 172 Waugh, Frederick, 24–­25, 36 Weltfish, Gene, 6, 91 White, Leslie, 6, 13, 79, 91, 96, 127, 145, 154, 202 Wissler, Clark, 49, 100 Woodbury, Hani, 37, 203n7 World War I, 47, 52, 79, 119 Wundt, Wilhelm, 67, 202n11 Zumwalt, Rosemary Lévy, xv

Index | 233

In the Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology series Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology Regna Darnell The Shaping of American Ethnography: The Wilkes Exploring Expedition, 1838–­1842 Barry Alan Joyce Ruth Landes: A Life in Anthropology Sally Cole Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge Jerry Gershenhorn Leslie A. White: Evolution and Revolution in Anthropology William J. Peace Rolling in Ditches with Shamans: Jaime de Angulo and the Professionalization of American Anthropology Wendy Leeds-­Hurwitz Irregular Connections: A History of Anthropology and Sexuality Andrew P. Lyons and Harriet D. Lyons Ephraim George Squier and the Development of American Anthropology Terry A. Barnhart Ruth Benedict: Beyond Relativity, Beyond Pattern Virginia Heyer Young Looking through Taiwan: American Anthropologists’ Collusion with Ethnic Domination Keelung Hong and Stephen O. Murray

Visionary Observers: Anthropological Inquiry and Education Jill B. R. Cherneff and Eve Hochwald Foreword by Sydel Silverman Anthropology Goes to the Fair: The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition Nancy J. Parezo and Don D. Fowler The Meskwaki and Anthropologists: Action Anthropology Reconsidered Judith M. Daubenmier The 1904 Anthropology Days and Olympic Games: Sport, Race, and American Imperialism Edited by Susan Brownell Lev Shternberg: Anthropologist, Russian Socialist, Jewish Activist Sergei Kan Contributions to Ojibwe Studies: Essays, 1934–­1972 A. Irving Hallowell Edited and with introductions by Jennifer S. H. Brown and Susan Elaine Gray Excavating Nauvoo: The Mormons and the Rise of Historical Archaeology in America Benjamin C. Pykles Foreword by Robert L. Schuyler Cultural Negotiations: The Role of Women in the Founding of Americanist Archaeology David L. Browman Homo Imperii: A History of Physical Anthropology in Russia Marina Mogilner

American Anthropology and Company: Historical Explorations Stephen O. Murray Racial Science in Hitler’s New Europe, 1938–­1945 Edited by Anton Weiss-­ Wendt and Rory Yeomans Cora Du Bois: Anthropologist, Diplomat, Agent Susan C. Seymour Before Boas: The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment Han F. Vermeulen American Antiquities: Revisiting the Origins of American Archaeology Terry A. Barnhart An Asian Frontier: American Anthropology and Korea, 1882–­1945 Robert Oppenheim Theodore E. White and the Development of Zooarchaeology in North America R. Lee Lyman Declared Defective: Native Americans, Eugenics, and the Myth of Nam Hollow Robert Jarvenpa Glory, Trouble, and Renaissance at the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology Edited and with an introduction by Malinda Stafford Blustain and Ryan J. Wheeler

Race Experts: Sculpture, Anthropology, and the American Public in Malvina Hoffman’s Races of Mankind Linda Kim The Enigma of Max Gluckman: The Ethnographic Life of a “Luckyman” in Africa Robert J. Gordon National Races: Transnational Power Struggles in the Sciences and Politics of Human Diversity, 1840–­1945 Edited by Richard McMahon Franz Boas: The Emergence of the Anthropologist Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt Maria Czaplicka: Gender, Shamanism, Race Grażyna Kubica Writing Anthropologists, Sounding Primitives: The Poetry and Scholarship of Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict A. Elisabeth Reichel The History of Anthropology: A Critical Window on the Discipline in North America Regna Darnell History of Theory and Method in Anthropology Regna Darnell Franz Boas: Shaping Anthropology and Working for Social Justice Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt A Maverick Boasian: The Life and Work of Alexander A. Goldenweiser Sergei Kan

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