Editing Franz Boas (section)

==Post-graduate studies==
Boas took up geography as a way to explore his growing interest in the relationship between subjective experience and the objective world. At the time, German geographers were divided over the causes of cultural variation.<ref>{{Citation|last = Smith|first = W. D.|title = Politics and the sciences of culture in Germany, 1840–1920|publisher = Oxford University Press|location = New York|year = 1991| isbn = 978-0-19-536227-5|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=LOzmvGubipQC }}</ref>{{rp|11}} Many argued that the physical environment was the principal determining factor, but others (notably Friedrich Ratzel) argued that the diffusion of ideas through human migration is more important. In 1883, encouraged by Theobald Fischer, Boas went to [[Baffin Island]] to conduct geographic research on the impact of the physical environment on native [[Inuit]] migrations. The first of many ethnographic field trips, Boas culled his notes to write his first monograph titled ''The Central Eskimo'', which was published in 1888 in the 6th Annual Report from the Bureau of American Ethnology. Boas lived and worked closely with the Inuit on Baffin Island, and he developed an abiding interest in the way people lived.<ref name="Central_Eskimo_1988">{{citation |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42084/42084-h/42084-h.htm |work=Smithsonian Institution via Gutenberg |location=Washington |pages=399–670 |year=1888 |first=Franz |last=Boas |title=The Central Eskimo |series=Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1884–1885, Government Printing Office|access-date=13 January 2015}}</ref>

In the perpetual darkness of the Arctic winter, Boas reported, he and his traveling companion became lost and were forced to keep sledding for twenty-six hours through ice, soft snow, and temperatures that dropped below −46&nbsp;°C. The following day, Boas penciled in his diary,<ref name="Cole_Diaries_1983">{{citation |editor-first=Herbert |editor-last=Cole |year=1983 |title=Franz Boas's Baffin Island Letter-Diary, 1883–1884}}</ref>{{rp|33}}

{{blockquote|I often ask myself what advantages our 'good society' possesses over that of the 'savages' and find, the more I see of their customs, that we have no right to look down upon them&nbsp;... We have no right to blame them for their forms and superstitions which may seem ridiculous to us. We 'highly educated people' are much worse, relatively speaking&nbsp;...}}

Boas went on to explain in the same entry that "all service, therefore, which a man can perform for humanity must serve to promote truth." Before his departure, his father had insisted he be accompanied by one of the family's servants, Wilhelm Weike who cooked for him and kept a journal of the expedition. Boas was nonetheless forced to depend on various Inuit groups for everything from directions and food to shelter and companionship. It was a difficult year filled with tremendous hardships that included frequent bouts of disease, mistrust, pestilence, and danger. Boas successfully searched for areas not yet surveyed and found unique ethnographic objects, but the long winter and the lonely treks across perilous terrain forced him to search his soul to find a direction for his life as a scientist and a citizen.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.geni.com/people/Franz-Boas/6000000010572036876|title=Franz Uri Boas|website=geni_family_tree|date=9 July 1858 |access-date=2019-02-25}}</ref>

Boas returned to Berlin to complete his studies. His interest in indigenous communities grew as he worked at the [[Ethnological Museum of Berlin|Royal Ethnological Museum]] in Berlin, where he was introduced to members of the [[Nuxalk Nation]] of British Columbia, which sparked a lifelong relationship with the First Nations of the [[Pacific Northwest]]. Simultaneously, he became studied the methodologies of ethnomusicologists [[Carl Stumpf]], [[Erich von Hornbostel]], and [[George Herzog (ethnomusicologist)|George Herzog]]; practices he would later utilize in his own work in ethnomusicology.<ref name="Grove"/>

In 1886, Boas defended (with Helmholtz's support) his [[habilitation]] thesis, ''Baffin Land'', and was named {{lang|de|[[Privatdozent]]}} in geography.

While on Baffin Island he began to develop his interest in studying non-Western cultures (resulting in his book, ''The Central Eskimo'', published in 1888). In 1885, he went to work with physical anthropologist [[Rudolf Virchow]] and [[Ethnology|ethnologist]] [[Adolf Bastian]] at the Royal Ethnological Museum in Berlin. Boas had studied anatomy with Virchow two years earlier while preparing for the Baffin Island expedition. At the time, Virchow was involved in a vociferous debate over evolution with his former student, [[Ernst Haeckel]]. Haeckel had abandoned his medical practice to study comparative anatomy after reading [[Charles Darwin]]'s ''The Origin of Species'', and vigorously promoted Darwin's ideas in Germany. However, like most other natural scientists prior to the rediscovery of [[Mendelian genetics]] in 1900 and the development of the [[Modern synthesis (20th century)|modern synthesis]], Virchow felt that Darwin's theories were weak because they lacked a theory of cellular mutability. Accordingly, Virchow favored [[Jean-Baptiste Lamarck|Lamarckian]] models of evolution. This debate resonated with debates among geographers. Lamarckians believed that environmental forces could precipitate rapid and enduring changes in organisms that had no inherited source; thus, Lamarckians and environmental determinists often found themselves on the same side of debates.

But Boas worked more closely with Bastian, who was noted for his antipathy to environmental determinism. Instead, he argued for the "psychic unity of mankind", a belief that all humans had the same intellectual capacity, and that all cultures were based on the same basic mental principles. Variations in custom and belief, he argued, were the products of historical accidents. This view resonated with Boas's experiences on Baffin Island and drew him towards anthropology.

While at the Royal Ethnological Museum Boas became interested in the Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, and after defending his habilitation thesis, he left for a three-month trip to British Columbia via New York. In January&nbsp;1887, he was offered a job as assistant editor of the journal ''Science''. Alienated by growing antisemitism and [[nationalism]] as well as the very limited academic opportunities for a geographer in Germany, Boas decided to stay in the United States. Possibly he received additional motivation for this decision from his romance with Marie Krackowizer, whom he married in the same year. With a family underway and under financial stress, Boas also resorted to pilfering bones and skulls from native burial sites to sell to museums.<ref>[[Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=7lKwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT243 ''Franz Boas: The Emergence of the Anthropologist,''] [[University of Nebraska Press]] 2019 pp.182-183</ref>

Aside from his editorial work at ''Science'', Boas secured an appointment as ''docent'' in anthropology at [[Clark University]], in 1888. Boas was concerned about university president [[G. Stanley Hall]]'s interference in his research, yet in 1889 he was appointed as the head of a newly created department of anthropology at Clark University. In the early 1890s, he went on a series of expeditions which were referred to as the Morris K. Jesup Expedition. The primary goal of these expeditions was to illuminate Asiatic-American relations.<ref>Cole, Douglas 1983 "The Value of a Person Lies in His Herzensbildung": Franz Boas's Baffin Island Letter-Diary, 1883–1884. In Observers Observed: Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork. George W. Stocking Jr., ed. pp.&nbsp;13–52. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.</ref><ref>Cole, Douglas. 1999/ Franz Boas: The Early Years. 1858–1906. Seattle: University of Washington Press.</ref> In 1892 Boas, along with another member of the Clark faculty, resigned in protest of the alleged infringement by Hall on academic freedom.

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