Nancy Lutkehaus
National Endowment for the Humanities
Resident Scholar 1997-1998
Margaret Mead
as a Cultural Icon
Margaret Mead, famous anthropologist, teacher, and public intellectual, at
her death attained iconic status as "grandmother to the nation," not
only because of her research and writing but also because of her relationship
with the media. Credited with popularizing the field of anthropology when it
was first being discovered by the American public, Mead "attracted media
attention through the public's romance with anthropology as exploration and
her position as a woman scientist-explorer," explains Nancy Lutkehaus.
The seed of Lutkehaus's new book, Margaret Mead and
the Media: The Making of an American Icon, was planted in the 1970s
when, as an undergraduate at Barnard College, she began to work for Mead at the
American Museum of Natural History. "I was fascinated by the diversity of
things she was doing," Lutkehaus said of Mead. "I accompanied her to
talk shows, to United Nations conferences in Europe, to professional meetings.
In my book, I'm attempting to understand why this one woman came to be called
upon by so many different people for her knowledge and insights."
As a graduate student at Columbia University, Lutkehaus was
also struck by the paradox that while Mead was acclaimed by the public, her reputation
as an anthropologist was often dismissed by her own academic peers—perhaps
because of the "female" topics she often focused upon (such as parent-child
relationships and socialization), perhaps because of her theoretical focus on
culture and personality, or perhaps simply because of professional jealousy.
Years later, after conducting research in Papua New Guinea
and working as a consultant on two documentaries about Mead, Lutkehaus decided
to focus on Margaret Mead as myth and symbol, much the way an anthropologist
would go into another culture and ask, "What do stories about certain people
tell us about that society?"
By analyzing newspaper, magazine, radio, and television coverage
of Mead, as well as how Mead herself constructed her public image and the messages
she wanted to convey about anthropology and its usefulness to American society,
Lutkehaus identified four key images that recur in the media: Mead as feminist
or independent woman, as anthropologist, as scientist, and as celebrity and public
intellectual. Her book traces the contradictory meanings these images of Mead
had for post-World War II Americans—a symbol to some of scientific expertise,
to others of science fiction; a symbol of either women's liberation or antifeminism;
a symbol of either the best of liberal democracy or the worst of American liberalism.
Although initially Lutkehaus asked why there are
no "Margaret Meads" in anthropology today, during her year
at the School she began to frame the question differently and to focus
instead on shifts in anthropology itself. "The challenge,"
Lutkehaus maintains, "is to develop a new sense of identity for
anthropology." It should no longer be associated with the image
of "the primitive" with which Mead was so clearly identified.
But because Mead was in the forefront of the transformation of anthropology
from the study of primitive people to the study of modern nations,
Lutkehaus believes Mead's later work can offer the discipline some
clues.
Return to Resident
Scholars 1997-98
