Skip to main content

Biographical Memoirs Volume 90 (2009) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:

GEORGE McCLELLAND FOSTER JR.
Pages 112-151

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 113...
... Going far beyond his graduate training at the University of California in the 1930s, he became widely known for his pioneering contributions to medical anthropology and applied anthropology, his brilliant comparative analyses of peasant communities (especially his works on the "Image of Limited Good" and the "Dyadic Contract") , and his commitment to long-term research in the community of Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán, Mexico.
From page 114...
... Well anchored at his research base in Tzintzuntzan, he voyaged throughout the world to fulfill professional consultations and to enjoy travel adventures with his extended family. All of these experiences provided significant data for answering the many questions that inspired his anthropological work for more than 70 years.
From page 115...
... Decades later his train timetables were donated to the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University, his airline schedules to
From page 116...
... Taught by Melville Herskovits, then the only anthropologist on the Northwestern University faculty, that class introduced Foster to cultures and peoples far beyond his familiar world. He loved it.
From page 117...
... Years later the Fosters' elegant, architect-designed home in the Berkeley hills, with its panoramic view of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mount Tamalpais, became a focal point for gatherings of anthropology faculty and students alike. Graduate Studies at Berkeley: 1935-1941 In the spring of 1935 Foster wrote to Alfred L
From page 118...
... -- who were jointly responsible for offering graduate seminars -- and instructors Ronald Olson and Edward Gifford. In his extended recollections of his graduate studies at Berkeley, Foster observed: As a group we were tremendously supportive of each other.
From page 119...
... Although she arrived too late to register for fall semester courses, she remembers that Foster arranged for her to audit some anthropology courses (M. Foster, 2001, p.
From page 120...
... . In this intimate family experience one can see elements of what later became Foster's famous theories about envy and the "Image of Limited Good." Once again installed in Berkeley, Foster renewed his studies with the aim of preparing for the comprehensive written and oral examinations in the fall of 1939.
From page 121...
... Foster found that Mexican anthropologists proved to be invaluable friends and guides through the maze of Mexican government agencies, opening up doors that Foster did not even know existed. He especially came to depend on his connections with Irmgard Weitlaner and her engineer father, Roberto, who introduced Foster to the Sierra Popoluca of Veracruz in the spring of 1940.
From page 122...
... In fact, many Berkeley students asked him to serve on their dissertation committees not so much for his ethnographic knowledge or theoretical insights, but because he was willing to spend time working with them on their writing. The experience of Eugene Hammel is typical of what so many students encountered when they handed in a dissertation draft to Foster.
From page 123...
... asking if Foster were interested in coming to UCLA to replace him for the 1942-1943 academic year, while Beals went to Washington, D.C., to work with Julian Steward on the project for a Handbook of South American Indians. Even though the growing Foster family (daughter Melissa was born while they were in New York)
From page 124...
... In the 10 years between 1943 and 1952 he went from "despising applied anthropology" to working as an advocate for anthropological research on U.S. technical aid programs in Latin America.
From page 125...
... Only in the 1960s and thereafter did Foster develop theoretical models to explain the impact of external forces on the community's culture. Washington, D.C.: Directing the Institute of Social Anthropology In the summer of 1946 after convincing his colleague Isabel Kelly to replace him as head of the Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA)
From page 126...
... On a second trip, lasting from February 14 to April 11, 1948, Foster traveled to Colombia, where he again saw Rowe and Hernández de Alba; to Ecuador and Peru, where he saw Holmberg and Jorge Muelle; and to Bolivia and Brazil, where he visited Donald Pierson and Kalervo Oberg. Spain: Studying THE ROOTS OF LATIN AMERICAN Acculturation In 1949-1950 Foster took a leave of absence from the ISA and, with a Guggenheim Fellowship, went to Spain to carry out a detailed study of the Spanish roots of Spanish American culture.
From page 127...
... ISA trip to Latin America between March 3 and March 28, 1951. He saw Richard Adams in Guatemala, Charles Erasmus and Luis Duque Gomez in Colombia, and Ozzie Simmons and Muelle in Peru.
From page 128...
... . The promise of the anthropological approach was so compelling that Henry van Zile Hyde, head of the institute's Health Division, agreed to hire all of the ISA field staff for the coming year if they would focus their attention on the U.S.-sponsored public health programs in their countries.
From page 129...
... . His experiences in working on public health programs with the Institute of Inter-American Affairs in 1951-1952 might have pointed him toward a permanent position in government circles, but he realized that at age 39 he had to make a choice between a government career and the academic life.
From page 130...
... . In the fall term of 1968 I served as his teaching assistant for the applied anthropology course.
From page 131...
... . Aware of the damage done by Kroeber's "sink or swim" approach to training graduate students for field research, Foster was convinced that the graduate program should include courses on research methods and should encourage students to get into supervised field situations prior to attempting their dissertation work.
From page 132...
... Although he served on some administrative commissions and did a few site visits at universities, all of his applied anthropology assignments were international, ranging from Latin America to Africa and from Asia to Europe. Although many of his consulting projects were focused on public health issues, they often were labeled more broadly as "community development." Foster was an excellent consultant who listened carefully and took a positive approach to the people who worked in the sponsoring agencies.
From page 133...
... This perspective is cogently presented in his Applied Anthropology (1969,1) , generally considered to be the first textbook in the field.
From page 134...
... Because of his historical bent, his inherent interest in social dynamics, and the decades of research devoted to Tzintzuntzan, Foster made good use of his voluminous and meticulously crafted fieldwork files to determine intracultural variation in local patterns of social and cultural change. The principal product of this approach was Tzintzuntzan: Mexican Peasants in a Changing World (1967, Spanish translation 1972)
From page 135...
... L A N D F O S T E R J R GEORGE McCLEL 135 "cold" qualities of a long list of foods and related products by asking more than a dozen persons on several different visits. Eventually, Foster saw the patterns and the anomalies in the data, and came to the conclusion that rather than being immutable, the categories of hot and cold were adaptable to the empirical medical circumstances of individuals.
From page 136...
... I wonder how many other cases there are where grandchildren of the original investigator view the community in that light? Foster brought Micaela (born May 8, 1906; died July 1, 2000)
From page 137...
... In May 2006 when Dolores and Virginia learned of his death, they placed his photograph on the household altar, next to those of their mother, Doña Micaela, and Mickie Foster. Medical Anthropology: TURNING PRACTICE INTO THEORY Foster's interest in public health and community development programs arose in the early 1950s while he was working in Washington, D.C., with the Institute for Social Anthropology and the Institute for Inter-American Affairs.
From page 138...
... Surely, this is the largest graduate student training grant in the history of American anthropology. Without that training grant the scholarly corps for doing medical anthropology would have taken much longer to develop.
From page 139...
... Snag offered Foster, Mickie, and other family members and friends time and space to relax, walk along the country lanes, go fishing in the adjacent river, go swimming in their "lake," go bird watching, pick bushels of apples from their trees, or just read from among the stacks of mostly nonfiction books. An avid angler, Foster was especially proud of a large rainbow trout -- mounted on the kitchen wall -- that he caught in their stretch of the river.
From page 140...
... In 2005 the Society for Medical Anthropology awarded Foster its Career Achievement Award and in the same year created the George Foster Practicing Medical Anthropology Award.
From page 141...
... Inheriting considerable family wealth, he quietly provided gifts and endowments totaling well over $1 million to sustain the anthropological institutions with which he was most closely identified: his beloved Anthropology Department at Berkeley, his alma mater Northwestern University, and Southern Methodist University, where two of his former students shaped the growth of its new anthropology department and continued to work with him on writing projects related to medical anthropology and Tzintzuntzan's community transformation. But it was not just in major gifts and endowments that Foster's commitment was manifested.
From page 142...
... 1943-1952 Ethnologist, Institute of Social Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution; 1944-1946, Mexico City; 1946-1952, Institute director in Washington, D.C. 1945-1946 Initial fieldwork in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán, Mexico 1949-1950 Fieldwork in Spain on Spanish background of con temporary Latin America 1951-1952 Consultant with Institute of Inter-American Affairs on applied anthropology in Latin America 1953-1979 University of California, Berkeley, director, Museum of Anthropology, 1953-1955; lecturer in public health, 1954-1965; professor of anthropology, 1955-1979; department chair, 1958-1961, 1972-1973; director, joint (with UCSF)
From page 143...
... 1943-1952 Ethnologist, Institute of Social Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution; 1944-1946, Mexico City; 1946-1952, institute director in Washington, D.C. 1953-1979 University of California, Berkeley, director, Museum of Anthropology, 1953-1955; lecturer in public health, 1954-1965; professor of anthropology, 1955-1979; department chair, 1958-1961, 1972-1973; director, joint (with UCSF)
From page 144...
... Society for Applied Anthropology (fellow) Society for Latin American Anthropology Society for Medical Anthropology Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología NOTES 1.
From page 145...
... 9. Without a doubt the most important piece in the Festschrift is that of Eugene Hammel and Laura Nader, titled "Will the Real George Foster Please Stand Up?
From page 146...
... Riess, Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library. Berkeley: University of California.
From page 147...
... Foster: Medical anthropology in the post-World War II years. In The Dynamics of Applied Anthropology in the Twentieth Century: The Malinowski Award Papers, ed.
From page 148...
... Empire's Children: The People of Tzintzuntzan. Washing ton, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, Institute of Social Anthropology Publication No.
From page 149...
... Long-Term Field Research in Social Anthropology. New York: Academic Press.
From page 150...
... Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library. Berkeley: University of California.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.