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Biographical Memoirs Volume 68 (1995) / Chapter Skim
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Frederick Russell Eggan
Pages 85-102

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From page 85...
... His pivotal contribution to anthropological science cluring his Tong, productive life consisted! of a creative synthesis of American historical ethnology with the structuralfunctional approach of British social anthropology, especially in a series of rigorous, comparative studies of the kinship anct social systems of Native Americans in the Southwest and on the Plains.
From page 86...
... Both chilciren lived at home until they completer! their graduate work, and their mother took in boarders to supplement · ~ t 1elr income.
From page 87...
... Unfortunately, there was little support for graduate work, especially for a student changing fielcis, so he took a teaching post for two years at Wentworth Junior College and Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri, where he was assignee! courses in psychology, sociology, and history and saved enough money to return to graduate work in anthropology in the summer of 1930.
From page 88...
... the ethnological work done by American anthropologists and advocated the synchronic study of social structures as functioning wholes. He also contenclecI that a comparison of these structures could provide a set of principles of organization comparable to the principles cliscovered by biologists for the organization and functioning of organisms.
From page 89...
... In this landmark study, Eggan macle brilliant analyses of each of the Western Pueblo social structures as functioning wholes, then comparect the four, and contrasted the Western Pueblos with the Eastern Pueblos (who live along the Rio Grande)
From page 90...
... a small number of cases that are cultural variations set within a geographical ant! historical frame (such as the Southwestern Pueblos or the tribes of the American Plains)
From page 91...
... War II, the restrictions imposer! by the Marcos regime on anthropological research, and the subsequent administrative duties he undertook- Fred collected significant information and published a number of funciamental papers on the tribal cultures of northern Luzon as he further developer!
From page 92...
... Otley Beyer, the one remaining anthropologist in the Philippines, who took Eggan in charge and outfitted him "in white cotton cluck for Manila ant! brown cotton for the fielcI." Eggan spent the 1934-35 year in the Abra Province of Luzon, learning some of the language, collecting ciata on all aspects of Tinguian life, and focusing his research interests on problems of social and cultural change.
From page 93...
... with him in cloing field research. She became noted for her research on Hopi dreams.2 During WorIcl War rim, Fred Eggan was called to duty as chief of research, Office of Special Services, Philippine Commonwealth Government.
From page 94...
... The Morgan Lecture gave Eggan an opportunity to make a modern appraisal of the scientific achievements of Lewis Henry Morgan, to summarize and synthesize his own scholarly efforts to understand! changes in kinship systems, and to establish a link with that first American scholar to unclertake a systematic study of kinship.3 The lectures were publishec3 as The American Ind fan ~ ~ 966)
From page 95...
... to his widow from Vernon Masayesva, chairman, and Abbott Sekaquaptewa, past chairman, of the Hopi Tribal Council at the time of his cleath: We will miss Dr. Eggan greatly, but we realize that his contribution to understanding and documenting Hopi culture, and his involvement with our eternal struggle to recover our ancestral lands will be his everlasting legacy to the Hopi Tribe.
From page 96...
... 4351. But Fred Eggan's greatest impact in the Tong run will come from his publications, which exhibit, in the thoughtful words of one of his younger colleagues at the University of Chicago: "His clarity of vision, ability to reduce complex phenomena to their essentials with minimum distortion, and capacity to demonstrate productive connections between hitherto disparate approaches and theories..." (Fogelson, 1979, p.
From page 97...
... 3. See Lewis Henry Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, Smithsonian Contributions of Knowledge, vol.
From page 98...
... 1950 Social Organization of the Western Pueblos. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
From page 99...
... Social anthropology: methods and results. In Social Anthropology of North American Tribes, ed.
From page 100...
... 34:161-80. 1980 Shoshone kinship structures and their significance for anthropological theory.


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