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{{Short description|American cultural anthropologist (1901–1978)}}
{{Redirect|Margaret Bateson|the British journalist and activist|Margaret Heitland}}
{{Distinguish|text=the British anthropologist [[Margaret Read (anthropologist)|Margaret Read]]}}
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{{Use American English|date=April 2022}}
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{{Infobox person
| name               = Margaret Mead
| image              = Margaret Mead (1901-1978).jpg
| caption            = Mead in 1948
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1901|12|16}}
| birth_place        = [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]], U.S.
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1978|11|15|1901|12|16}}
| death_place        = New York City, U.S.
| education          = {{Plainlist|
* [[DePauw University]]
* [[Barnard College]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br />[[Columbia University]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])}}
| occupation         = [[Anthropologist]]
| awards             = {{Plainlist |
* [[Kalinga Prize]] (1970)
* [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] (1979, posthumous)}}
| spouse             = {{Plainlist|
* {{Marriage|[[Luther Cressman]]|1923|1928|end=div.}}
* {{Marriage|[[Reo Fortune]]|1928|1935|end=div.}}
* {{Marriage|[[Gregory Bateson]]|1936|1950|end=div.}}}}
| children           = [[Mary Catherine Bateson]]
| relatives          = [[Jeremy Steig]] (nephew)
}}
{{Anthropology of kinship |theorists}}

'''Margaret Mead''' (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American [[Cultural anthropology|cultural anthropologist]], author and speaker, who appeared frequently in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s.<ref name="libraryofcongress">{{cite web |date=November 30, 2001 |title=Margaret Mead As a Cultural Commentator |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/oneworld-comment.html |access-date=March 8, 2008 |work=Margaret Mead: Human nature and the power of culture |publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref>

Mead's first ethnographic work, ''Coming of Age in Samoa'' (1928), addressed adolescence and sexuality and catapulted her to national visibility. Her next work, ''Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies'' (1935),  explored gender roles and personality based on fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. Mead later conducted fieldwork with the Omaha people; in Manus, Papua New Guinea; and in Bali. She wrote ''Keep Your Powder Dry'', an ethnographic examination of American life, in the hopes of supporting mobilization for [[World War II]]. She coordinated two comparative studies on modern cultures in the 1950s, while focusing her own work on Russia. Her later work included returns to Papua New Guinea, Bali, and Samoa for longitudinal studies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Metraux |first=Rhoda |date=1980 |title=Margaret Mead: A Biographical Sketch |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1980.82.2.02a00010 |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=82 |issue=2 |pages=261–269 |doi=10.1525/aa.1980.82.2.02a00010 |issn=1548-1433 |access-date=2025-11-15}}</ref> She was curator of [[ethnology]] at the [[American Museum of Natural History]] from 1946 to 1969. Mead served as president of the [[American Association for the Advancement of Science]] in 1975.<ref>{{cite web |title=AAAS Presidents |url=https://www.aaas.org/leadership/presidents |website=aaas.org |publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science |access-date=October 13, 2018}}</ref>

Mead was a communicator of [[anthropology]] in modern American and [[Western culture]] and was often controversial as an academic.<ref name="SciAmeri">{{cite web |last=Horgan |first=John |title=Margaret Mead's bashers owe her an apology |url=http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2010/10/25/margaret-meads-bashers-owe-her-an-apology/ |publisher=Scientific America}}</ref> Her reports detailing the attitudes towards sex in South Pacific and Southeast Asian traditional cultures influenced the 1960s [[sexual revolution]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Popova |first1=Marie |title=Legendary Anthropologist Magaret Mead on the Fluidity of Human Sexuality in 1933 |url=https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/02/06/margaret-mead-homosexuality/ |website=brainpickings|date=February 6, 2014}}</ref> She was a proponent of broadening sexual conventions within the context of Western cultural traditions.

==Early life and education==
Margaret Mead, the first of five children, was born in [[Philadelphia]] but raised in nearby [[Doylestown, Pennsylvania]]. Her father, Edward Sherwood Mead, was a professor of finance at the [[Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania]], and her mother, Emily (née Fogg) Mead,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/mead-shaping.html |title=Shaping Forces – Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture (Library of Congress Exhibition) |publisher=Loc.gov |access-date=September 29, 2010|date=November 30, 2001 }}</ref> was a sociologist who studied Italian immigrants.<ref name="unesco bio">{{cite web|url=http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/meade.pdf |title="Margaret Mead" by Wilton S. Dillon |access-date=September 29, 2010}}</ref> Her sister Katharine (1906–1907) died at the age of nine months. That was a traumatic event for Mead, who had named the girl, and thoughts of her lost sister permeated her daydreams for many years.<ref name="Howard">[[Jane Howard (journalist)|Howard, Jane]]. (1984). ''Margaret Mead: A Life'', New York: Simon and Schuster.</ref>

Her family moved frequently and so her early education was directed by her grandmother until, at age 11, she was enrolled by her family at [[Buckingham Friends School]] in [[Lahaska]], Pennsylvania.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Stella|first1=Nicole and Jenifer|title=New Hope, Lahaska, and Buckingham (PA) (Images of America)|year=2005|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|isbn=978-0-7385-3796-2|page=46|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uyGs_qfSMQwC&q=Buckingham%20Friends%20School&pg=PA46}}</ref> Her family owned the [[Longland (Holicong, Pennsylvania)|Longland]] farm from 1912 to 1926.<ref name="arch">{{cite web| url = https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce/SelectWelcome.asp| title = National Historic Landmarks & National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania| publisher = CRGIS: Cultural Resources Geographic Information System| format = Searchable database| access-date = November 6, 2012| archive-date = September 14, 2005| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050914194407/https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce/SelectWelcome.asp| url-status = dead}} ''Note:'' This includes {{cite web| url = https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce_imagery/phmc_scans/H099089_01H.pdf| title = National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Longland| access-date = September 30, 2012| author = Jeffrey L. Marshall| date = October 1999| archive-date = May 25, 2013| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130525175524/https://www.dot7.state.pa.us/ce_imagery/phmc_scans/H099089_01H.pdf| url-status = dead}}</ref> Born into a family of various religious outlooks, she searched for a form of religion that gave an expression of the faith with which she had been formally acquainted, Christianity.<ref name="Mead">{{harvnb|Mead|1972|pp=76–77}}</ref> In doing so, she found the rituals of the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church]] to fit the expression of religion she was seeking.<ref name="Mead" /> Mead studied one year, 1919, at [[DePauw University]], then transferred to [[Barnard College]].

Mead earned her bachelor's degree from Barnard in 1923, began studying with professors [[Franz Boas]] and [[Ruth Benedict]] at [[Columbia University]], and earned her master's degree in 1924.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/women/article-9051668 |title=Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Women's History |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=September 29, 2010}}</ref> Mead set out in 1925 to do fieldwork in [[Samoa]].<ref>Mead 1977</ref> In 1926, she joined the [[American Museum of Natural History]], New York City, as assistant curator.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/margaretmead.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000519172229/http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/margaretmead.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 19, 2000 |title=Margaret Mead |publisher=Webster.edu |date=December 18, 1901 |access-date=September 29, 2010}}</ref> She received her Ph.D. from [[Columbia University]] in 1929.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mmead.htm |title=Margaret Mead |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri|last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210175324/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/mmead.htm |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

== Anthropological work ==

=== Methods ===
As an ethnographer, Mead's primary research method was [[participant observation]] through living in communities for extended periods of time. Beginning with her first field study in Samoa, she often concentrated her research on childhood, adolescence, sexuality, and kinship. In examining these topics, Mead created multivocal ethnographies that considered the lives of women and men, girls and boys alongside one another.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Lipset |first=David |date=2003 |title=Rereading Sex and Temperament : Margaret Mead's Sepik Triptych and its Ethnographic Critics |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/35/article/48524 |journal=Anthropological Quarterly |volume=76 |issue=4 |pages=693–713 |issn=1534-1518 |access-date=2025-11-03}}</ref>{{Reference page|pages=711–712}}

During fieldwork with Gregory Bateson in Bal in the 1930s, she used still and motion photography extensively, creating one of the earliest film archives of anthropological research. Mead and Bateson's subsequent culture-at-a-distance work also involved studying films to characterize foreign cultures. These innovations led to her being called the "mother" of visual anthropology.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ruby |first=Jay |date=2001 |title=The Professionalization of Visual Anthropology in the United States: The 1960s and 1970s. |url=https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/var.2001.17.2.5 |journal=Visual Anthropology Review |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=5–12 |doi=10.1525/var.2001.17.2.5 |issn=1058-7187 |access-date=2025-11-17}}</ref>

During World War II, Mead turned her attention to studying her own American culture and to conducting studies of national character, which she envisioned as being important both for the war effort and for an internationalist future after the war. She organized, along with Ruth Benedict until her death in 1948, the Columbia University project Research in Contemporary Culture. These studies involved reviewing cultural materials and interviewing nationals of the culture under study, methods more accessible under wartime conditions.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Metraux |first=Rhoda |date=1980 |title=Margaret Mead: A Biographical Sketch |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1980.82.2.02a00010 |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=82 |issue=2 |pages=261–269 |doi=10.1525/aa.1980.82.2.02a00010 |issn=1548-1433 |access-date=2025-11-15}}</ref> The method and numerous studies conducted under it were published in ''The Study of Culture at a Distance'' (1953), edited by Mead and Rhoda Métraux.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Mead |first1=Margaret |title=The Study of Culture at a Distance |last2=Métraux |first2=Rhoda Bubendey |last3=Métraux |first3=Rhoda |date=2000 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-57181-215-5}}</ref>

Mead was also concerned with studying social change and modernization, particularly in the context of prior research. She conducted return field visits of her own and oriented new ethnographers in Bali, Manus, the Admiralty Islands, New Guinea, and Samoa.<ref name=":1" />

=== Research fieldwork ===
[[File:Goodbye_and_Good_Luck_to_Margaret_Mead_and_Gregory_Bateson.jpg|thumb|Ink on paper drawing by artist I Ketut Ngéndon depicting anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson leaving Bali and heading for Papua New Guinea]]
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Margaret Mead Field Visits, 1925–1977<ref>{{Cite document| last = Library of Congress. Manuscript Division| title = Margaret Mead Papers and the South Pacific Ethnographic Archives: A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress|publisher=Library of Congress | date = 2024}}</ref>
|-
! Year !! Field Visit 
|-
| 1925-1926 || American Samoa (study of adolescent girls) 
|-
| 1928-1929 || Manus, Admiralty Islands (with Reo Fortune, study of young children) 
|-
| 1930 || Omaha (Umonhon) Tribe, Nebraska 
|-
| 1931-1933 || New Guinea (study of Arapesh, Biwat, and Chambri people) 
|-
| 1936-1939 || Bali and New Guinea (study of Iatmul people) 
|-
| 1953 || Manus, Admiralty Islands (with Theodore and Lenora Schwartz) 
|-
| 1957-1958 || Bali (with Ken Heyman) 
|-
| 1964-1965 || Manus, Admiralty Islands 
|-
| 1967 || Manus, Admiralty Islands; New Guinea 
|-
| 1971 || Manus, Admiralty Islands; New Guinea and American Samoa 
|-
| 1973 || Hoskins Bay, New Britain (study of Arapesh people) 
|-
| 1975 || Manus, Admiralty Islands 
|-
| 1977 || Bali 
|}
===''Coming of Age in Samoa'' (1928)===
{{Main|Coming of Age in Samoa}}

[[File:Samoan taupou girl 1896.jpg|thumb|Samoan girl, {{circa}} 1896]]
Mead's first ethnographic work described the life of Samoan girls and women on the island of Tau in the Manu'a Archipelago in 1926.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mead |first=Margaret |title=Coming of age in Samoa : a psychological study of primitive youth for western civilisation |date=2001 |publisher=Perennial Classics |isbn=0-688-05033-6 |edition=First Perennial Classics |location=New York |oclc=44550546}}</ref> The book includes analyses of how children were raised and educated, sex relations, dance, development of personality, conflict, and how women matured into old age. Mead explicitly sought to contrast adolescence in Samoa with that in America, which she characterized as difficult, constrained, and awkward. In the foreword to ''Coming of Age in Samoa'', Mead's advisor, [[Franz Boas]], wrote of the book's significance:<ref>Franz Boas, "Preface" in Margaret Mead, ''Coming of Age in Samoa''</ref>

<blockquote>Courtesy, modesty, good manners, conformity to definite ethical standards are universal, but what constitutes courtesy, modesty, very good manners, and definite ethical standards is not universal. It is instructive to know that standards differ in the most unexpected ways.</blockquote>

In this way, the book tackled the question of nature versus nurture, whether adolescence and its associated developments were a difficult biological transition for all humans or whether they were cultural processes shaped in particular societies. Mead believed childhood, adolescence, gender, and sex relations were largely driven by cultural practices and expressions.

Mead's findings suggested that the community ignores both boys and girls until they are about 15 or 16. Before then, children have little social standing within the community. Mead also found that marriage is regarded as a social and economic arrangement in which wealth, rank, and job skills of the husband and wife are taken into consideration. Aside from marriage, Mead identified two types of sex relations: love affairs and adultery. The exceptions to these practices include women married to chiefs and young women who hold the title of taupo, a ceremonial princess, whose virginity was required. Mead described Samoan youth as often having free, experimental, and open sexual relationships, including homosexual relationships, which was at odds with mainstream American norms around sexuality.

In 1970, [[National Educational Television]] produced a documentary in commemoration of the 40th anniversary Mead's first expedition to New Guinea. Through the eyes of Mead on her final visit to the village of Peri, the film records how the role of the anthropologist has changed in the forty years since 1928.<ref>{{Citation|title=NET Festival; 49; Margaret Mead's New Guinea Journal. Part 1|url=http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-75-77sn0b0r|language=en|access-date=December 16, 2020}}</ref>
[[File:Margaret Mead NYWTS.jpg|thumb|Mead, {{circa}} 1950]]

====Criticism by Derek Freeman====
After her death, Mead's Samoan research was criticized by the anthropologist [[Derek Freeman]], who published a book arguing against many of Mead's conclusions in ''[[Coming of Age in Samoa]]''.<ref>[[Derek Freeman]] (1983). ''Margaret Mead and Samoa''. Cambridge, London: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-674-54830-5}}.</ref> Freeman argued that Mead had misunderstood Samoan culture when she argued that Samoan culture did not place many restrictions on youths' sexual explorations. Freeman argued instead that Samoan culture prized female chastity and virginity and that Mead had been misled by her female Samoan informants. Freeman found that the Samoan islanders whom Mead had depicted in such utopian terms were intensely competitive and had murder and rape rates higher than those in the United States. Furthermore, the men were intensely sexually jealous, which contrasted sharply with Mead's depiction of "free love" among the Samoans.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Buss |first=David M. |title=Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-138-08861-0 |pages=26}}</ref>

Freeman's book was controversial in its turn and was met with considerable backlash and harsh criticism from the anthropology community, but it was received enthusiastically by communities of scientists who believed that sexual mores were more or less universal across cultures.<ref>{{cite video | title = Margaret Mead and Samoa| year = 1987| author = Frank Heimans| time = 20:25| quote=Roger Fox, Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers: '[What Freeman did was to] attack the goddess... she couldn't be wrong because if she was wrong then the doctrine was wrong and the whole liberal humanitarian scheme was wrong.'| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOCYhmnx6o8}}</ref><ref>{{cite video| title = Margaret Mead and Samoa| year = 1987| author = Frank Heimans| time = 21:20| quote = Marc Swartz, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego: "one of the leading anthropologists came out immediately after Derek's book was out and said I haven't read the book but I know he's wrong."| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOCYhmnx6o8}}</ref> Later in 1983, a special session of Mead's supporters in the [[American Anthropological Association]] (to which Freeman was not invited) declared it to be "poorly written, unscientific, irresponsible and misleading."<ref name="shawnyt">{{cite news |author=John Shaw |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/05/world/derek-freeman-who-challenged-margaret-mead-on-samoa-dies-at-84.html |title='Derek Freeman, Who Challenged Margaret Mead on Samoa, Dies at 84,' |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 5, 2001}}</ref> Some anthropologists who studied Samoan culture argued in favor of Freeman's findings and contradicted those of Mead, but others argued that Freeman's work did not invalidate Mead's work because Samoan culture had been changed by the integration of Christianity in the decades between Mead's and Freeman's fieldwork periods.<ref>{{cite video | title = Margaret Mead and Samoa| year = 1987| author= Frank Heimans| time = 26:125| quote = Anthropologists Richard Goodman and Tim Omera talk about their work in Samoa and how it supports Freeman's findings| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOCYhmnx6o8}}</ref>

[[Eleanor Leacock]] traveled to Samoa in 1985 and undertook research among the youth living in [[urban area]]s. The research results indicate that the assertions of [[Derek Freeman]] were seriously flawed. Leacock pointed out that Mead's famous Samoan fieldwork was undertaken on an outer island that had not been colonialized. Freeman, meanwhile, had undertaken fieldwork in an urban slum plagued by drug abuse, structural unemployment, and [[gang]] violence.<ref>{{cite book | editor1=Andrew Lyons | editor2=Harriet Lyons | editor3=Robert J. Gordon |title=Fifty Key Anthropologists |publisher= Taylor & Francis |year=2010 |page=124 |isbn=9781136880124 }}</ref>

Mead was careful to shield the identity of all her subjects for confidentiality, but Freeman found and interviewed one of her original participants, and Freeman reported that she admitted to having willfully misled Mead. She said that she and her friends were having fun with Mead and telling her stories.<ref>{{cite video | title = Margaret Mead and Samoa| year = 1987| author= Frank Heimans| time = 41:20| quote = We girls would pinch each other and tell her we were out with the boys. We were only joking but she took it seriously. As you know, Samoan girls are terrific liars and love making fun of people, but Margaret thought it was all true. | url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOCYhmnx6o8}}</ref>

In 1996, the author [[Martin Orans]] examined Mead's notes preserved at the Library of Congress and credits her for leaving all of her recorded data available to the general public. Orans points out that Freeman's basic criticisms, that Mead was duped by ceremonial virgin Fa'apua'a Fa'amu, who later swore to Freeman that she had played a joke on Mead, were equivocal for several reasons. Mead was well aware of the forms and frequency of Samoan joking, she provided a careful account of the sexual restrictions on ceremonial virgins that corresponds to Fa'apua'a Fa'auma'a's account to Freeman, and Mead's notes make clear that she had reached her conclusions about Samoan sexuality before meeting Fa'apua'a Fa'amu. Orans points out that Mead's data support several different conclusions and that Mead's conclusions hinge on an [[Symbolic anthropology|interpretive]], rather than [[positivism|positivist]], approach to culture. Orans went on to point out concerning Mead's work elsewhere that her own notes do not support her published conclusive claims. Evaluating Mead's work in Samoa from a positivist stance, Orans's assessment of the controversy was that Mead did not formulate her research agenda in scientific terms and that "her work may properly be damned with the harshest scientific criticism of all, that it is '[[not even wrong]]'."<ref name="orans">Orans, Martin (1996), ''Not Even Wrong: Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman, and the Samoans''.</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2022}}

On the whole, anthropologists have rejected the notion that Mead's conclusions rested on the validity of a single interview with a single person and find instead that Mead based her conclusions on the sum of her observations and interviews during her time in Samoa and that the status of the single interview did not falsify her work.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Shankman |first1=Paul |title=The Trashing of Margaret Mead |publisher=The University of Wisconsin Press |isbn=978-0-299-23454-6 |page=113|date=December 3, 2009 }}</ref> Others such as Orans maintained that even though Freeman's critique was invalid, Mead's study was not sufficiently scientifically rigorous to support the conclusions she drew.<ref name="orans" />{{page needed|date=September 2022}}

In 1999, Freeman published another book, ''The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research'', including previously unavailable material. In his obituary in ''The New York Times'', John Shaw stated that Freeman's thesis, though upsetting many, had by the time of his death generally gained widespread acceptance.<ref name="shawnyt" /> Recent work has nonetheless challenged Freeman's critique.<ref>Paul Shankman,[''The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy,''] University of Wisconsin Press, 2009 esp. pp. 47–71.</ref> A frequent criticism of Freeman is that he regularly misrepresented Mead's research and views.<ref name="ReferenceA">Shankman, Paul 2009 ''The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy''.  Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2022}}<ref>See Appell 1984, Brady 1991, Feinberg 1988, Leacock 1988, Levy 1984, Marshall 1993, Nardi 1984, Patience and Smith 1986, Paxman 1988, Scheper-Hughes 1984, Shankman 1996, Young and Juan 1985</ref> In a 2009 evaluation of the debate, anthropologist Paul Shankman concluded:<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

<blockquote>There is now a large body of criticism of Freeman's work from a number of perspectives in which Mead, Samoa, and anthropology appear in a very different light than they do in Freeman's work. Indeed, the immense significance that Freeman gave his critique looks like 'much ado about nothing' to many of his critics.</blockquote>

While nurture-oriented anthropologists are more inclined to agree with Mead's conclusions, some non-anthropologists who take a nature-oriented approach follow Freeman's lead, such as Harvard psychologist [[Steven Pinker]], biologist [[Richard Dawkins]], evolutionary psychologist [[David Buss]], science writer [[Matt Ridley]], classicist [[Mary Lefkowitz]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/Shankman-Trashing%20of%20Margaret%20Mead.pdf |title=The Trashing of Margaret Mead – How Derek Freeman Fooled us all on an Alleged Hoax |access-date=November 2, 2013}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2022}}.

In her 2015 book ''[[Galileo's Middle Finger]]'', [[Alice Dreger]] argues that Freeman's accusations were unfounded and misleading. A detailed review of the controversy by Paul Shankman, published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2009, supports the contention that Mead's research was essentially correct and concludes that Freeman cherry-picked his data and misrepresented both Mead and Samoan culture.<ref>{{cite book | title=The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy| author=Shankman, Paul | year=2009 | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | isbn=978-0-299-23454-6}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2022}}<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1126/science.1189202|author=Robert A. Levine|title=Cutting a Controversy Down to Size|journal=Science|pages=1108|volume=328|date=May 28, 2010|issue=5982|s2cid=162343521}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The Trashing of Margaret Mead|url=https://savageminds.org/2010/10/13/the-trashing-of-margaret-mead/|website=Savage Minds|access-date=August 4, 2017|date=October 13, 2010}}</ref>

A survey of 301 anthropology faculty in the United States in 2016 had two thirds agreeing with a statement that Mead "romanticizes the sexual freedom of Samoan adolescents" and half agreeing that it was ideologically motivated.<ref>{{cite journal| last1=Horowitz| first1=Mark| last2=Yaworsky| first2=William| last3=Kickham| first3=Kenneth| date=October 2019| title=Anthropology's Science Wars: Insights from a New Survey| journal=[[Current Anthropology]]| volume=60| issue=5| pages=674–698| doi = 10.1086/705409| s2cid = 203051445}}</ref>

==={{Vanchor|Sex and Temperament|text=''Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies'' (1935)}}===
{{Main|Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies}}

===Other research areas===
In 1926, there was much debate about [[race and intelligence]]. Mead felt the methodologies involved in the experimental psychology research supporting arguments of racial superiority in intelligence were substantially flawed. In "The Methodology of Racial Testing: Its Significance for Sociology," Mead proposes that there are three problems with testing for racial differences in intelligence. First, there are concerns with the ability to validly equate one's test score with what Mead refers to as ''racial admixture'' or how much ''Negro or Indian blood'' an individual possesses. She also considers whether that information is relevant when interpreting IQ scores. Mead remarks that a genealogical method could be considered valid if it could be "subjected to extensive verification." In addition, the experiment would need a steady control group to establish whether racial admixture was actually affecting intelligence scores. Next, Mead argues that it is difficult to measure the effect that social status has on the results of a person's intelligence test. She meant that environment (family structure, socioeconomic status, and exposure to language, etc.) has too much influence on an individual to attribute inferior scores solely to a physical characteristic such as race. Then, Mead adds that language barriers sometimes create the biggest problem of all. Similarly, Stephen J. Gould finds three main problems with intelligence testing in his 1981 book ''[[The Mismeasure of Man]]'' that relate to Mead's view of the problem of determining whether there are racial differences in intelligence.<ref>Mead, Margaret, "The Methodology of Racial Testing: Its Significance for Sociology" ''American Journal of Sociology'' 31, no. 5 (March 1926): 657–667.</ref><ref>Gould, Stephen J. ''The Mismeasure of Man'', New York City: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981.</ref>

In 1929, Mead and Fortune visited [[Manus Island|Manus]], now the northernmost province of Papua New Guinea, and traveled there by boat from [[Rabaul]]. She amply describes her stay there in her autobiography, and it is mentioned in her 1984 biography by [[Jane Howard (journalist)|Jane Howard]].  On Manus, she studied the Manus people of the south coast village of Peri. "Over the next five decades Mead would come back oftener to Peri than to any other field site of her career.'<ref name="Howard" /><ref> [[Jane Howard (journalist)|Jane Howard]], ''Margaret Mead: A Life'' (1984), New York: Simon and Schuster.</ref>{{rp|117}}

Mead has been credited with persuading the [[American Jewish Committee]] to sponsor a project to study European Jewish villages, ''[[shtetl]]s'', in which a team of researchers would conduct mass interviews with Jewish immigrants living in New York City. The resulting book, widely cited for decades, allegedly created the [[Jewish mother stereotype]], a mother intensely loving but controlling to the point of smothering and engendering guilt in her children through the suffering she professed to undertake for their sakes.<ref>"[http://www.slate.com/id/2167961/slideshow/2167764/entry/2167761/fs/0/ The Jewish Mother] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110821014159/http://www.slate.com/id/2167961/slideshow/2167764/entry/2167761/fs/0/ |date=August 21, 2011 }}", ''Slate'', June 13, 2007, p. 3</ref>

Mead worked for the [[RAND Corporation]], a US Air Force military-funded private research organization, from 1948 to 1950 to study Russian culture and attitudes toward authority.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/margaretmeadmaki0000lutk |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/margaretmeadmaki0000lutk/page/321 321] |quote=margaret mead RAND corporation. |title=Margaret Mead: The Making of an American Icon|publisher=Princeton University Press |author= Nancy Lutkehaus|isbn=978-0-691-00941-4|year=2008}}</ref>
[[File:Trance and Dance in Bali.webm|thumb|thumbtime=34|''[[Trance and Dance in Bali]]'', a 1951 documentary by [[Gregory Bateson]] and Margaret Mead]]
As an [[Anglican]] Christian, Mead played a considerable part in the drafting of the 1979 American [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal]] [[Book of Common Prayer]].<ref name="Howard"/>{{rp|347–348}}

== Personal life ==
[[File:Margaret Mead 1951 SLNSW FL16371554.jpg|thumb|Dr. Margaret Mead, Australia, September 1951]]

Mead was married three times. After a six-year engagement,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Luther Cressman on Margaret Mead |url=http://www.gregbryant.com/grogbrat/steens79/cressmanmead.html}}</ref> she married her first husband (1923–1928), [[Luther Cressman]], an American theology student who later became an anthropologist. Before departing for Samoa in 1925, Mead had a short affair with the linguist [[Edward Sapir]], a close friend of her instructor [[Ruth Benedict]]. However, Sapir's conservative stances about marriage and [[gender role|women's roles]] were unacceptable to Mead, and as Mead left to do field work in [[Samoa]], they separated permanently. Mead received news of Sapir's remarriage while she was living in Samoa. There, she later burned their correspondence on a beach.<ref>{{cite book |last=Darnell |first=Regna |title=Edward Sapir: linguist, anthropologist, humanist |publisher=University of California Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-520-06678-6 |location=Berkeley |page=187}}</ref> Between 1925 and 1926, she was in [[Samoa]] from where on the return boat she met [[Reo Fortune]], a New Zealander headed to [[Cambridge]], England, to study [[psychology]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=November 30, 2001 |title=Manus: Childhood Thought – Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture &#124; Exhibitions – Library of Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/field-manus.html |website=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref> They were married in 1928, after Mead's divorce from Cressman. Mead dismissively characterized her union with her first husband as "my student marriage" in her 1972 autobiography ''Blackberry Winter'', a [[sobriquet]] with which Cressman took vigorous issue. Mead's third and longest-lasting marriage (1936–1950) was to the British anthropologist [[Gregory Bateson]] with whom she had a daughter, [[Mary Catherine Bateson]], who would also become an anthropologist. She readily acknowledged that Bateson was the husband she loved the most. She was devastated when he left her and remained his loving friend ever afterward. She kept his photograph by her bedside wherever she traveled, including beside her hospital deathbed.<ref name="Howard" /> {{rp|428}}

Mead also had an exceptionally close relationship with [[Ruth Benedict]], one of her instructors. In her memoir about her parents, ''With a Daughter's Eye'', Mary Catherine Bateson strongly implies that the relationship between Benedict and Mead was partly sexual.<ref name="MCBateson">Bateson 1984; Lapsley 1999.</ref>{{rp|117–118}} In her biography of the two women, Lois Banner writes that Mead and Benedict had become lovers by late 1924 and that Benedict then "characterize[d] Mead [as] her daughter and protégée in anthropology, her partner, lover, and best friend."<ref name="Banner">{{Cite book |last=Banner |first=Lois W. |title=Intertwined lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and their circle |date=2003 |publisher=Knopf |isbn=978-0-679-45435-9 |location=New York |pages=237–238}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=226}} Mead and Benedict lived together for two months in summer 1928 and shared a Washington, DC, house during World War II as Mead commuted from her home in New York City to work for the federal government.<ref name="Banner" />{{Reference page|page=276}} 

She spent her last years in a close personal and professional collaboration with the anthropologist [[Rhoda Metraux]]. Métraux had worked with Mead when the latter headed the National Research Council's Committee on Food Habits during World War II. By 1947 or 1948, they were romantically involved.<ref name=":3" />{{rp|90–91}} Mead and Métraux shared homes—in Greenwich Village (1955–66) and on Central Park West (1966–78)—until Mead's death.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Lorenz Hart Residence at the Beresford Apartments – NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project |url=https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/lorenz-hart-residence-at-the-beresford-apartments/ |access-date=2025-11-17 |website=www.nyclgbtsites.org}}</ref> [[Love letter|Letters]] between the two published in 2006 with the permission of Mead's daughter<ref>Caffey and Francis 2006.</ref> clearly express a romantic relationship.<ref>{{cite web |date=March 2, 2016 |title=The greatest LGBT love letters of all time |url=http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/03/02/the-greatest-lgbt-love-letters-of-all-time/ |website=pinknews.co.uk}}</ref> 

Privately and at times in her scholarship, Mead espoused free-love, drawing inspiration from Havelock Ellis's ''The Art of Love'' and Edward Carpenter's ''Love's Coming of Age''. Her marriage to Cressman involved agreement to divorce on demand and the freedom for both parties to have affairs.<ref name="Banner" /> As quoted by Sapir, Mead stated, "It would be an insult to both me and my husband to expect marital fidelity on the part of either of us."<ref name="Howard1984" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Howard |first=Jane |title=Margaret Mead, a Life |date=1984 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-25225-0}}</ref>{{rp|60}} In 1926, Mead described her "belief that one can love several people and that demonstrative affection has its place in different types of relationship."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coffman |first=Elesha J. |title=Margaret Mead: A Twentieth-Century Faith |date=2021-01-14 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-257187-8 |location=Oxford}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=62}} Her marriage to Bateson was likewise an open one.<ref>"These were not just tolerated affairs, but elements in what today would be described as an open practice of polyamory. Sexual jealousy was simplyn to something Margaret Mead trafficked in." {{Cite book |last=Breen |first=Benjamin |title=Tripping on utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the troubled birth of psychedelic science |date=2024 |publisher=Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group |isbn=978-1-5387-2237-4 |edition=First edition. |location=New York, NY |pages=81}}</ref> Biographer Jane Howard attributes to a close friend of Mead the observation that Mead "fell in love with women's souls and men's bodies. She was spiritually homosexual, psychologically bisexual, and physically heterosexual. She had affairs with both men and women—though never with two men or two women at the same time."<ref name="Howard1984" />{{rp|367}} 

Mead never openly identified herself as [[lesbian]] or [[Bisexuality|bisexual]]. In correspondence, Mead described her self as a "mixed type" with attractions to both men and women, and in a 1928 letter to Benedict described seeking a "perfect balance" between her "two loves" to Benedict and her husband Fortune.<ref name="Banner" />{{rp|253}} In the public conversation that became known as "A Rap on Race," Mead rejected [[James Baldwin]]'s invitation to describe herself as "an exile" like him, a suggestion that biographer Benjamin Breen and scholar Jean Walton have described as a chance to reveal her bisexuality.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Breen |first=Benjamin |title=Tripping on utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the troubled birth of psychedelic science |date=2024 |publisher=Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group |isbn=978-1-5387-2237-4 |location=New York, NY}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Walton |first=Jean |url=https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822380931/html |title=Fair Sex, Savage Dreams: Race, Psychoanalysis, Sexual Difference |date=2001-02-16 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8093-1 |access-date=2025-11-02}}</ref>{{rp|188-189}} In her writings, she proposed that it is to be expected that an individual's [[sexual orientation]] may evolve throughout life.<ref name="MCBateson" /> Speaking at a public conference in 1974, Mead suggested that youthful homosexuality, followed by heterosexuality in middle adulthood, and then by late life homosexuality would be ideal for society.<ref name="Howard1984" />{{rp|367}}  In a ''Redbook'' column, co-authored with Metraux, Mead wrote, "What is new is not bisexuality, but rather the widening of our awareness and acceptance of human capacities for sexual love."<ref name="Howard1984" />{{rp|367}} 

Mead's [[pediatrician]] was [[Benjamin Spock]],<ref name="libraryofcongress" /> whose subsequent writings on child rearing incorporated some of Mead's own practices and beliefs acquired from her [[ethnology|ethnological]] field observations which she shared with him; in particular, [[breastfeeding]] on the baby's demand, rather than by a schedule.<ref>Moore 2004: 105.</ref> 
[[File:Margaret Mead (1972).jpg|thumb|Margaret Mead (1972)]]

Mead had two sisters, Elizabeth and Priscilla, and a brother, Richard. Elizabeth Mead (1909–1983), an artist and teacher, married the cartoonist [[William Steig]], and Priscilla Mead (1911–1959) married the author [[Leo Rosten]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Banner |first=Lois W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QegaBoxPOrsC&q=leo+rosten+william+steig&pg=PA88 |title=Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Their Circle |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-307-77340-1}}</ref> Mead's brother, Richard, was a professor. Mead was also the aunt of [[Jeremy Steig]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brinthaupt |first1=Thomas M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6d4N9PLu2JIC&q=Mary+Catherine+Bateson+jeremy+steig&pg=PA131 |title=Understanding Early Adolescent Self and Identity: Applications and Interventions |last2=Lipka |first2=Richard P. |publisher=SUNY Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-7914-5334-6}}</ref>

==Career and later life==
[[File:Margaret Mead (1901-1978) (2).jpg|thumb|Mead at New York Academy of Sciences, 1968]]
During World War II, Mead along with other social scientists like Gregory Bateson and Ruth Benedict, took on several different responsibilities. In 1940, Mead joined the Committee for National Morale.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Hazard |first=Anthony Q. |date=2014 |title=Wartime Anthropology, Nationalism, and "Race" in Margaret Mead's and Keep Your Powder Dry |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24394233 |journal=Journal of Anthropological Research |volume=70 |issue=3 |pages=365–383 |doi=10.3998/jar.0521004.0070.302 |issn=0091-7710 |jstor=24394233 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> In 1941, she also contributed to an essay that was released in the Applied Anthropology, which created strategies to help produce propaganda with the intent of raising national morale.<ref name=":0" /> In 1942, Mead served as the executive director of the Committee on Food Habits of the National Research Council, which served to gather data on American citizens ability to get food and their overall diet during the war.<ref name=":0" /> During World War II, Mead also served on the Institute for Intercultural Studies (IIS), whose prime objective was to research the “national character” of the Axis powers to try and foster peace between the two sides.<ref name=":0" /> She was curator of [[ethnology]] at the American Museum of Natural History from 1946 to 1969. She was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1948,<ref name="AAAS">{{cite web |title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter M |url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterM.pdf |access-date=April 16, 2011 |publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences}}</ref> the United States [[National Academy of Sciences]] in 1975,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Margaret Mead |url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/20000871.html |access-date=July 18, 2022 |website=www.nasonline.org}}</ref> and the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1977.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Margaret+Mead&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=July 18, 2022 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> She taught at [[The New School]] and Columbia University, where she was an adjunct professor from 1954 to 1978 and a professor of anthropology and chair of the Division of Social Sciences at [[Fordham University]]'s Lincoln Center campus from 1968 to 1970, founding their anthropology department. In 1970, she joined the faculty of the [[University of Rhode Island]] as a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Anthropology.<ref>p. 94 in: Wheaton, J., and [[Richard Vangermeersch|R. Vangermeersch]], 1999. University of Rhode Island. Arcadia Publishing Company, Charleston, SC. {{ISBN|978-0-7385-0214-4}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=W2tzqqg7rj8C&dq=University+of+Rhode+Island+Vangermeersch+%27Margaret+Mead%22&pg=PA94 Web version.]</ref>

Following Ruth Benedict's example, Mead focused her research on problems of child rearing, personality, and culture.<ref>''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', Fifth Edition, 1993.</ref> She served as president of the [[Society for Applied Anthropology]] in 1950<ref>{{cite web |title=List of Past Presidents |url=https://www.appliedanthro.org/about |access-date=January 28, 2020 |publisher=Society for Applied Anthropology}}</ref> and of the [[American Anthropological Association]] in 1960. In the mid-1960s, Mead joined forces with the communications theorist [[Rudolf Modley]] in jointly establishing an organization called Glyphs Inc., whose goal was to create a universal graphic symbol language to be understood by any members of culture, no matter how "primitive."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bresnahan |first=Keith |year=2011 |title="An Unused Esperanto": Internationalism and Pictographic Design, 1930–70 |journal=Design and Culture |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=5–24 |doi=10.2752/175470810X12863771378671 |s2cid=147279431}}</ref> In the 1960s, Mead served as the Vice President of the [[New York Academy of Sciences]].<ref name="NYAS History">{{cite journal |last1=Baatz |first1=Simon |year=1990 |title=Knowledge, Culture, and Science in the Metropolis: The New York Academy of Sciences, 1817–1970 |journal=Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences |volume=584 |pages=1–256 |doi=10.1111/nyas.1990.584.issue-1 |pmid=2200324}}</ref> She held various positions in the [[American Association for the Advancement of Science]], notably president in 1975 and chair of the executive committee of the board of directors in 1976.<ref>{{cite web |author=Wendy Kolmar |title=Margaret Mead |url=http://www.depts.drew.edu/wmst/corecourses/wmst111/timeline_bios/MMead.htm |access-date=September 29, 2010 |publisher=Depts.drew.edu}}</ref> She was a recognizable figure in academia and usually wore a distinctive cape and carried a walking stick.<ref name="libraryofcongress" />

Mead was a key participant in the [[Macy conferences]] on [[cybernetics]] and an editor of their proceedings.<ref>Foerster H. von, Mead M. & Teuber H. L. (1953) A note from the editors. In: Cybernetics: Circular causal and feedback mechanisms in biological and social systems, transactions of the eighth conference, March 15–16, 1951. Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, New York: xi–xx. https://cepa.info/2709</ref> Mead's address to the inaugural conference of the [[American Society for Cybernetics]] was instrumental in the development of [[second-order cybernetics]].<ref>Mead, M. (1968). The cybernetics of cybernetics. In H. von Foerster, J. D. White, L. J. Peterson, & J. K. Russell (Eds.), Purposive Systems (pp. 1–11). Spartan Books.</ref>

Mead was featured on two record albums published by [[Folkways Records]]. The first, released in 1959, ''An Interview With Margaret Mead'', explored the topics of morals and anthropology.  In 1971, she was included in a compilation of talks by prominent women, ''But the Women Rose, Vol. 2: Voices of Women in American History''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Smithsonian Folkways – Not found |url=http://www.folkways.si.edu/searchresults.aspx?sPhrase=Margaret+Mead&sType=%27phrase%27/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200412110158/https://www.folkways.si.edu/searchresults.aspx?sPhrase=Margaret+Mead&sType=%27phrase%27%2F |archive-date=April 12, 2020 |access-date=March 26, 2018 |website=Smithsonian Folkways Recordings}}</ref>

She is credited with the pluralization of the term "[[semiotics]]".<ref>{{cite book |title=Approaches to Semiotics |year=1964 |editor=Thomas A. Sebeok |editor-link=Thomas A. Sebeok |editor2=Alfred S. Hayes |editor2-link=Alfred S. Hayes |editor3=Mary Catherine Bateson |editor3-link=Mary Catherine Bateson}}</ref>

In 1948 Mead was quoted in ''[[News Chronicle]]'' as supporting the deployment of [[Iban people|Iban]] mercenaries to the [[Malayan Emergency]], arguing that using Ibans (Dyaks) who enjoyed headhunting was no worse than deploying white troops who had been taught that killing was wrong.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poole |first=Dan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eVHcEAAAQBAJ&q=margaret%20mead |title=Head Hunters in the Malayan Emergency: The Atrocity and Cover-Up |publisher=Pen and Sword Military |year=2023 |isbn=978-1399057417 |pages=xxv}}</ref>

In later life, Mead was a mentor to many young anthropologists and sociologists, including [[Jean Houston]], author [[Gail Sheehy]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Schneider {{!}} |first=Martin |title=Exploring the New Normal |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/21789-exploring-the-new-normal.html |access-date=August 20, 2022 |website=PublishersWeekly.com |language=en}}</ref> [[John Langston Gwaltney]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sharp |first1=Lesley A. |date=July 24, 2015 |title=The Ethnographic Vision of John L. Gwaltney: The Thrice Shy, A Forgotten Gem |url=http://somatosphere.net/2015/the-ethnographic-vision-of-john-l-gwaltney-the-thrice-shy-a-forgotten-gem.html/ |language=en-US |access-date=August 20, 2022 |website=Somatosphere}}</ref> [[Roger Sandall]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vale Roger Sandall – Quadrant Online |url=https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2012/10/vale-roger-sandall/ |access-date=August 20, 2022 |website=quadrant.org.au}}</ref> filmmaker [[Timothy Asch]],<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 16, 1994 |title=ETHNOGRAPHIC FILMMAKING PIONEER TIMOTHY ASCH DIES |url=https://news.usc.edu/1820/ETHNOGRAPHIC-FILMMAKING-PIONEER-TIMOTHY-ASCH-DIES/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221202231918/https://news.usc.edu/1820/ETHNOGRAPHIC-FILMMAKING-PIONEER-TIMOTHY-ASCH-DIES/ |archive-date=December 2, 2022 |access-date=August 20, 2022 |website=USC News |language=en-US}}</ref> and anthropologist [[Susan C. Scrimshaw]], who later received the 1985 [[Margaret Mead Award]] for her research on cultural factors affecting public health delivery.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Health and Culture |url=https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/health-and-culture |access-date=August 20, 2022 |website=Columbia Magazine |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Howard" />{{rp|370–371}}

In 1972, Mead was one of the two rapporteurs from NGOs to the UN Conference on the Human Environment. In 1976, she was a key participant at [[UN Habitat I]], the first UN forum on human settlements.

Mead died of [[pancreatic cancer]] on November 15, 1978, and is buried at Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery, [[Buckingham, Pennsylvania|Buckingham]], Pennsylvania.<ref>Wilson, Scott. ''Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons'', 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 31891). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.</ref>

== Legacy ==

=== Posthumous honors ===
The American Museum of Natural History hosts an annual [[Margaret Mead Film Festival]], featuring documentary films, including but not limited to those about scientific and ethnographic topics.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2001-02-01 |title=Documentary as Ethnography: The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival |url=https://www.documentary.org/feature/documentary-ethnography-margaret-mead-film-video-festival |access-date=2025-11-15 |website=Documentary Magazine |language=en}}</ref> It was first held in 1976, in celebration of Mead's 75th birthday. As of 2025, it was described as the "longest running documentary showcase in the United States."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Carey |first=Matthew |date=2025-04-03 |title=Margaret Mead Film Festival Announces 2025 Program: Sundance Winner ‘Seeds,’ ‘Viktor,’ ‘The Shepherd And The Bear’ And More |url=https://deadline.com/2025/04/2025-margaret-mead-film-festival-lineup-1236357992/ |access-date=2025-11-15 |website=Deadline |language=en-US}}</ref>

In 1976, Mead was inducted into the [[National Women's Hall of Fame]].<ref>[https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/margaret-mead/ National Women's Hall of Fame, Margaret Mead]</ref>

On January 19, 1979, U.S. President [[Jimmy Carter]] announced that he was awarding the [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]] posthumously to Mead. UN Ambassador [[Andrew Young]] presented the award to Mead's daughter at a special program honoring her contributions that was sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, where she spent many years of her career. The citation read:<ref name="medal">{{cite web |date=January 19, 1979 |title=Jimmy Carter: Presidential Medal of Freedom Announcement of Award to Margaret Mead |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=32524 |access-date=October 20, 2009 |publisher=The American Presidency Project}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Margaret Mead was both a student of civilization and an exemplar of it. To a public of millions, she brought the central insight of cultural anthropology: that varying cultural patterns express an underlying human unity. She mastered her discipline, but she also transcended it. Intrepid, independent, plain spoken, fearless, she remains a model for the young and a teacher from whom all may learn.}}

The [[Margaret Mead Award]] is awarded in her honor jointly by the [[Society for Applied Anthropology]] and the [[American Anthropological Association]], for significant works in communicating anthropology to the general public.<ref>{{Cite web |title=SfAA/AAA Margaret Mead Award |url=https://www.americananthro.org/ConnectWithAAA/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2574 |work=The American Anthropological Association |publisher=American Anthropological Association}}</ref>

In addition, there are several schools named after Mead in the United States: a [[junior high school]] in [[Elk Grove Village, Illinois]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Margaret Mead Junior High School |url=http://mead.sd54.org/ |access-date=November 2, 2013 |publisher=Mead.sd54.org}}</ref> an elementary school in [[Sammamish, Washington]]<ref>{{cite web |date=August 16, 2010 |title=Margaret Mead Elementary (Washington) |url=http://www.lwsd.org/school/mead/Pages/default.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100922134419/http://www.lwsd.org/school/mead/Pages/default.aspx |archive-date=September 22, 2010 |access-date=September 29, 2010 |publisher=Lwsd.org}}</ref> and another in [[Sheepshead Bay]], [[Brooklyn]], New York.<ref>{{cite web |date=April 19, 2009 |title=P.S. 209 Margaret Mead |url=http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/21/K209/default.htm |access-date=September 29, 2010 |publisher=Schools.nyc.gov}}</ref>

=== Depictions in popular culture ===
In the 1967 musical ''[[Hair (musical)|Hair]]'', her name is given to a transvestite "tourist" disturbing the show with the song "My Conviction."<ref>{{cite web |title=Margaret Mead [Hair Original Broadway Cast] – My Conviction Lyrics |url=https://genius.com/Margaret-mead-hair-original-broadway-cast-my-conviction-lyrics |access-date=May 12, 2020 |website=Genius Lyrics}}</ref>

In 1979, the [[Supersisters]] trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Mead's name and picture.<ref>{{cite web |last=Wulf |first=Steve |date=March 23, 2015 |title=Supersisters: Original Roster |url=https://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/story/_/id/12535055/original-roster |access-date=June 4, 2015 |work=ESPN}}</ref>

The [[U.S. Postal Service]] issued a stamp of face value 32¢ on May 28, 1998,  including Mead as part of 1920s in the [[Celebrate the Century]] stamp sheet series.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/women-stamp-subjects.htm |title=Women Subjects on United States Postage Stamps |publisher=usps.com |access-date=April 18, 2019}}</ref>

The 2014 novel ''Euphoria''<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ljiYAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT7|title=Euphoria: A Novel|last=King|first=Lily|date=2014|publisher=Harper Collins|isbn=978-1-4434-3529-1|language=en}}</ref> by [[Lily King]] is a fictionalized account of Mead's love/marital relationships with fellow anthropologists [[Reo Fortune]] and [[Gregory Bateson]] in New Guinea before World War II.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Eakin|first1=Emily|title=Going Native: 'Euphoria', by Lily King|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/books/review/euphoria-by-lily-king.html|access-date=September 29, 2017|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=June 6, 2014}}</ref>

==Publications==
{{Incomplete list|date=December 2021}}
Note: See also ''Margaret Mead: The Complete Bibliography 1925–1975'', Joan Gordan, ed., The Hague: Mouton.

===As a sole author===
*''[[Coming of Age in Samoa]]'' (1928)
*''[[Growing Up in New Guinea]]'' (1930)
*''The Changing Culture of an Indian Tribe'' (1932)<ref>{{cite book |title=The changing culture of an Indian tribe |oclc=847822 }}</ref>
*''Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies'' (1935)<ref name="Mead 2003">{{cite book|last=Mead|first=Margaret|title=Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies|year=2003|publisher=Perennial an impr. of HarperCollins Publ.|location=New York|isbn=978-0-06-093495-8|edition= 1st Perennial}}</ref>
*''And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America'' (1942)
*''[[Male and Female (book)|Male and Female]]'' (1949)
*''New Lives for Old: Cultural Transformation in Manus, 1928–1953'' (1956)
*''People and Places'' (1959; a book for young readers)
*''Continuities in Cultural Evolution'' (1964)
*''Culture and Commitment'' (1970)
*''The Mountain Arapesh: Stream of Events in Alitoa'' (1971)
*''Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years'' (1972; autobiography)<ref>{{cite book|last=Lutkehaus|first=Margaret Mead; with a new introduction by Nancy|title=Blackberry Winter: my earlier years|year=1995|publisher=Kodansha International|location=New York|isbn=978-1-56836-069-0|url=https://archive.org/details/blackberrywinte000mead}}</ref>

===As editor or coauthor===
*''Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis'', with Gregory Bateson, 1942, New York Academy of Sciences.
* ''[[Soviet Attitudes Toward Authority]]'' (1951)
*''Cultural Patterns and Technical Change'', editor (1953)
*''Primitive Heritage: An Anthropological Anthology'', edited with Nicholas Calas (1953)
*''An Anthropologist at Work'', editor (1959, reprinted 1966; a volume of [[Ruth Benedict]]'s writings)
*''The Study of Culture at a Distance'', edited with Rhoda Metraux, 1953
*''Themes in French Culture'', with Rhoda Metraux, 1954
*''The Wagon and the Star: A Study of American Community Initiative'' co-authored with Muriel Whitbeck Brown, 1966
*''[[A Rap on Race]]'', with [[James Baldwin (writer)|James Baldwin]], 1971
*''A Way of Seeing'', with Rhoda Metraux, 1975

==See also==
{{portal|Systems science|Biography}}
*[[Tim Asch]]
*[[Gregory Bateson]]
*[[Ray Birdwhistell]]
*[[Macy Conferences]]
*[[Elsie Clews Parsons]]
*[[Visual anthropology]]
*[[Zora Neale Hurston]]
*[[75½ Bedford St]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*{{cite journal | editor=Acciaioli, Gregory |year=1983 |title=Fact and Context in Ethnography: The Samoa Controversy (special edition) | journal = Canberra Anthropology | volume=6 | issue = 1 |pages= 1–97 | issn=0314-9099|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rtap19/6/1}}
*{{cite journal | author = Appell, George | year = 1984 | title = Freeman's Refutation of Mead's ''Coming of Age in Samoa'': The Implications for Anthropological Inquiry | url =http://gnappell.org/articles/freeman.htm | journal = Eastern Anthropology | volume = 37 | pages = 183–214 }}
*[[Mary Catherine Bateson|Bateson, Mary Catherine]]. (1984) ''With a Daughter's Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson'', New York: William Morrow. {{ISBN|978-0-688-03962-2}}
*{{cite journal | last = Brady | first = Ivan | year = 1991 | title = ''The Samoa Reader'': Last Word or Lost Horizon? | journal = Current Anthropology | volume = 32 | issue = 4 | pages = 263–282 | jstor = 2743829 | url = http://www.oswego.edu/~brady/library%20items/samoa.pdf | doi = 10.1086/203989 | s2cid = 146338555 | access-date = January 13, 2011 | archive-date = October 21, 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131021091917/http://www.oswego.edu/~brady/library%20items/samoa.pdf | url-status = dead }}
*Caffey, Margaret M., and Patricia A. Francis, eds. (2006). ''To Cherish the Life of the World:  Selected Letters of Margaret Mead''.  New York: Basic Books.
*[[Hiram Caton|Caton, Hiram]], ed. (1990) ''The Samoa Reader: Anthropologists Take Stock'', University Press of America. {{ISBN|978-0-8191-7720-9}}
*{{cite journal | doi = 10.1525/aa.1988.90.3.02a00080 | last = Feinberg |first=Richard | year = 1988 | title = Margaret Mead and Samoa: ''Coming of Age'' in Fact and Fiction | journal = American Anthropologist | volume = 90 | issue = 3| pages = 656–663 }}
*Foerstel, Leonora, and Angela Gilliam, eds. (1992). ''Confronting the Margaret Mead Legacy: Scholarship, Empire and the South Pacific''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
*[[Derek Freeman|Freeman, Derek]]. (1983) ''Margaret Mead and Samoa'', Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|978-0-674-54830-5}}
*Freeman, Derek. (1999) ''The Fateful Hoaxing of Margaret Mead: A Historical Analysis of Her Samoan Research''[https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=85907444]<!--significant material from Acknowledgments and Introduction available free, subscription required for full text-->, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. {{ISBN|978-0-8133-3693-0}}
*{{cite journal | doi=10.2307/481499 | last1=Goldfrank |first1= Esther Schiff |year=1983 |title=Another View. Margaret and Me |journal = Ethnohistory |volume= 30 |issue=1 |pages= 1–14 |jstor=481499}}
*Holmes, Lowell D. (1987). ''Quest for the Real Samoa: the Mead/Freeman Controversy and Beyond''. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.
*[[Jane Howard (journalist)|Howard, Jane]]. (1984). ''Margaret Mead: A Life'', New York: Simon and Schuster.
*Keeley, Lawrence (1996). ''War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage'' (Oxford University Press). {{ISBN|978-0-19-511912-1}}
*[[Hilary Lapsley|Lapsley, Hilary]]. (1999). ''Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women''. [[University of Massachusetts Press]]. {{ISBN|978-1-55849-181-6}}
*{{cite journal | author = Leacock, Eleanor | year = 1988 | title = Anthropologists in Search of a Culture: Margaret Mead, Derek Freeman and All the Rest of Us | journal = Central Issues in Anthropology | volume = 8 | issue = 1| pages = 3–20 | doi = 10.1525/cia.1988.8.1.3 }}
*{{cite journal | author = Levy, Robert | year = 1984 | title = Mead, Freeman, and Samoa: The Problem of Seeing Things as They Are | journal = Ethos | volume = 12 | pages = 85–92 | doi = 10.1525/eth.1984.12.1.02a00060 }}
*Lutkehaus, Nancy C. (2008). ''Margaret Mead: The Making of an American Icon''. Princeton: Princeton University Press.  {{ISBN|978-0-691-00941-4}}
*{{cite journal | author = Mageo, Jeannette |author-link=Jeannette Mageo| year = 1988 | title = ''Malosi'': A Psychological Exploration of Mead's and Freeman's Work and of Samoan Aggression | url = http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/u?/PacificStudies,860 | journal = Pacific Studies | volume = 11 | issue = 2| pages = 25–65 }}
* Mandler, Peter (2013). ''Return from the Natives: How Margaret Mead Won the Second World War and Lost the Cold War.'' New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
*{{cite journal |last=Marshall |first=Mac |year=1993 |title=The Wizard from Oz Meets the Wicked Witch of the East: Freeman, Mead, and Ethnographic Authority |journal=American Ethnologist |volume=20 |issue=3 |pages=604–617 |doi=10.1525/ae.1993.20.3.02a00080 }}
*{{anchor|CITEREFMead1972}}{{cite book |author=Mead, Margaret |title=Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years |publisher=William Morrow |location=New York |year=1972 |isbn=978-0-688-00051-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/blackberrywinter00meadrich }}
*Mead, Margaret. 1977. [https://web.archive.org/web/20170110161019/http://www.thegreatlecturelibrary.com/index.php?select=speaker&data=988 The Future as Frame for the Present]. Audio recording of a lecture delivered July 11, 1977.
*{{cite journal | author = Metraux, Rhoda | year = 1980 | title = Margaret Mead. A Biographical Sketch | jstor =675870 | journal = American Anthropologist | volume = 82 | issue =2 | pages = 262–269 | doi = 10.1525/aa.1980.82.2.02a00010 | doi-access = free }}
*{{cite journal | doi = 10.2307/3177870 | author = Nardi, Bonnie |author-link = Bonnie Nardi | last2 = Mead | year = 1984 | first2 = Margaret | last3 = Freeman | first3 = Derek | title = The Height of Her Powers: Margaret Mead's Samoa | jstor = 3177870| journal =Feminist Studies | volume = 10 | issue = 2| pages = 323–337 | hdl = 2027/spo.0499697.0010.211 | hdl-access = free }}
*{{cite book | title=Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists | author=Moore, Jerry D. | year=2004 | publisher=Rowman Altamira | page=105 | isbn=978-0-7591-0411-2}}
*{{cite journal |author1=Patience, Allan |author2=Josephy Smith | year = 1987 | title = Derek Freeman in Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of a Biobehavioral Myth | journal = American Anthropologist | volume = 88 | pages = 157–162 | doi = 10.1525/aa.1986.88.1.02a00160 |s2cid=162320330 }}
*{{cite journal | author = Paxman, David B. | year = 1988 | title = Freeman, Mead, and the Eighteenth-Century Controversy over Polynesian Society | url =http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/u?/PacificStudies,879 | journal = Pacific Studies | volume = 11 | issue = 3| pages = 1–19 }}
*Pinker, Steven A. (1997). ''How the Mind Works''. {{ISBN|978-0-393-04535-2}}
*Sandall, Roger. (2001) ''The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays''. {{ISBN|978-0-8133-3863-7}}
*{{cite journal | author = Scheper-Hughes, Nancy | year = 1984 | title = The Margaret Mead Controversy: Culture, Biology, and Anthropological Inquiry | url = http://sfaa.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&issn=0018-7259&volume=43&issue=1&spage=85 | journal = Human Organization | volume = 43 | issue = 1 | pages = 85–93 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://archive.today/20130128220137/http://sfaa.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&issn=0018-7259&volume=43&issue=1&spage=85 | archive-date = January 28, 2013 | doi = 10.17730/humo.43.1.362253166r6173m4 | url-access = subscription }}
*{{cite journal | author = Shankman, Paul | year = 1996 | title = The History of Samoan Sexual Conduct and the Mead-Freeman Controversy | journal = American Anthropologist | volume = 98 | issue = 3| pages = 555–567 | doi = 10.1525/aa.1996.98.3.02a00090 }}
*{{cite book | title=The Trashing of Margaret Mead: Anatomy of an Anthropological Controversy |last=Shankman |first=Paul |year=2009 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |isbn=978-0-299-23454-6}}
*{{cite book |last=Shankman |first=Paul |title=Margaret Mead |location=New York |publisher=Berghahn |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-80073-141-7 }}
*Shore, Brad. (1982) ''Sala'ilua: A Samoan Mystery''. New York: Columbia University Press.
*{{cite journal |last=Stassinos |first=Elizabeth |year=1998 |title=Response to Visweswaren, 'Race and the culture of anthropology' |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=100 |issue=4 |pages=981–983 |doi=10.1525/aa.1998.100.4.981 }}
*{{cite journal |doi=10.1353/haa.0.0063 |first=Elizabeth |last=Stassinos |title=An Early Case of Personality: Ruth Benedict's Autobiographical Fragment and the Case of the Biblical "Boaz" |journal=Histories of Anthropology Annual |volume=5 |year=2009 |pages=28–51 |s2cid=144198222 |issn=1557-637X }}
*Virginia, Mary E. (2003). Benedict, Ruth (1887–1948). ''DISCovering U.S. History'' online edition, Detroit: Gale.
*{{cite journal |author1=Young, R. E. |author2=S. Juan | year = 1985 | title = Freeman's Margaret Mead Myth: The Ideological Virginity of Anthropologists | journal = Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology | volume = 21 | issue =1 | pages = 64–81 | doi = 10.1177/144078338502100104 |s2cid=143970272 }}

==External links==
{{Sister project links|auto=1}}
* [https://monoskop.org/Margaret_Mead Margaret Mead] at [https://monoskop.org/ Monoskop]
* Online video: {{YouTube|GOCYhmnx6o8|Margaret Mead and Samoa}}.  Documentary about the [[Mead-Freeman controversy#The Mead-Freeman controversy|Mead-Freeman controversy]], including an interview with one of Mead's original informants.
* {{Gutenberg author | id=57628 | name=Margaret Mead}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070621113405/http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/audiofiles.html#mead Creative Intelligence: Female – "The Silent Revolution: Creative Man In Contemporary Society"] Talk at UC Berkeley, 1962 (online audio file)
*[https://archive.today/20121204155023/http://www.interculturalstudies.org/Mead/biography.html The Institute for Intercultural Studies]– ethnographic institute founded by Mead, with resources relating to Mead's work.
*[https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/ Library of Congress, Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20061107221604/http://www.amnh.org/programs/mead/mead2006/index.php American Museum of Natural History, Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival]
*[https://archive.today/20100119030354/http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2010-01-17-voa1.cfm "Margaret Mead, 1901–1978: A Public Face of Anthropology"]: brief biography, [[Voice of America]].
*[http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mead-margaret.pdf Clifford Geertz, "Margaret Mead", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (1989)]
*[https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/059.html The Dell Paperback Collection] at the [[Library of Congress]] has first edition paperbacks of Mead's works.

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