Melville J. and Frances S. Herskovits papers

1902-1972

Herskovits Family Chronology:

• 1895 Melville Jean born September 10, Bellafontaine, OH to Herman and Henrietta Hart Herskovits.
• 1906 Family moves to El Paso, TX due to mother's health.
• 1911 (?)Mrs. Herskovits dies.
• 1912 MJH graduates from Erie High School, Erie, PA.
• 1915 September: MJH enrolls in the University of Cincinnati (— Feb. 1918), Hebrew Union College.
• 1917 MJH enlists in the U.S. Army
• 1918 June: MJH arrives in France to serve in the Army Medical Corps. While there he studies French and Liberal Arts at the Université de Poitiers, and serves on the editorial staff of Les Beaux Jours, the weekly publication for the students of the Université.
• 1919 July: MJH returns to the U.S.; receives honorable discharge from the Army.
• 1920 MJH attends the University of Chicago, receiving PhB. degree in June; moves to New York to do graduate work in sociology.
• 1921 Receives M.A. from Columbia University in anthropology. He rooms for a time with fellow Columbia student, Paul Robeson; Margaret Mead was co-student under Franz Boas.
• 1923 Receives PhD. in anthropology from Columbia University under Franz Boas. His dissertation "The Cattle Complex in East Africa", is the first to apply the ethnological concept of the "culture-area", which had previously been applied to native American cultures only, to an African context. MJH begins research into race mixing/physical anthropology. Receives fellowship in anthropology from the Board of Biological Sciences, National Research Council (NRC) through 1926.
• 1924 Marries Frances S. Shapiro, July 12.Publishes "Some Observations on the Growth of Colored Boys" (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 7, no. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1924): 439-46); lecturer in anthropology at Columbia University.
• 1925 Teaches at Howard University with NRC Fellowship; uses access to black population to gather further anthropometric data; publishes "Preliminary Observations in a Study of Negro-White Crossing",(Opportunity, 3, no.27(Mar. 1925.): 69-74).
• 1926 Returns to New York City and employs Zora Neale Hurston, fellow anthropology student at Columbia University, among others, to gather data on Negro physiometry; resumes lectures at Columbia University.
• 1927 Finishes "Negro Race" manuscript. Moves to Evanston, Illinois to accept position at North Western University's Sociology Department asassistant professor of anthropology.
• 1928 The American Negro: A Study in Racial Crossing (New York, A.A. Knopf, Inc., 1928) is published. Travels with wife Frances to Surinam (Dutch Guiana) to study "Bush Negroes".
• 1930 An expanded version of "The American Negro", entitled The Anthropometry of the American Negro (New York: Columbia University Press, Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, vol. 11, 1930) is published. In October, first co-author- ship with Frances, "Bush-Negro Art", (The Arts, vol. 17, no. 1 (Oct. 1930): 25-37, 48-49), is published. FSH travels to Paris.
• 1931 February-June spent in West Africa (Dahomey, Gold Coast, Nigeria). MJH is appointed associate professor at Northwestern University.
• 1933 "An Outline of Dahomean Religious Belief" with FSH (American Anthropological Association, Memoir 41:77, Menasha, Wisconsin, 1933) is published.
• 1934 MJH elected Vice-President, National Academy of Sciences, A.A.A.S.; conducts field research with Frances in Haiti. Their book, Rebel Destiny: Among the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana, (New York, Whittlesey House, 1934) is published.
• 1935 MJH appointed full professor at Northwestern University. Daughter Jean Frances is born May 20.
• 1936 Suriname Folklore, with transcriptions of Surinam songs and musicological analysis by Dr. M. Kolinski, written by Melville and Frances,(Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, vol. 27, New York: Columbia University Press, 1936) is published. The Herskovitses work with graduate student William Bascomb and post-graduate students Ralph Bunche and George Eaton Simpson.
• 1937 MJH receives Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship; the family travels to England; MJH writes "The Economic Life of Primitive People". Life in a Haitian Valley (New York: A.A. Knopf, Inc., 1937) and Dahomey, An Ancient West African Kingdom (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1937) are published.
• 1938 MJH appointed Chair of Northwestern's Anthropology Department.
• 1939 MJH is approached by Gunnar Myrdal for criticism of the research plan for his Carnegie Corporation funded study of the American Negro, (later published as An Amercan Dilemma, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1944) and agrees to undertake a research project. MJH and FSH travel to Toco, Trinidad, June-September. MJH becomes Chair of the Committee of Negro Studies, American Council of Learned Societies (-1950), President of the CentralSection of the American Anthropological Association and serves on the Council of Human Relations of the Forestry Service (-1945).
• 1940 The Economic Life of Primitive Peoples (New York: A.A. Knopf, Inc., 1940) is published.
• 1941 Melville, Frances and Jean leave for Brazil, while there MJH receives the title of Honorary Professor of Anthropology from the Facultad do Filosofia at Bahia. The Myth of the Negro Past (New York: Harper and Bros., 1941), MJH's study for
• 1942 MJH served as Chief Consultant of the Board of Economic Warfare.
• 1945 MJH serves as Chairman of the Committee on International Cooperation in Anthropology of the National Research Council (-1946).
• 1947 Trinidad Village with FSH, (New York, A.A. Knopf, Inc., 1947) is published.
• 1948 MJH is named Director of Northwestern University's Program of African Studies, the first in the United States. Man and His Works, (New York: A.A. Knopf, Inc. 1948) a general anthropology/theoretical text, is published.
• 1949 MJH serves as Editor for American Anthropologist (1952), and prepares manuscript of "Continuity and Change in African Cultures" with co-editor William Bascomb.
• 1950 MJH is Editor of the International Directory of Anthropologists.
• 1952 Economic Anthropology: A Study in Comparative Economics (New York: A.A. Knopf, Inc., 1952) (a rewriting of the 1940 Economic Life of Primitive Peoples) is published. MJH is named a Fulbright Fellow and in December the Herskovitses, with grants from the American Philosophical Society, the United States Education Committee in Great Britain, the Social Science Research Council, and others, embark on a ten-month tour of Africa: Portuguese East Africa, British East Africa, the Eastern part of the Belgian Congo and British Central Africa (Gold Coast and Nigeria, Cameroons, Congo, Angola, Rhodesia, Mozambique, and the Union of South Africa). Jean enters Swarthmore College.
• 1953 MJH is named Viking Fund Medalist in General Anthropology; his biography of his teacher, Franz Boas, the Science of Life in the Making, (New York and London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953) is published.
• 1954 MJH attends the XXXI Congresso Internacional de Americanists in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
• 1955 MJH's Cultural Anthropology, an Abridged Revision of Man and His Works, (New York: A.A. Knopf, Inc., 1955) is published; MJH attends the Inter-African Committee for Social Science's Conference on Social Sciences, Bakavu, Belgian Congo.
• 1956 MJH steps down as Chairman of Northwestern University's Anthropology Department. Jean graduates from Swarthmore.
• 1957 The Herskovitses make another trans-Africa journey, from Dakar to Durban, arriving for Ghana's Independence celebrations. The findings of their trip were given in testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.
• 1958 MJH is elected first President of the African Studies Association. Dahomean Narrative, a Cross-Cultural Analysis, co-authored with FSH (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1958) and Continuity and Change in African Cultures co-editor William Bascomb, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958) are published. MJH travels to Costa Rica and Paris.
• 1959 MJH is elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and travels to Belgium.
• 1959 MJH is appointed President's Fellow and Professor of African Affairs, (first Chair of African Studies in the United States) at Northwestern University; participates in Nigeria's Independence Day and attends the Sixth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Paris. Jean receives her PhD. in History from Oxford University, England.
• 1961 MJH received honorary D.Sc. from Lawrence College; attends the Abidjan Conference on Religion and the International Social Science Council meeting. Jean is hired as lecturer of political science at Brown University.
• 1962 MJH serves on the Council of African Affairs for the U.S. State Department. In December MJH delivers plenary address at the First International Conference of Africanists in Accra,Ghana; The Human Factor in Changing AfricaNew York: A.A. Knopf, Inc. 1962) is published.
• 1962-1967 Jean teaches at Swarthmore.
• 1963 MJH dies at home in Evanston, Illinois on February 25 at age 67 of a heart attack. Jean Herskovits presents a paper at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association in San Francisco; FSH participates in a seminar given at the University of Nevada. The Melville J. Herskovits Papers are donated to Northwestern University in November.
• 1964 January-April: FSH travels to Nigeria to do fieldwork with Felicia Ekejiuba, on a project to study the history of the Aro (an Ibo people) of Eastern Region, Nigeria. FSH is added to the List of Associates of Current Anthropology.
• 1965 FSH is appointed Lecturer in English in the College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University to teach literature of Sub-Saharan Africa (—1968). International lecture exchange between Northwestern and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in honor of MJH commences. Jean's book, A Preface to Modern Nigeria: The Sierra Leonians in Yoruba, 1830-1890 (University of Wisconsin, 1965) is published.
• 1966 The New World Negro, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966), FSH's compilation of MJH's writings, is published.
• 1966 January-March : FSH travels to Brazil to the Center for Afro-Oriental Studies, University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil for follow-up on research done in 1941-42; works on manuscript of traditional literary resources and contemporary African writing. Jean appointed Assistant Professor at The City College of New York (-1971).
• 1969 FSH receives $2,500 grant from Northwestern U/Ford Foundation to prepare Brazilian field notes (1941-42, 1967) for publication; begins editing MJH's writings, tentatively titled "Cultural Relativism".
• 1970 The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies opens at Northwestern University.
• 1971 Jean becomes Associate Professor at The City College of New York.
• 1970 May: FSH dies. Jean appointed a National Endowment for the Humanities Senior Fellow.
• 1973 Cultural Relativism, (New York: Random House, (1973, MJH's writings edited by FSH, with Toni Morrison as in-house editor, is published.
• 1977 Jean appointed Full Professor at the State University of New York, Purchase, New York.