Margaret Mead Christmas card collection, 1962-1977 Margaret Mead Christmas card C0216


Descriptive Summary
Repository	George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections Research Center
Creator	Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978
Title	Margaret Mead Christmas card collection
Date	1962-1977
Physical Characteristics	0.25 linear feet (1 folder)
Abstract	A collection of 11 Christmas cards from noted anthropologist Margaret Mead with five cards signed and with holiday greetings.
Collection Number	C0216
Language	English

Historical Information

Margaret Mead was a prominent twentieth-century educator, writer, and lecturer. An anthropologist by occupation, she studied the lives of natives of Samoa, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Her first book, "Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization" (New York: Morrow, 1928), which compared the seemingly care-free adolescent years in Samoan culture to this stressful period of development for American teenagers, catapulted her to instant fame. As she went on to research and write about other cultures, she used her anthropological studies as a framework to discuss and analyze American society.

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Scope and Content

A collection of 11 Christmas cards from noted anthropologist Margaret Mead with five cards signed and with holiday greetings. The collection includes 10 original photographic prints, with one in color, and one printed card, many taken by friends and contributors to her work, such as visual anthropologist Paul Byers and cinematographer Richard Leiterman. Four of the card images include Mead's granddaughter, Sevanne "Vanni" Kassarjian, with one also showing her daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson (herself a well-respected anthropologist). Three other Christmas cards picture Mead with natives of New Guinea and Bali, often surrounded by children, with one lone color image of her being filmed on Manus Island for the 1968 documentary, "Margaret Mead's New Guinea Journal." Other cards show artwork, a choir, and various children. A charming collection of Christmas cards from one of the world's most renowned anthropologists.

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Arrangement

Organized by size.

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Restrictions

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no use restrictions.

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Related Material

Special Collections Research Center hold the George Mason University photograph collection that includes several photographs of Mary Catherine Bateson, Mead's daughter and a former professor of Anthropology at GMU.

The Library of Congress holds the Margaret Mead papers.

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Index Terms

Persons:

Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978--Photographs.

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Folder

Two children watching television by Mead with a holiday greeting, 1962

3" x 5"

Mead on Manus Island with native children, 1964

Inscribed by Mead with a holiday greeting. 3" x 4"

Mead being filmed on Manus Island for the 1968 documentary "Margaret Mead's New Guinea Journal," 1967

Signed by Mead with a holiday greeting. Photograph by Leiterman. 3" x 7"

Choir of boys singing at the Petralia Soprana commune in Italy, 1968

3" x 7"

Stone sculpture by William K. Roberts, 1969

3" x 7"

Mead's granddaughter in a college classroom, 1970

3" x 6"

Baby in a sling, 1972

Photograph by Peter Gordon. 3" x 7"

Mead's granddaughter holding cymbals by Mead with a holiday greeting, 1973

Holiday greeting from Mead. 3" x 6"

Margaret Mead and her granddaughter in Tehran, 1975

Photograph by Robert Levin. Signed by Mead. 3" x 5"

Mead with her daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, and granddaughter, 1976

Photograph by Polyxane Cobb. 3" x 5"

Mead in Bali with children all around, 1977

3" x 5"

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