Montagu, Ashley, 1905-1999

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Chairman, anthropology department, Rutgers University.

From the description of Correspondence to Maxwell Struthers Burt, 1943. (University of Pennsylvania Library). WorldCat record id: 122526480

Ashley Montagu (1905-1999) was a British anthropologist and social biologist, perhaps best known for his critical analysis of the question of race.

Montague Francis Ashley Montagu was born Israel Ehrenberg in London, England on June 28, 1905. He studied at the University of London (1922-1925) and the University of Florence (1928-1929). He came to the United States in 1930, received his Ph.D. in 1937 from Columbia, and was naturalized in 1940.

Montagu's first professional position was as a Research Associate at the British Museum of Natural History (1926-1927). Over his career he was Assistant Professor of Anatomy at New York University (1931-1938), Associate Professor of Anatomy at the Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital (1939-1949), Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University (1949-1955), Regents Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1962); and lecturer at Princeton University (1978-1983). Montagu and his wife, Marjorie Helen Peakes, had three children.

Montagu was deeply interested in applying the findings of the social and biological sciences to the improvement of the human condition; Marcus Goldstein of Tel Aviv University remembered him for his "fearless and blunt attack on works and issues that he felt were scientifically wrong, and perhaps more important, were or could be socially harmful." (quoted in Steven Harnad's article "Ashley Montagu: Anthropologist And Social Biologist"). He wrote more than 50 books and many more articles related to the field of anthropology and social biology. Among his best-known books are Coming Into Being Among the Australian Aborigines (1937), Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race (1942), The Natural Superiority of Women (1953), The Elephant Man (1971), Race and IQ (1975), The Nature of Human Aggression (1976), and The Dehumanization of Man (1983). He was the producer, author and director of the film "One World or None" (1946).

The deepest defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become. -- Ashley Montagu

From the guide to the Ashley Montagu Papers, 1929-1987, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)

Ashley Montagu, born Israel Ehrenberg on June 28, 1905, was a British-American anthropologist, specializing in the areas of race and gender issues, as well as a prolific speaker and author, publishing over 50 books in his lifetime. The son of Jewish tailor Charles Ehrenberg and his wife, Mary Plot Ehrenberg, Montagu was born and raised in London's working class East End neighborhood. Although the reasoning behind his name change was never revealed, it may have been due to anti-Semitic prejudice faced by many East End Jews during his childhood, and Montagu might have felt the need to distance himself from his parents’ Russian and Polish backgrounds.

Montagu earned his undergraduate degree from University College London in psychology and anthropology. After studying anthropology at the London School of Economics under Bronislaw Malinowski, Montagu left England for the United States. He arrived at New York City in 1927 and began taking graduate classes at Columbia University. Montagu then traveled to Italy in 1928, where he took classes in ethnography and anthropology at the University of Florence. Upon his return to the United States in 1931, while working as an assistant professor of anthropology at New York University, Montagu married Marjorie Peakes. The couple would have two daughters, Audrey and Barbara, as well as a son, Geoffrey. In 1934 Montagu returned to Columbia University, culminating his postgraduate work at Columbia in 1936 with his dissertation, Coming into being among the Australian Aborigines: A study of the procreative beliefs of the native tribes of Australia, produced under the direction of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict. Based largely on his dissertation, Montagu’s first book, Coming into Being among the Australian Aborigines, was published in 1937. After he completed his education, Montagu taught anatomy at Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia in 1938 and became an American citizen in 1940. It was during his time at Hahnemann that he began to produce work relating to race, resulting in his seminal work, Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, published in 1942. The work controversially advanced the argument that race was a social construct imposed upon a complex biological substratum and demolished the arguments for inherent inequality between human populations. The influential nature of Man’s Most Dangerous Myth led to Montagu’s service on the 4th United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) task force, in 1949. The ten member UNESCO committee, composed of such world-renowned social scientists as Claude Levi-Strauss and E. Franklin Frazier, was created to collect information about the problem of race and to establish educational programs to disseminate its findings. The resultant document, authored by Montagu, the group’s rapporteur, was published as the “Statement on Race” in 1951. The Committee’s final statement on race asserted: 1)All mankind belong to the same species and that the differences between groups are few compared to all of the genetic similarities. 2)That Race designates a group with high frequency of physical characteristics or particular genetic trait and that these traits fluctuate or even disappear over time. 3)The way in which people are grouped does not reflect the capacity or character traits of a particular group. The differences between races are physical and have no correlation with other traits like intelligence.

Upon leaving Hahnemann Medical College in 1949, Montagu moved to Rutgers University, where he was a professor of anthropology and head of the department from 1949 to 1955. While at Rutgers, Montagu wrote perhaps his most famous work, The Natural Superiority of Women, published in 1953. Examining the differences between the sexes anthropologically, Montagu concluded that women were the superior sex because they possessed a better capability to survive both as individuals and in groups- talents necessary for an advancing society. Based on these conclusions, he suggested that women receive equal pay for equal work, a controversial stance at the time.

With his prolific writing skills to rely on financially, and facing strong backlash for his openly liberal views and anti-McCarthy public statements, Montagu accepted a forced retirement from Rutgers in 1955 at the age of 50. Though retired from academic life, he continued to lecture at such institutions as Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Santa Barbara, and New York University. Settling in Princeton, New Jersey, Montagu’s work took up a more humanist element with Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin, his effort to encourage parents to take a more physical role in raising their children and especially to encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies. Published during that same year, Montagu’s book The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity, a history of the life of disfigured Briton Joseph Merrick, inspired a Tony winning play and later a motion picture. He continued publishing through the 1980s, including The Nature of Human Aggression (1976) and Growing Young (1981), while making numerous and notable television appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show as well as the Phil Donahue Show.

In his lifetime, Montagu received many major awards, among them the American Association of Humanists’ 1995 Man of the Year award, the Darwin Award from the American Association of Physical Anthropologist in 1994, and the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Anthropological Association in 1987. Montagu maintained an active schedule of lecturing and gardening around his Princeton, New Jersey, home until he was hospitalized in March 1999; he died on November 26, 1999 from heart disease, at the age of ninety-four. He was survived by his wife of sixty-eight years, Marjorie, as well as his son and two daughters.

From the guide to the Ashley Montagu papers, 1927-1999, 1927-1999, (American Philosophical Society)

Epithet: Dr US anthropologist

British Library Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue : Person : Description : ark:/81055/vdc_100000000561.0x000135

Archival Resources
Role Title Holding Repository
creatorOf Montagu, Ashley, 1905-1999. Letters, 1966-1982, to Lewis Mumford. University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Van Pelt Library
referencedIn Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1884-1942. Bronislaw Malinowski papers, 1869-1946 (inclusive), 1914-1939 (bulk). Yale University Library
referencedIn Inventory to the Administrative Records of the Lewis Webster Jones Administration, 1951-1958 Rutgers Special Collections and University Archives
creatorOf Montagu, Ashley, 1905-1999. Correspondence with Van Wyck Brooks, 1953-1964. University of Pennsylvania Library
referencedIn Gould, Stephen Jay. Stephen Jay Gould papers, 1899-2004 (inclusive), 1941-2002 (bulk). Stanford University. Department of Special Collections and University Archives
referencedIn George Sarton additional papers, 1901-1956 Houghton Library
referencedIn International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America. Local 292 (Kokomo, Indiana). UAW Local 292 records, 1937-1983, (bulk 1950-1974). Wayne State University. Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs
creatorOf Louis Charles Karpinski papers, 1838-1889 and 1901-1955 Bentley Historical Library
creatorOf Fromm, Erich, 1900-1980. Erich Fromm papers, 1929-1949, bulk (1932-1949). New York Public Library System, NYPL
referencedIn Albert Ellis Papers, 1920-2007, [Bulk Dates: 1965-1997]. Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library
referencedIn John Collier papers, 1910-1987 Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
referencedIn Robert K. Merton Papers, 1928-2003, [Bulk Dates: 1943-2001]. Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library
referencedIn Kitchelt, Florence Ledyard Cross, 1874-1961. Papers, 1885-1961 (inclusive). Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
referencedIn Erich Fromm papers, 1929-1949, 1932-1949 New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division
creatorOf Carnegie Corporation of New York. Carnegie-Myrdal Study of the Negro in America research memoranda collection, 1935-1948. Cornell University Library
referencedIn Carnegie-Myrdal Study of the Negro in America research memoranda collection, 1935-1948 Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Archives Section
creatorOf MARGARET GARDINER PAPERS. Vol. III (ff. 129). 'Vietnam: an American View'; 1967.includes:ff. 2, 34 Harrison Evans Salisbury, Associate Editor, 'The New York Times': Letters to Margaret Gardiner of Harrison Evans Salisbury: 1967: Signed.ff. 3, 40 ..., 1967 British Library
referencedIn Stephen Jay Gould papers, 1899-2004, 1941-2002 Stanford University. Department of Special Collections and University Archives
creatorOf Ashley Montagu Papers, 1929-1987 Syracuse University. Library. Special Collections Research Center
referencedIn Collier, John, 1884-1968. John Collier papers, 1910-1987 (inclusive). Yale University Library
creatorOf Highwater, Jamake. Jamake Highwater papers, 1954-1992, bulk (1970s and 1980s). New York Public Library System, NYPL
referencedIn Smith, Lillian Eugenia, 1897-1966. Letters to Ashley Montagu, 1956-1966. Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library
referencedIn Evans, Bergen, 1904-1978. Bergan Evans Papers, 1921-1978. Northwestern University
referencedIn Max Lerner papers, 1927-1998 Yale University. Department of Manuscripts and Archives
creatorOf Ashley Montagu papers, 1927-1999, 1927-1999 American Philosophical Society
referencedIn Rutgers University. Office of the President. Records of the Lewis Webster Jones Administration Group I: Administrative Records, 1951-1959. Rutgers University
referencedIn Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1884-1942. Bronislaw Malinowski papers, 1869-1946 (inclusive), 1914-1939 (bulk). Yale University Library
creatorOf Montagu, Ashley, 1905-1999,. Autograph letter signed from M.F. Ashley Montagu, Philadelphia, to W.H. Quarrell [manuscript], 1944 February 9. Folger Shakespeare Library
referencedIn George Gaylord Simpson Papers, 1918-1984 American Philosophical Society
referencedIn Merton, Robert King, 1910-2003. Robert K. Merton papers, 1928-2003 [Bulk Dates: 1943-2001]. Columbia University in the City of New York, Columbia University Libraries
referencedIn Calderone, Mary Steichen, 1904-1998. Papers, 1904-1983 (inclusive). Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
referencedIn Papers of Malcolm Andrew Ferguson-Smith, correspondence from 1959-1961 1957-1961 Glasgow University Archive Service
creatorOf Montagu, Ashley, 1905-1999. Correspondence, 1979, from Lewis Mumford. University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Van Pelt Library
referencedIn Barber, Bernard. Bernard Barber papers, 1938-1988. Columbia University in the City of New York, Columbia University Libraries
creatorOf De Vore, Christopher. The elephant man / by Christopher De Vore, Eric Bergren, David Lynch. De Anza College
referencedIn Derek Freeman Papers, 1940 - 2001 University of California, San Diego. Geisel Library. Mandeville Special Collections Library.
creatorOf Freeman, Derek. Papers, 1940-2000. University of California, San Diego, UC San Diego Library; UCSD Library
referencedIn Louis Charles Karpinski papers, 1838-1889 and 1901-1955 Bentley Historical Library
referencedIn Jamake Highwater papers, 1954-2001 New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division
referencedIn Papers, 1904-1971 Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America‏
referencedIn William Ernest Hocking papers Houghton Library
referencedIn Leslie A. White Papers, 1921-1974 Bentley Historical Library
referencedIn Lerner, Max, 1902-2001. Max Lerner papers, 1927-1992 (inclusive). Yale University Library
creatorOf Montagu, Ashley, 1905-1999. Correspondence to Maxwell Struthers Burt, 1943. University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Van Pelt Library
creatorOf MONTAGU, ASHLEY. Artist file : miscellaneous uncataloged material. Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)
referencedIn Bernard Barber Papers, 1938-1988. Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library
referencedIn John Collier papers Yale University Library
creatorOf White, Leslie A., 1900-1975. Leslie A. White papers, 1921-1974. Bentley Historical Library
Role Title Holding Repository
Relation Name
associatedWith Abbie, Andrew Arthur, 1905-1976 person
associatedWith Askenasy, Hans, 1930- person
associatedWith Barber, Bernard. person
associatedWith Barber, Bernard. person
associatedWith Benton, William, 1900-1973 person
associatedWith Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 person
associatedWith Briffault, Robert person
associatedWith Brooks, Gladys. person
associatedWith Buhler, Charlotte, 1983-1974 person
associatedWith Calderone, Mary Steichen, 1904-1998. person
associatedWith Carnegie Corporation of New York corporateBody
associatedWith Carnegie Corporation of New York. person
associatedWith Carpenter, Edmund, 1922-2011 person
associatedWith Clark, Wilfrid E. Le Gros, (Wilfrid Edward Le Gros), 1895-1971 person
associatedWith Collier, John, 1884-1968. person
associatedWith De Vore, Christopher. person
associatedWith Dobzhansky, Theodosius Grigorievich, 1900-1975 person
associatedWith Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955 person
associatedWith Eisler, Riane Tennenhaus person
associatedWith Elkin, A. P. (Adolphus Peter), 1891-1979 person
associatedWith Ellis, Albert, 1913-2007 person
associatedWith Evans, Bergen, 1904-1978 person
correspondedWith Freeman, Derek person
associatedWith Freeman, Derek. person
associatedWith Fromm, Erich, 1900-1980. person
associatedWith Goldstein, Marcus Solomon person
associatedWith Gould, Stephen Jay. person
associatedWith Highwater, Jamake person
associatedWith Highwater, Jamake. person
correspondedWith Hocking, William Ernest, 1873-1966 person
correspondedWith International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America. Local 292 (Kokomo, Indiana) corporateBody
associatedWith IPN Institute. corporateBody
associatedWith Karpinski, Louis Charles, 1878-1956. person
associatedWith Keith, Arthur, Sir, 1866-1955 person
associatedWith Kitchelt, Florence Ledyard Cross, 1874-1961. person
associatedWith Kluckhohn, Clyde, 1905-1960 person
associatedWith La Barre, Weston, 1911-1996 person
associatedWith Lerner, Max, 1902- person
associatedWith Lerner, Max, 1902-2001. person
associatedWith Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1884-1942. person
associatedWith MARY STEICHEN CALDERONE person
associatedWith Matson, Floyd W. person
associatedWith McLuhan, Marshall, 1911-1980 person
associatedWith Meade, Margaret, 1901-1978 person
associatedWith Merton, Robert King, 1910-2003. person
associatedWith Noorthouck, John, 1746?-1816 person
associatedWith Oakley, Kenneth Page, 1911 person
correspondedWith Quarrell, W. H. (William Henry), b. 1864 person
associatedWith Rutgers University. Office of the President. corporateBody
correspondedWith Sarton, George, 1884-1956 person
associatedWith Simpson, George Gaylord, 1902-1984 person
associatedWith Smith, Lillian Eugenia, 1897-1966. person
associatedWith Smith, Malcolm Andrew Ferguson-, b 1931, geneticist, University of Glasgow, Scotland, person
associatedWith Sorokin, Pitirim Aleksandrovich, 1889-1968 person
associatedWith White, Leslie A., 1900-1975. person
associatedWith Yerkes, Robert Mearns, 1876-1956 person
Place Name Admin Code Country
Subject
Anthropologists
Anthropology
Anthropology, ethnography, fieldwork
Physical anthropology
Biology, genetics, eugenics
British Americans
Émigré
Gender
Race
Race, race relations, racism
Science and medicine
Social conditions, social advocacy, social reform
Social inequality
Occupation
Anthropologists
Activity

Person

Birth 1905-06-28

Death 1999-11-16

Active 1960

Americans

English

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