Tax, Sol, 1907-1995

Sol Tax (1907-1996) was a prominent cultural anthropologist. He completed a Bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1931, a M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago (1932 and 1935). He took a faculty position at University of Chicago in 1940 and remained there until 1977. Tax founded the academic journal Current Anthropology (1959), served on the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology (1946-1954), served on the President's Task Force on Indian Affairs (1965-1969), was Director of the Smithsonian Institute's Center for the Study of Man (1969-1977), served as President of the American Anthropological Association (1958-1959) and edited that Association's Journal, American Anthropologist (1953-1956). He was a pioneer in the field of action anthropology, published many academic articles and corresponded with researchers and activists. Tax was an active organizer of the 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference (AICC, also called the American Indian Charter Convention or Conference), which produced the path-breaking Declaration of Indian Purpose, and worked to coordinate pan-tribal research on education. Tax was instrumental in the creation of the Native American Educational Services (NAES) in 1970 as an offshoot of earlier organizing efforts by Chicago Indians and their supporters

The "Origin of Man" symposium was held April 2-4, 1965, at the Center for Continuing Education. It was organized and convened by Sol Tax, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

The symposium was a working conference of anthropologists, designed to assist the participants in re-thinking and reformulating their views on the origin of man in the light of new information on the subject.

The symposium was occasioned by Louis S.B. Leakey's visit to the United States. L.S.B. Leakey was the principal anthropologist involved with the archeological work at the Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika, where the partial remains of several early men were discovered. It was Leakey's theory that three types of early man-like beings, habilis, Pithecanthropis, and Australopithecus, were living in the gorge simultaneously. This view of man's origin in opposed to the view traditionally held by anthropologists that of a single line of descent for man.

Sol Tax (1907-1996) was a prominent cultural anthropologist. He completed a Bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1931, a M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago (1932 and 1935). He took a faculty position at University of Chicago in 1940 and remained there until 1977. Tax founded the academic journal Current Anthropology (1959), served on the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology (1946-1954), served on the President's Task Force on Indian Affairs (1965-1969), was Director of the Smithsonian Institute's Center for the Study of Man (1969-1977), served as President of the American Anthropological Association (1958-1959) and edited that Association's Journal, American Anthropologist (1953-1956). He was a pioneer in the field of action anthropology, published many academic articles and corresponded with researchers and activists.

Tax was an active organizer of the 1961 American Indian Chicago Conference (AICC, also called the American Indian Charter Convention or Conference), which produced the path-breaking Declaration of Indian Purpose, and worked to coordinate pan-tribal research on education. Tax was instrumental in the creation of the Native American Educational Services (NAES) in 1970 as an offshoot of earlier organizing efforts by Chicago Indians and their supporters.

Established in Chicago in 1974, NAES College (Native American Educational Service) aimed to improve the leadership of Native communities and to ensure that tribal knowledge, traditions and values play a major role in the higher education of Native students. Before closing its doors in 2007, NAES College offered a single degree, a Bachelor's of Arts in General Studies with an emphasis in Public Policy, and tribal knowledge, community service, community development and leadership.

The American Indian Chicago Conference wash held in 1961. Most of the 460 conference participants were indigenous and they used the congress to address their common concerns. The conference was organized by Native American people with the sponsorship of the University of Chicago, Professor of Anthropology Sol Tax, and the National Congress of American Indians. The conference occurred at a time when federal policy regarding the termination of tribal trust status seriously threatened the recognition of tribes by the federal government. The conference provided support for the development of new inter-tribal organizations that helped to write the Declaration of Indian Purpose which was present to President John F. Kennedy and has helped to inform the federal government of the Native American view point regarding policy.