Radin, Paul, 1883-1959

Dr. Paul Radin is considered to be one of the formative influences in contemporary anthropology and ethnography in the United States and Europe. He was born in Lodz (Russian Poland) on April 2, 1883, the son of a reform rabbi and scholar. In 1884, his family moved to Elmira, New York, and then to New York City in 1890. Educated in the public school system, Radin entered the College of the City of New York as a sub-freshman at the age of fourteen, graduating in 1902. After a brief stint in graduate studies at Columbia exploring the zoology of fish, Radin went to study physical anthropology in Munich. This two-year period afforded him time in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, where he began a process of self-cultivation. He returned to Columbia in 1907 with a major in anthropology and a minor in statistics under the famed professor Franz Boas, the so-called "Father of American Anthropology." Receiving his Ph.D. in 1911, Radin took a series of appointments around North America, first with the Bureau of American Ethnology (1911-12), then a joint fellowship from Columbia and Harvard to study the Zapotec culture (1912-13), followed by four years with the Geological Survey of Canada, studying the Ojibwa of southeast Ontario. His ancillary work on the Winnebago culminated in his Autobiography of The Winnebego Indian in 1920. From 1920-1925, he wrote and did field research at the University of Cambridge, publishing Primitive Man as Philosopher in 1927. From 1927 to 1930, while at Fisk University in Nashville, Radin collected oral histories of former slaves' conversion experiences, many of which remain unpublished. During the Great Depression, Radin moved to Berkeley, where he remained until 1941. From 1930 to 1940, Radin accomplished three major feats: an analysis of the Patwin language of California, his survey of San Francisco's Minorities in 1934-1935 for the State Economic Recovery Act (S.E.R.A. Project 2-F2-98 (3-F2-145)), and the monumental Catalogue of Mexican Pamphlets in the Sutro Collection of the California State Library in 1939 for the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A. project 665-08-3-236). During these trying years of the Depression, Radin still managed to publish Social Anthropology (1932), Method and Theory of Ethnology (1933), and Primitive Religion (1937) at a time when publication, especially in academia, was curtailed. After 1949, Radin lectured in Oxford, Cambridge and Carl Jung's Institute in Zurich. Working from Bollingen Foundation grants, he continued his research on the Winnebago. He joined Brandeis University in 1957, where he worked until his death on February 21, 1959 in New York City.

From the description of Paul Radin papers 1933-2000 1934 - 1935 (San Francisco Public Library). WorldCat record id: 659806675

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