Ruth Landes
Encyclopedia
Ruth Landes was an American cultural anthropologist best known for studies on Brazil
ian candomblé
cults and her published study on the topic, City of Women (1947). Landes is recognized by some as a pioneer in the study of race and gender relations.
. Landes received her B.A. in Sociology
from New York University
in 1928, and a Masters degree from The New York School of Social Work (now part of Columbia University
) in 1929, before studying for her doctorate in anthropology at Columbia University. She earned her Ph.D. in 1935 under the mentorship of Ruth Benedict
, a pioneer in the field of anthropology and student of Franz Boas
.
. Seeking to enhance her analysis of this group, she contacted Professor Boas, who suggested she move into the field of anthropology. Under Benedict's tutelage, Landes shifted her focus toward Native Americans
- the more traditional anthropological subjects. Between 1932 and 1936, she undertook field work with the Ojibwa
of Ontario
and Minnesota
, the Santee Dakota in Minnesota, and the Potawatomi
in Kansas
. Using her notes from these trips, Landes produced a large body of written research, including the landmark texts Ojibwa Sociology (1937), Ojibwa Woman (1938), and, much later, Ojibwa Religion and the Midewiwin (1968) and The Mystic Lake Sioux (1968). In Ojibwa Sociology and Ojibwa Woman, Landes provides notes on kinship
, religious rites and social organization, and in the latter, through the tales of chief informant Maggie Wilson, reported how women navigated within gender roles to assert their economic and social autonomy. In Ojibwa Religion and The Mystic Lake Sioux, Landes discussed her subjects' strategies to maintain religious and cultural beliefs and practices, while also responding to rapid changes in their cultural and political environment.
In 1938-1939, Ruth Landes worked in Bahia
, Brazil
, to study religious syncretism and identity construction among Afro-Brazilian
candomblé
practictioners. She wrote that the women-centered sphere of candomblé was a source of power for certain disenfranchised blacks and a creative outlet for what she called "passive homosexuals". In her published work on these findings, City of Women (1947), Landes discussed how racial politics in Brazil shape many candomblé practices. She returned to Brazil in 1966 to study the effects of urban development in Rio de Janeiro.
's study of African Americans. In 1941, she became research director for the Office of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs
. In 1941-1945, she was the representative for African-American and Mexican-American Affairs on President Franklin D. Roosevelt
's Committee on Fair Employment Practices. At the same time, she began to study the Acadians of Louisiana
. In 1948-1951, she was study director of the American Jewish Commission in New York. She was a consultant on Jewish families of New York for Ruth Benedict's Research in Contemporary Cultures during 1949-1951. In 1950-1952, Landes studied problems of immigrants of Asian and African descent in the United Kingdom
. During 1946-1947 and again in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Landes lived in California
and, through several consultantships, became involved with the study of Hispanic
/Latino
culture. At the same time, she began cross-cultural studies
on minority education and the processes and effects of aging. In 1968, she began an investigation of bilingualism and bi-culturalism that developed from her interest in Quebec
nationalism in Canada. The project took her to Spain
and Nevada
to study the Basques, to Switzerland
to examine the four language groups there, and to South Africa
to study the interaction of Africans, English
-speakers, and Afrikaans
-speakers. She resumed interest in the Acadians of Louisiana in 1963.
Until 1965, Landes's institutional affiliations consisted of fairly short-term appointments. Besides those already named, she was an instructor at Brooklyn College
in 1937 and at Fisk University
in 1937-1938. She was a lecturer at the William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution in New York in 1953-1954 and at the New School for Social Research in New York in 1953-1955. She was a visiting professor at the University of Kansas
in 1957 and at the University of Southern California
in 1957-1965. In 1959-1962, she was visiting professor and director of the anthropology and education program at the Claremont Graduate School. She was an extension lecturer at Columbia University and at Los Angeles State College in 1963, a visiting professor at Tulane University
during the early months of 1964, and a visiting professor at the University of Kansas in the summer of 1964. Her association with McMaster University
in Hamilton, Ontario
, began in 1965 and continued after 1977 with her appointment as professor emerita.
at the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, D.C.
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian candomblé
Candomblé
Candomblé is an African-originated or Afro-Brazilian religion, practised chiefly in Brazil by the "povo de santo" . It originated in the cities of Salvador, the capital of Bahia and Cachoeira, at the time one of the main commercial crossroads for the distribution of products and slave trade to...
cults and her published study on the topic, City of Women (1947). Landes is recognized by some as a pioneer in the study of race and gender relations.
Biography
Ruth Schlossberg was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Her father was Joseph Schlossberg, a co-founder and long-term secretary-general of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of AmericaAmalgamated Clothing Workers of America
The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America was a United States labor union known for its support for "social unionism" and progressive political causes. Led by Sidney Hillman for its first thirty years, it helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations...
. Landes received her B.A. in Sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
from New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
in 1928, and a Masters degree from The New York School of Social Work (now part of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
) in 1929, before studying for her doctorate in anthropology at Columbia University. She earned her Ph.D. in 1935 under the mentorship of Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict was an American anthropologist, cultural relativist, and folklorist....
, a pioneer in the field of anthropology and student of Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
.
Field studies
Landes began researching the social organization and religious practices of marginalized subjects with her masters thesis on Black Jews in HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. Seeking to enhance her analysis of this group, she contacted Professor Boas, who suggested she move into the field of anthropology. Under Benedict's tutelage, Landes shifted her focus toward Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
- the more traditional anthropological subjects. Between 1932 and 1936, she undertook field work with the Ojibwa
Ojibwa
The Ojibwe or Chippewa are among the largest groups of Native Americans–First Nations north of Mexico. They are divided between Canada and the United States. In Canada, they are the third-largest population among First Nations, surpassed only by Cree and Inuit...
of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
and Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, the Santee Dakota in Minnesota, and the Potawatomi
Potawatomi
The Potawatomi are a Native American people of the upper Mississippi River region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a member of the Algonquian family. In the Potawatomi language, they generally call themselves Bodéwadmi, a name that means "keepers of the fire" and that was applied...
in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
. Using her notes from these trips, Landes produced a large body of written research, including the landmark texts Ojibwa Sociology (1937), Ojibwa Woman (1938), and, much later, Ojibwa Religion and the Midewiwin (1968) and The Mystic Lake Sioux (1968). In Ojibwa Sociology and Ojibwa Woman, Landes provides notes on kinship
Kinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....
, religious rites and social organization, and in the latter, through the tales of chief informant Maggie Wilson, reported how women navigated within gender roles to assert their economic and social autonomy. In Ojibwa Religion and The Mystic Lake Sioux, Landes discussed her subjects' strategies to maintain religious and cultural beliefs and practices, while also responding to rapid changes in their cultural and political environment.
In 1938-1939, Ruth Landes worked in Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, to study religious syncretism and identity construction among Afro-Brazilian
Afro-Brazilian
In Brazil, the term "preto" is one of the five categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with "branco" , "pardo" , "amarelo" and "indígena"...
candomblé
Candomblé
Candomblé is an African-originated or Afro-Brazilian religion, practised chiefly in Brazil by the "povo de santo" . It originated in the cities of Salvador, the capital of Bahia and Cachoeira, at the time one of the main commercial crossroads for the distribution of products and slave trade to...
practictioners. She wrote that the women-centered sphere of candomblé was a source of power for certain disenfranchised blacks and a creative outlet for what she called "passive homosexuals". In her published work on these findings, City of Women (1947), Landes discussed how racial politics in Brazil shape many candomblé practices. She returned to Brazil in 1966 to study the effects of urban development in Rio de Janeiro.
Career
For much of her professional career, Ruth Landes held a number of contract research positions. In 1939, she became a researcher for Gunnar MyrdalGunnar Myrdal
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish Nobel Laureate economist, sociologist, and politician. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the...
's study of African Americans. In 1941, she became research director for the Office of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs
Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs
The Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs was a United States agency promoting inter-American cooperation during the 1940s, especially in commercial and economic areas...
. In 1941-1945, she was the representative for African-American and Mexican-American Affairs on President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's Committee on Fair Employment Practices. At the same time, she began to study the Acadians of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. In 1948-1951, she was study director of the American Jewish Commission in New York. She was a consultant on Jewish families of New York for Ruth Benedict's Research in Contemporary Cultures during 1949-1951. In 1950-1952, Landes studied problems of immigrants of Asian and African descent in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. During 1946-1947 and again in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Landes lived in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and, through several consultantships, became involved with the study of Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
/Latino
Latino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
culture. At the same time, she began cross-cultural studies
Cross-cultural studies
Cross-cultural studies, sometimes called Holocultural Studies, is a specialization in anthropology and sister sciences that uses field data from many societies to examine the scope of human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture. Cross-cultural studies is the third form of...
on minority education and the processes and effects of aging. In 1968, she began an investigation of bilingualism and bi-culturalism that developed from her interest in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
nationalism in Canada. The project took her to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
to study the Basques, to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
to examine the four language groups there, and to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
to study the interaction of Africans, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-speakers, and Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
-speakers. She resumed interest in the Acadians of Louisiana in 1963.
Until 1965, Landes's institutional affiliations consisted of fairly short-term appointments. Besides those already named, she was an instructor at Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
in 1937 and at Fisk University
Fisk University
Fisk University is an historically black university founded in 1866 in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. The world-famous Fisk Jubilee Singers started as a group of students who performed to earn enough money to save the school at a critical time of financial shortages. They toured to raise funds to...
in 1937-1938. She was a lecturer at the William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution in New York in 1953-1954 and at the New School for Social Research in New York in 1953-1955. She was a visiting professor at the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
in 1957 and at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
in 1957-1965. In 1959-1962, she was visiting professor and director of the anthropology and education program at the Claremont Graduate School. She was an extension lecturer at Columbia University and at Los Angeles State College in 1963, a visiting professor at Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
during the early months of 1964, and a visiting professor at the University of Kansas in the summer of 1964. Her association with McMaster University
McMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
in Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
, began in 1965 and continued after 1977 with her appointment as professor emerita.
Death and legacy
Ruth Landes died in Hamilton, Ontario on February 11, 1991, at the age of 82. Landes' final place of work, McMaster University, has established The Ruth Landes Prize awarded each year to the student who has demonstrated outstanding academic achievement in anthropology. Additionally, the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund funds interdisciplinary scholarship on the various subjects that were of interest to her during her professional and academic career. Her professional papers, photographs and collected artifacts from the field are archived in the National Anthropological ArchivesNational Anthropological Archives
The National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives are a collection of historical and contemporary documents maintained by the Smithsonian Institution, which document the history of anthropology and the world's peoples and cultures...
at the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....