Ruth Bunzel facts for kids

Ruth Leah Bunzel (born Bernheim) (April 18, 1898 – January 14, 1990) was an American anthropologist. She was famous for studying art and creativity among the Zuni people in the American Southwest. She also researched the Mayas in Guatemala. Ruth Bunzel was one of the first anthropologists to study how people create art. She was also the first American anthropologist to do a lot of research in Guatemala. Her main book, The Pueblo Potter (1929), was about how artists create things.

Early Life

Ruth Leah Bunzel was born in New York City on April 18, 1898. Her parents were Jonas and Hattie Bernheim. She grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She spent most of her life in Greenwich Village. She only left New York for long trips when she was doing her research. Ruth's father passed away when she was ten years old. Her mother then raised her and her three older siblings.

Education and Early Career

Ruth's mother wanted her to study German at Barnard College. This was because of their German and Czech family background. But World War I made Ruth change her mind. She decided to study European history instead. She earned her Bachelor of Art degree in European History in 1918 from Barnard College.

In 1922, Ruth started working for Franz Boas. He was a very important person in anthropology at Columbia University. Ruth had taken one of his classes in college. Boas encouraged her to study anthropology directly. She took over from another student, Esther Goldfrank, who left to study anthropology herself.

By 1924, Ruth was thinking about a career in anthropology. But first, she wanted to see how anthropological research was done. She planned to spend the summer of 1924 in New Mexico and Arizona. She especially wanted to visit Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico. She planned to help another Columbia anthropologist, Ruth Benedict, by typing her notes on Zuni stories.

Boas encouraged Ruth to do her own research while she was there. He suggested she study art and Zuni potters. Another anthropologist, Elsie Clews Parsons, didn't like this idea. She thought Ruth wasn't trained enough in anthropology. Parsons even threatened to stop funding Benedict's research. But Boas stepped in, and Parsons allowed Ruth to do her research as a favor to him.

Studying the Zuni People

In the early 1900s, anthropologists used a method called participant observation. This means they lived with the people they studied and took part in their daily lives. Ruth Bunzel used this method when she worked with the Zuni people. In the summer of 1924, she learned from Zuni potters. She watched them and even made pottery with them. Focusing on pottery helped Ruth learn from Zuni women. This was important because women did not take part in Zuni religious ceremonies. Ruth was very interested in how important women were as potters in Zuni society.

Ruth also studied the Hopi, San Ildefonso, Acoma, and San Felipe Pueblo Indians. She used this research for her main book, The Pueblo Potter: A Study of Creative Imagination in Primitive Art. It was published in 1929. Her book described how Zuni potters created their art. They kept old patterns but also made new ones. Ruth later said, "I was never studying pottery. I was studying human behavior. I wanted to know how the potters felt about what they were doing."

In 1925, Ruth returned to New York. She stopped being Boas's secretary and became a student at Columbia University. She was one of the first students trained by Boas. She finished her main research paper in 1927. But she didn't get her PhD until 1929, when her book The Pueblo Potter was published. Her book was the first anthropology study of how individuals create art within a culture's rules.

Elsie Clews Parsons, who first didn't want Ruth to go to Zuni, later supported her. Parsons helped fund Ruth's second trip to study Zuni ceremonies. She also supported future trips and projects. Ruth's research on Zuni ceremonies, creation stories, kachinas, and poetry was published in 1932. She focused on how individuals could be creative. Her work led to many books and articles about Pueblo art, rituals, and stories. These included "Notes on the Kachina Cult in San Felipe" (1928) and Zuni Texts (1933).

Ruth shared her research widely. She also helped other famous anthropologists with their work. She wrote about the Zuni language and culture. This information was used by Ruth Benedict in her book Patterns of Culture. Ruth Bunzel became an expert on the Zuni people. She learned the Zuni language and included the views of the people she studied in her writing. She did this in her book about the Katcina Cult and later in Chichicastenango: A Guatemalan Village. Ruth also helped edit The Golden Age of American Anthropology (1960) with Margaret Mead. She also contributed to Boas and Benedict’s General Anthropology (1938).

While working with the Zuni, Ruth lived with Flora Zuni and her family. They welcomed her into the Beaver clan. They also gave her the Zuni name Maiatitsa, which means "blue bird." The former governor of the pueblo, Nick Tumaka, gave her another Zuni name, Tsatitsa. Ruth returned to the Zuni people in 1939. This time, she studied how Zuni children developed. This was her last visit to Zuni Pueblo.

Margaret Mead also thanked Ruth Bunzel in her book Cooperation and Competition Among Primitive Peoples. Mead noted that Ruth allowed her to use her notes on Zuni economics. Ruth also gave advice and ideas while Mead was writing.

Research in Guatemala

Ruth Bunzel applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship to study Mexican culture. But she was asked to study Guatemala instead. This was because not much American anthropology research had been done there. From 1930 to 1932, Ruth studied Santa Tomas Chichicastenango. This was a Highland Mayan Village. Her research led to her book Chichicastenango: A Guatemalan Village, published in 1952.

Ruth helped her field by trying new ways of doing research. She believed that what one person told her might not be true for everyone in the culture. She saw their ideas as personal to them or small groups. Ruth thought that knowledge was shaped by culture. So, she focused her studies on a specific group of Maya-K'iche’ people in Guatemala. Ruth also studied Chichicastenango, which was a busy city and trade center. Most anthropologists at the time studied isolated villages. But Ruth chose to study places where there was a lot of change and contact with other cultures.

In her book Chichicastenango, Ruth also compared her own ideas about Guatemalan ceremonies with what the local people told her. Her book was greatly influenced by Boas's ideas about history and Benedict's work on culture and personality. Just like with the Zuni, Ruth focused on one main person she learned from in Chichicastenango. This helped her get a detailed view of a small group of people.

Professional Life

Early in her career, Ruth taught at Barnard College from 1929 to 1930. She also taught at Columbia University at different times between 1933 and 1940. Like many other women anthropologists at Columbia, Ruth never held a full-time, permanent teaching job.

Ruth faced challenges in her career because she was a woman. Some male colleagues spread untrue rumors about her work in Chichicastenango. This made it harder for her to get support from other researchers. It also stopped her from getting a permanent university job.

During World War II, Ruth worked in England. She translated radio broadcasts from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English for the U.S. Government. She also helped analyze propaganda. After the war, she joined a project at Columbia University that studied different cultures. This project was funded by the Navy. Ruth led a group that studied China. They interviewed Chinese immigrants in New York City from 1947 to 1951. In 1951 and 1952, Ruth developed new interview methods for another project. Then, in 1953, she became an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University.

Later Years

From 1969 to 1987, Ruth Bunzel was a Senior Research Associate at Columbia University. She officially retired from Columbia in 1966. But she kept teaching until 1972. From 1972 to 1974, Ruth was a visiting professor at Bennington College. Ruth Bunzel passed away on January 14, 1990, at the age of 91. She died in New York City after a heart attack.

Ruth Leah Bunzel's papers are kept at the National Anthropological Archives. These papers include her letters, writings, notes, research files, teaching materials, artwork, and sound recordings.