Ruth Landes facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ruth Landes
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| Born | October 8, 1908 |
| Died | February 11, 1991 (Aged 82) |
| Education | Ph.D., Columbia University (1935) |
| Occupation | Anthropologist |
Ruth Landes (born October 8, 1908 – died February 11, 1991) was an American cultural anthropologist. She was famous for her studies on the Brazilian religion called Candomblé. Her book about it, City of Women (1947), is very well-known. Many people see Ruth Landes as a leader in studying how different races and genders interact.
Contents
Early Life and Family
Ruth Schlossberg was born in Manhattan, a part of New York City. Her parents were immigrants from Russia and were Jewish. Her father, Joseph Schlossberg, helped start and was a long-time leader of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. This was a big union for clothing workers.
Becoming an Anthropologist
Her College Journey
Ruth Landes first earned a bachelor's degree in Sociology from New York University in 1928. A year later, in 1929, she got a master's degree from The New York School of Social Work. This school is now part of Columbia University. After that, she decided to study for her Ph.D. in anthropology at Columbia University.
Learning from the Best
She finished her Ph.D. in 1935. Her main teacher and mentor was Ruth Benedict. Benedict was a very important person in anthropology and had learned from Franz Boas, another famous anthropologist. Ruth Benedict had a huge impact on Landes. Landes loved how Benedict taught and how she made students think in new ways. Ruth Landes said she was never happier studying anthropology than when she was with Benedict and Boas. She also said that her friendship with Ruth Benedict was one of the most important friendships in her life. It helped her think more deeply about anthropology and question common ideas in society.
Exploring Cultures: Field Studies
Studying Native American Groups
Ruth Landes started her research by looking at the social life and religious practices of groups that were often overlooked. For her master's thesis, she studied Black Jewish people in Harlem. To improve her research, she reached out to Franz Boas. He suggested she move into the field of anthropology.
Under Ruth Benedict's guidance, Landes began to focus on Native American communities. Between 1932 and 1936, she worked with several groups:
- The Ojibwe people in Ontario and Minnesota.
- The Santee Dakota in Minnesota.
- The Potawatomi in Kansas.
From these trips, Landes wrote many important books. These include Ojibwa Sociology (1937) and Ojibwa Woman (1938). Later, she wrote Ojibwa Religion and the Midewiwin (1968) and The Mystic Lake Sioux (1968). In her books about the Ojibwe, she wrote about their family connections, religious ceremonies, and how their society was organized. In Ojibwa Woman, she shared stories from a main helper named Maggie Wilson. These stories showed how women found ways to be independent and strong within their roles. In her later books, Landes discussed how these groups worked to keep their religious and cultural beliefs alive, even as their world changed quickly.
Researching in Brazil
From 1938 to 1939, Ruth Landes traveled to Bahia, Brazil. There, she studied religious mixing and how people created their identities among Afro-Brazilian Candomblé followers. Candomblé is a religion where women often hold powerful positions. Landes wrote that this women-centered part of Candomblé gave strength to black people who felt left out. It also offered a creative way for some people to express themselves. In her book City of Women (1947), Landes explained how racial politics in Brazil influenced many Candomblé practices. She went back to Brazil in 1966 to study how cities growing bigger affected people in Rio de Janeiro.
Ruth Landes's Career
For most of her career, Ruth Landes worked on many different research projects. In 1939, she became a researcher for Gunnar Myrdal's study about African-Americans. In 1941, she became a research director for the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. From 1941 to 1945, she worked for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Committee on Fair Employment Practices. Here, she represented African-American and Mexican-American issues. During this time, she also started studying the Acadians in Louisiana.
Later Research and Teaching
From 1948 to 1951, she directed studies for the American Jewish Commission in New York. She also advised on Jewish families in New York for Ruth Benedict's research project. From 1950 to 1952, Landes studied issues faced by immigrants from Asia and Africa in the United Kingdom. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she lived in California. She worked as a consultant, studying Hispanic and Latino culture. She also began to study education for minority groups and how aging affects people.
In 1968, she started looking into bilingualism (speaking two languages) and biculturalism (having two cultures). This came from her interest in Quebec nationalism in Canada. This project took her to Spain and Nevada to study the Basques. She also went to Switzerland to look at its four language groups and to South Africa to study how different groups interacted there. She became interested in the Acadians of Louisiana again in 1963.
Ruth Landes taught at many universities. She was an instructor at Brooklyn College and Fisk University. She also lectured at the William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution and the New School for Social Research. She was a visiting professor at the University of Kansas, the University of Southern California, and Tulane University. From 1959 to 1962, she directed the anthropology and education program at the Claremont Graduate School. Her longest connection was with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She started there in 1965 and continued even after 1977 as a professor emerita, which means a retired professor who keeps her title.
Death and What She Left Behind
Ruth Landes passed away in Hamilton, Ontario, on February 11, 1991. She was 82 years old. McMaster University, where she worked last, created The Ruth Landes Prize. This award is given every year to a student who has done excellent work in anthropology. Also, the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund helps pay for studies on the many topics she cared about during her career. Her professional papers, photos, and items she collected from her field research are kept at the National Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
See also
In Spanish: Ruth Landes para niños
