Famous Cultural Anthropologist: Ralph Linton (1893 – 1953)

Ralph Linton began his career as an archeologist, but later turn to cultural anthropology.
His ethnographic fieldwork took him to Polynesia and Madagascar, as well as on archeological expeditions in Latin America and the United States.

He developed the concepts of status and role in his classic book The Study of Man (1936). Linton was a leading figure in the development of the subfield of psychological anthropology in the 1930s and 1940s, and published widely on the topic of culture and personality.

He also was instrumental in promoting the study of culture change, and published several studies on the acculturation of Native Americans.

Ralph Linton was born in Philadelphia on February 27, 1893 was on of the best known American anthropologists of the time.

Graduated from University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, he joined Field Museum at Chicago as Curator of American Indian.

In 1946, Linton was appointed as Sterling Professor of Anthropology at Yale University and at the same time as President of the American Anthropological Association. He died due to heart attack in 1953.
Famous Cultural Anthropologist: Ralph Linton (1893 – 1953)