Melville Jean Herskovits (September 10, 1895 in Bellefontaine, Ohio - February 25, 1963 in Evanston, Illinois) was an American anthropologist who firmly established African and African American studies in American academia. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University in New York under the guidance of the German-born American anthropologist Franz Boas. In 1948, he founded the first major interdisciplinary American program in African studies at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University, established in 1954, is the largest separate collection of Africana in the world.

Herskovits's controversial classic The Myth of the Negro Past is about African cultural influences on American blacks. He also helped forge the concept of cultural relativism, particularly in his book Man and His Works.

Melville Herskovits's position formed one half of the debate with Franklin Frazier on the nature of cultural contact in the Western Hemisphere, specifically with reference to Africans, Europeans, and their descendents.^[1]

After World War II, Herskovits publicly advocated African independence and also attacked American politicians for viewing Africa as an object of Cold War strategy.

Works

• The Myth of the Negro Past, 1941
• The American Negro, 1928
• Continuity and Change in African Culture, 1959
• Economic Transition in Africa, 1964
• The Human Factor in Changing Africa, 1962

Further reading

• Jerry Gershenhorn: Melville J. Herskovits and the Racial Politics of Knowledge (2004) (ISBN 0-8032-2187-8).

References

External links

• Melville J. Herskovits Papers, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois

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