Hortense Powdermaker attended Goucher College where she majored in history and received her Bachelors Degree in 1921. She entered the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1925 and studied anthropology. In 1928 she was awarded her Ph.D. and immediately left for a year long field study in Lesu, Ireland. Out of this came a book titled Life in Lesu (1933). She then became a Research Associate of the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University and in 1932 went to Indianola, Mississippi to begin probably the first study of a modern day culture. Her next book, titled After Freedom (1939), was based on this society.
In 1937, Powdermaker moved to New York where she taught at Queens College and later received the Distinguished Teacher Award of the Alumni Association of Queens College. Her next field study was held in 1953-54 in Luanshya (now Zambia) and resulted in Copper Town (1962). Her last book, Stranger and Friend: The Way of an Anthropologist (1966), evaluated and compared her several field experiences in great clarity. Hortense Powdermaker was a leader in women's roles and was marked archaeologist.
Hortense Powdermaker, www.biography.com, (2006)
Eric R. Wolf. American Anthropologist, Vol 73 [3,1971], University of Michigan
Written By: