Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions on personal use. Permission to publish material from the Margaret Mead Christmas card collection must be obtained from Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Margaret Mead Christmas card collection, C0216, Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Purchased in 2012.

Processing Information

Processed in August 2012 by Jordan Patty. EAD markup completed in August 2012 by Jordan Patty.

Historical Information

Margaret Mead was a prominent twentieth-century educator, writer, and lecturer. An anthropologist by occupation, she studied the lives of natives of Samoa, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Her first book, "Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization" (New York: Morrow, 1928), which compared the seemingly care-free adolescent years in Samoan culture to this stressful period of development for American teenagers, catapulted her to instant fame. As she went on to research and write about other cultures, she used her anthropological studies as a framework to discuss and analyze American society.

Scope and Content

A collection of 11 Christmas cards from noted anthropologist Margaret Mead with five cards signed and with holiday greetings. The collection includes 10 original photographic prints, with one in color, and one printed card, many taken by friends and contributors to her work, such as visual anthropologist Paul Byers and cinematographer Richard Leiterman. Four of the card images include Mead's granddaughter, Sevanne "Vanni" Kassarjian, with one also showing her daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson (herself a well-respected anthropologist). Three other Christmas cards picture Mead with natives of New Guinea and Bali, often surrounded by children, with one lone color image of her being filmed on Manus Island for the 1968 documentary, "Margaret Mead's New Guinea Journal." Other cards show artwork, a choir, and various children. A charming collection of Christmas cards from one of the world's most renowned anthropologists.

Arrangement

Organized by size.

Related Material

Special Collections & Archives hold the George Mason University photograph collection that includes several photographs of Mary Catherine Bateson, Mead's daughter and a former professor of Anthropology at GMU.

The Library of Congress holds the Margaret Mead papers.

Index Terms

Persons:

• Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978--Photographs.