Julian Haynes Steward (January 31, 1902 – February 6, 1972) was an American anthropologist best known for his role in the development of a scientific theory of cultural evolution in the years following World War II. January 31 is the 31st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1902 (MCMII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... February 6 is the 37th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... Initiation rite of the Yao people of Malawi Anthropology (from the Greek word , man or person) consists of the study of humanity (see genus Homo). ... Cultural evolution is the structural change of a society and its values over time. ... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000,000 Total dead: 50,000,000 Military dead: 8,000,000 Civilian dead: 4,000,000 Total dead 12,000,000 World War II (abbreviated WWII), or the Second World War, was a worldwide conflict...

Biography

Steward was born in Washington, D.C. His father was the chief of the Board of Examiners of the U.S. Patent Office while his uncle was the chief forecaster for the U.S. Weather Bureau. While his father was a staunch atheist, his mother became a devout Christian Scientist. Steward showed no particular interest in anthropology as a child, but at the age of sixteen he enrolled at Deep Springs College, high in the south-eastern Sierra Nevada designed to produce future political leaders. His experience with the high mountains and local Shoshone and Paiute peoples awakened an interest in life in this area. After spending a year at Berkeley, Steward transferred to Cornell University. Cornell lacked an anthropology department, and he studied zoology and biology while the college's president, Livingston Farrand, continued to nurture his interest in anthropology. Steward earned his B.A. in 1925 and returned to Berkeley to pursue a Ph.D. in anthropology. Nickname: DC, The District Motto: Justitia Omnibus (Justice for All) Location of Washington, D.C., in relation to the states Maryland and Virginia Coordinates: Federal District District of Columbia  - Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D)  - City Council Chairperson: Vincent C. Gray (D) Ward 1: Jim Graham (D) Ward 2: Jack Evans... For information about the band, see Atheist (band). ... The Church of Christ, Scientist, often known as The Christian Science Church, is a nontrinitarian Protestant Christian denomination, founded by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879. ... Deep Springs is a private, all-male, alternative college located in Deep Springs, California, in the United States. ... The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range that is almost entirely in the eastern portion of the U.S. state of California. ... Shoshone around their tipi, probably taken around 1890 Shoshone Indians at Ft. ... Paiute women and children in Yosemite Valley 1891. ... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, and by other names, see below) is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. ... Cornell redirects here. ... Livingston Farrand (1867-1939) was the fourth president of Cornell University. ...

Berkeley in the 1920s was a center of anthropological thought. The discipline originated in the work of Franz Boas at Columbia University, and two of Boas's greatest students, Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie established the department at Berkeley. Along with Edward Gifford, they established Berkeley as a west-coast beachhead for the discipline. Steward proved to be a star student, and quickly earned a reputation as a scholar of great potential. He graduated in 1929 after completing a library thesis entitled The Ceremonial Buffoon of the American Indian, a Study of Ritualized Clowning and Role Reversals and went to teach at the University of Michigan, establishing an anthropology department there that would later become famous under the guidance of fellow evolutionist Leslie White. In 1930 he moved to the University of Utah, which was closer to the Sierras, and conducted extensive fieldwork in California, Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon. Franz Boas Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942[1]) was one of the pioneers of modern anthropology and is often called the Father of American Anthropology. Born in Germany, Boas worked for most of his life in North America. ... Columbia University is a private research university whose main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. ... Alfred Louis Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876–October 5, 1960) was one of the most influential figures in American anthropology in the first half of the twentieth century. ... Robert Henry Lowie (1883 – 1957) was an Austrian-born American anthropologist. ... The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (UM or U of M) is a coeducational public research university in the U.S. state of Michigan. ... Leslie Alvin White ([19 January [1900]], Salida Colorado -- 31 March 1975) was an anthropologist known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution and his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. ...

In 1935 Steward began a long involvement with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He was key in the reform of the organization known as the New Deal for the American Indian, a restructuring which involved Steward in a variety of policy and financial issues. For the next eleven years Steward became an administrator of considerable clout, editing the Handbook of South American Indians. He also took a position at the Smithsonian Institute, where he founded the Institute for Social Anthropology in 1943. He also served on a committee to reorganize the American Anthropological Association and played a role in the creation of the National Science Foundation. He was also active in archaeological pursuits, successfully lobbying Congress to create the Committee for the Recovery of Archaeological Remains (the beginning of what is known today as 'salvage archaeology') and worked with Wendell Bennett to establish the Viru Valley project, an ambitious research program centered in Peru. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the Department of the Interior charged with the administration and management of 55. ... The Smithsonian castle, as seen through the garden gate. ... 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1943 calendar). ... American Anthropological Association (AAA) was founded in 1902 and claims to be, the worlds largest professional organization of individuals interested in anthropology. Although there were several other American anthropological societies in existence at the turn of the 20th century, this new, national organization was formed to promote the science... The logo of the National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. ...

Steward's career reached its apogee in 1946 when he took up the chair of the anthropology department at Columbia University - the center of anthropology in the United States. At this time, Columbia saw an influx of World War II veterans who were attending school thanks to the GI Bill. Steward quickly developed a coterie of students who would go on to have enormous influence in the history of anthropology, including Sidney Mintz, Eric Wolf, Roy Rappaport, Stanley Diamond, Robert Manners, Morton Fried, Robert F. Murphy, and influenced other scholars such as Marvin Harris. Many of these students participated in the Puerto Rico Project, yet another large-scale group research study that focused on modernization in Puerto Rico. Columbia University is a private research university whose main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of the Borough of Manhattan in New York City. ... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000,000 Total dead: 50,000,000 Military dead: 8,000,000 Civilian dead: 4,000,000 Total dead 12,000,000 World War II (abbreviated WWII), or the Second World War, was a worldwide conflict... Former crewmembers of the battleship Missouri pose for photos shortly after the Anniversary of the End of World War II ceremony, held aboard the famous ship. ... The G. I. Bill of Rights or Servicemens Readjustment Act of 1944 provided for college or vocational education for returning World War II veterans as well as one-year of unemployment compensation. ... Sidney Wilfred Mintz (born November 16, 1922 in Dover, New Jersey) is an anthropologist best known for his studies of Latin America and the Caribbean. ... Eric Wolf (1923-1999) was an anthropologist best known for his studies of Latin America and his advocacy of Marxist perspectives within anthropology. ... Roy A. Rappaport (1926–1997) was an anthropologist known for his contributions to the anthropological study of ritual and to ecological anthropology. ... Morton H. Fried was a prominent anthropologist of the twentieth century. ... Robert Francis Murphy (March 3, 1924 Far Rockaway, New York - October 8, 1990, Leonia, New Jersey) was a distinguished anthropologist and Professor of anthropology at Columbia University [1] in New York City, from the early 1960s to 1990. ... Marvin Harris Marvin Harris (August 18, 1927 – October 25, 2001) was an American anthropologist and highly influential in the development of cultural materialism. ...

Steward left Columbia for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he continued to teach until his retirement in 1968. There he undertook yet another large-scale study, a comparative analysis of modernization in eleven third world societies. The results of this research were published in three volumes entitled Contemporary Change in Traditional Societies. Steward died in 1972. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [[UIUC]], known as the U of I, is the flagship campus in the University of Illinois system. ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ...

Contributions to anthropology

In addition to his role as a teacher and administrator, Steward is most remembered for his contributions to the study of cultural evolution, specifically neoevolutionism through his model of cultural ecology. During the first three decades of the twentieth century, American anthropology was suspicious of generalizations and often unwilling to draw broader conclusions from the meticulously detailed monographs that anthropologists produced. Steward is notable for moving anthropology away from this more particularist approach and developing a more social-scientific direction. His theory of "multilinear" evolution examined the way in which societies adapted to their environment. This approach was more nuanced than Leslie White's theory of "unilinear evolution," which was influenced by thinkers such as Herbert Spencer. Steward's interest in the evolution of society also led him to examine processes of modernization. He was one of the first anthropologists to examine the way that national and local levels of society were related to one another. He questioned the possibility of creation of a social theory encompassing the entire evolution of humanity, however he argued that anthropologists are not limited to description of specific, existing cultures. He believed it is possible to create theories analyzing typical, common culture, representative of specific eras or regions. As the decisive factors determining the development of given culture he pointed to technology and economics, and noted there are secondary factors, like political system, ideologies and religion. All those factors push the evolution of given society in several directions at the same time, thus this is the multilinearity of his theory of evolution. Cultural evolution is the structural change of a society and its values over time. ... Neoevolutionism is a social theory that tried to explain the evolution of societies by drawing on Charles Darwins theory of evolution and discarding some dogmas of the previous social evolutionism. ... Leslie Alvin White ([19 January [1900]], Salida Colorado -- 31 March 1975) was an anthropologist known for his advocacy of theories of cultural evolution and his role in creating the department of anthropology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. ... Herbert Spencer. ...