W. Montague Cobb's Pioneering Research in Biocultural Anthropology
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RACHEL J. WATKINS Essays Knowledge from the Margins: W. Montague Cobb’s Pioneering Research in Biocultural Anthropology ABSTRACT W. Montague Cobb became the first African American to receive a doctorate in physical anthropology in the United States (1932). He was also among the first U.S. physical anthropologists to demonstrate a commitment to biocultural integration and racial equality in his research. Nonetheless, very few European American physical anthropologists responded to or utilized Cobb’s work. This continued after bioanthropology took on a more biocultural focus in the 1980s, some 50 years after Cobb’s first studies of this kind. In this essay, I highlight Cobb’s research and writing from the first decades of his career to illustrate his contribution to developing biocultural perspectives in physical anthropology. As a result, I hope to move Cobb from the margins to the center of discussions about methodological and theoretical developments in bioanthropology over the past 30 years. [Keywords: W. Montague Cobb, physical anthropology, biocultural synthesis, African American anthropologist, American physical anthropology] HYSICIAN, educator, and physical anthropolo- for 28 years (1950–77), during which time it developed into Pgist W. Montague Cobb was a leading scholar– a highly respected medical journal. In 1959, Cobb was the activist in the African American community from the first African American elected president of the American early 1930s through the 1980s. Locally and nationally, Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA).3 In 1969, Cobb led movements that fought for the admission of he became the first professor to be elevated to the rank of black doctors to predominately white hospitals and med- Distinguished Professor at Howard University. After retiring ical organizations, improved health care for blacks, and from Howard in 1974, he held visiting professorships at organized national conferences on hospital discrimination leading universities throughout the country. Outside of and integration.1 As the first African American to receive the academy, he served as president of the NAACP from a doctorate in physical anthropology, Cobb attempted to 1976 until 1982. In addition to these accolades, he received facilitate the authoritative presence of African Americans more than 100 awards throughout his career for his civil in discussions about racial biology during the 1930s and rights activities and distinguished work in the fields of 1940s. To that end, he conducted research that interrogated anthropology and anatomy.4 biodeterministic notions of health disparities and biologi- A biography of Cobb by physical anthropologists Lesley cal diversity. In fact, Cobb is credited with conducting some Rankin-Hill and Michael Blakey (1994) is included in Faye of the first demographic analyses exposing the impact of Harrison and Ira Harrison’s edited volume, African American racism on the health of African Americans and U.S. citi- Pioneers in Anthropology (1999). As stated, the book serves zens as a whole (National Medical Association 2005). He to “repossess and reposition the African American intellec- also established research facilities at Howard University for tual lineage within the history of anthropology” and “pro- the purpose of training future African American scholars in vide an invaluable view of the discipline’s history ‘from physical anthropology.2 Many of Cobb’s 1,100-plus publi- below’ ” (Harrison and Harrison 1999:2). They argue that cations indicate his commitment to intellectual rigor and such a volume is necessary because African Americans have investment in achieving racial equality through antiracist been largely situated as marginal to the hierarchical order teaching, research, and political activity. of knowledge that anthropology represents. As such, a very Cobb achieved considerable esteem within institutions small amount of the scholarship they have produced is in- and professional and civil rights organizations. Cobb served cluded in the texts and discourses that define the discipline as editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association (Harrison and Harrison 1999). AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 109, Issue 1, pp. 186–196, ISSN 0002-7294 online ISSN 1548-1433. C 2007 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/AA.2007.109.1.186. Watkins • Knowledge from the Margins 187 Given Cobb’s prolific career and publication record, it search and writing that highlighted historical achievements at first seems curious that his biography would be included of African Americans in response to biodeterministic studies in a book with the purpose of recapturing anthropological (Douglass 1950; Drake 1980; DuBois 1940). Work also ad- knowledge from the margins. However, very little of Cobb’s dressed problems associated with race and racial analysis, work on African Americans and race was either responded speaking in particular to the political embeddedness of U.S. to or utilized by European American physical anthropolo- anthropology relative to human diversity theories. In addi- gists. This continued after bioanthropology took on a more tion to academic rigor, the approach is rooted in a politi- biocultural focus in the 1980s, some 50 years after Cobb’s cized identity on the part of the researcher, which engen- first studies of this kind.5 Arguably, the minimal recognition ders a sense of responsibility beyond professional interests. of Cobb’s work in light of his prominence reflects the am- The critical connection between academic thought and ac- bivalent relationship African Americans have had with the tion is appreciated as an integral part of one’s research scope discipline, as noted by Harrison and Harrison, and indeed (Slocum 2001). Cobb’s work reflected a scientific and civic suggests that Cobb was in part marginal to it. activism associated with this tradition. In fact, Cobb’s work In this essay, I highlight Cobb’s research and writing remained decidedly political after the majority of scholars from the first decades of his career to render it visible as in physical anthropology turned to more academically ori- an important contribution to the development of biocul- ented work. There is a well-documented history of vindica- tural perspectives in physical anthropology. I provide a re- tionist scholars using anthropological knowledge for their view of select papers and research to highlight aspects of purposes (Baker 1998; Blakey 1998; Douglass 1950; Drake his work that warrant his inclusion in the bioanthropo- 1980, 1987; Du Bois 1939). However, the ways in which an- logical canon.6 Specifically, I will focus on his denuncia- thropology was shaped by activist scholars within the disci- tion of racial hierarchy and the complex understandings pline is rarely examined. Using Cobb’s work to explore this of human adaptation and diversity promoted in his work. intersection has the potential to broaden the historical con- I draw on previously developed histories, my own research text of developments in physical anthropology, including on Cobb’s manuscripts, and interviews conducted by Blakey the biocultural synthesis. and Rankin-Hill (n.d.) in 1985 to illustrate my points. In the next section, Cobb’s entry into the field is dis- This discussion is important for two primary reasons. cussed, including background on key arguments and shifts First, it provides an opportunity to consider the unique as- in U.S. physical anthropology at the time. This is followed pects of Cobb’s approach to human biology studies and by a discussion of his early projects and writing that suggests appropriately situate his work within the bioanthropolog- a relationship to current biocultural syntheses in physical ical canon. Although T. Wingate Todd was an important anthropology. influence as his doctoral advisor, Cobb’s work had a decid- edly more political character. Although there are similari- ties between Cobb and Franz Boas in terms of biocultural BACKGROUND integration and contradiction to mainstream racial deter- In 1928, Aleˇs Hrdlicka,ˇ considered to be the leading U.S. ministic ideas, Cobb claimed no intellectual roots in the physical anthropologist at the time, initiated the process of Boasian school or sociocultural anthropology. Therefore, it establishing professional independence from medicine and is worth exploring the differences between these perspec- anatomy, which served as bioanthropology’s first academic tives lest Cobb’s ideas be trivialized as derivative of Todd’s base. At the American Association for the Advancement of or those of a “reluctant Boasian.”7 In addition, method- Science meetings that year, Hrdlickaˇ proposed the creation ological, theoretical, and activist foundations of the bio- of a separate professional organization. This desire for inde- cultural synthesis are generally attributed to the influence pendence was informed by Hrdlicka’sˇ vision of physical an- of ecological anthropology, political economy, and other thropology as having “practical application through racial developments in sociocultural anthropology on bioanthro- eugenics, directed at engineering the biology and social pological perspectives (Goodman and Leatherman 1998). progress of American society” (Hrdlickaˇ 1921). Like many Sherwood Washburn’s tenets for a “New Physical Anthro- of his colleagues,