Curren t VOLUME 57 SUPPLEMENT 14 OCTOBER 2016 Anthropolog Current Anthropology y The Wenner-Gren Foundation SUPPORTING ANTHROPOLOGY FOR 75 YEARS 1941−2016 October 2016 GUEST EDITORS: LESLIE C. AIELLO, LAURIE OBBINK, AND MARK MAHONEY LESLIE C. AIELLO e Wenner-Gren Foundation: Supporting Anthropology for 75 Years SUSAN LINDEE and JOANNA RADIN V Patrons of the Human Experience: A History of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for olume 57 Anthropological Research, 1941–2016 ILJA A. LUCIAK Vision and Reality: Axel Wenner-Gren, Paul Fejos, and the Origins of the Wenner-Gren 2016 is the 75th anniversary of the Foundation for Anthropological Research Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Supplement Research. e papers in this supplementary issue of Current Anthropology provide the 14 rst comprehensive history of the foundation and its role in the development of the eld Page s of anthropology. S211 Current Anthropology is sponsored by e Wenner- − S332 Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, a AXEL WENNER-GREN PAUL FEJOS LITA OSMUNDSEN foundation endowed for scientic, educational, and charitable purposes. e Foundation, however, is not to be understood as endorsing, by virtue of its Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research nancial support, any of the statements made, or views expressed, herein. THE UNIVERSIT Y O F CHICAGO PRESS The Wenner-Gren Foundation Supporting Anthropology for 75 Years, 1941–2016 Guest Editors: Leslie C. Aiello, Laurie Obbink, and Mark Mahoney Wenner-Gren Symposium Series Editor: Leslie Aiello Wenner-Gren Symposium Series Managing Editor: Laurie Obbink Current Anthropology Editor: Mark Aldenderfer Current Anthropology Managing Editor: Lisa McKamy Book Reviews Editor: Holley Moyes Corresponding Editors: Claudia Briones (IIDyPCa-Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Argentina; [email protected]), Michalis Kontopodis (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany; [email protected]), José Luis Lanata (Universidad Nacional de Río Negro San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina; [email protected]), David Palmer (Hong Kong University, China; [email protected]), Anne de Sales (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France; [email protected]), Zhang Yinong (Shanghai University, China; [email protected]) Please send all editorial correspondence to (877) 705-1878. Fax: (773) 753-0811 or toll-free (877) 705- Mark Aldenderfer 1879. E-mail: [email protected]. 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Telephone: (773) 753-3347 or toll-free in the United States and Canada Current Anthropology Volume 57 Supplement 14 October 2016 The Wenner-Gren Foundation: Supporting Anthropology for 75 Years Leslie C. Aiello The Wenner-Gren Foundation: Supporting Anthropology for 75 Years S211 Susan Lindee and Joanna Radin Patrons of the Human Experience: A History of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 1941–2016 S218 Ilja A. Luciak Vision and Reality: Axel Wenner-Gren, Paul Fejos, and the Origins of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research S302 Paul Fejos with Axel Wenner-Gren filming in Indonesia circa 1938 (Wenner-Gren Foundation archives). http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA Current Anthropology Volume 57, Supplement 14, October 2016 S211 The Wenner-Gren Foundation: Supporting Anthropology for 75 Years Leslie C. Aiello CA1 Online-Only Material: Supplement A The Wenner-Gren Foundation is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2016. It was founded in 1941 with an en- dowment of approximately US$2 million in Servel and Electrolux stock, funds that Axel Wenner-Gren and his lawyers were sheltering from the US Internal Revenue Service. Over the foundation’s 75-year history, nothing has been added to the endowment, but it has grown to approximately US$165 million. Wenner-Gren has never been a large foundation in the sense of Rockefeller or Mellon, but it has had a disproportionate impact on the field of an- thropology. The foundation and the field have in essence grown up together. Wenner-Gren preceded the other major US funder of anthropology, the National Science Foundation, by almost two decades and, through its grants, fellowships, sponsored symposia, and publications, has always been there for anthropology. It is not the same foundation as it was 75 years ago, however, and it has gone through its own difficult times, particularly in the 1970s, whenadownturninthefinancial markets together with changes in the US not-for-profit laws put severe pressure on the foundation, and again in the 1980s when, for a variety of reasons, it was almost lost to anthropology. However, the past three decades have seen a resurgence, and over this period we have provided approximately US$90 million to anthropology, funding almost 6,000 anthropological projects in the United States and abroad. I have been president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation since 1960s. This was just before the field exploded. According to 2005, and it has never ceased to surprise me that younger National Science Foundation (NSF) data, between the mid- colleagues and students do not wonder why the foundation 1960s and mid-1970s the number of doctoral degrees awarded exists, let alone why anthropology is in the virtually unique in anthropology in the United States increased fourfold, from position of having its own private foundation dedicated solely approximately 100 annually to slightly over 400 (more than 600 to funding our relatively small social science discipline. In the are awarded annually today; fig. 1). At the same time, the field many grant-writing seminars I have given over the years or was rapidly diversifying and trying to find its way in a post- conferences I have attended, it is extremely rare for anyone to colonial world. Those with academic roots in the earlier years ask basic questions about the foundation or to show an in- did not need to be told about the foundation. It was familiar to terest in its history or why it has been able to survive over the them, and the community was small enough that almost ev- years. No one asks where the money came from, or about the eryone knew the personalities involved. Most of these older people who shaped the foundation, or how the endowment anthropologists also had firsthand experience of the founda- has been able to grow, or anything about our internal op- tion, either through attending events at the Wenner-Gren head- erations and governance. It seems sufficient that Wenner- quarters on New York’sUpperEastSideoratitsfairy-talecas- Gren is a source of support for the field and that is all that tle, Burg Wartenstein, just outside of Vienna in Austria. needs to be known. However, things changed, and not only because of the run- Part of this lack of curiosity is perhaps our own fault. In away growth and diversification of anthropology. The 1960s was the early years, anthropology was much different than it is a golden decade for the Wenner-Gren Foundation. It was on a today—it was smaller and more intimate—and virtually all strong financial footing and had embraced its mission to sup- anthropologists were related through their academic geneal- port anthropology internationally through Burg Wartenstein ogy to a handful of founders. I first came into anthropology (its international conference center) and through Current An- as an undergraduate and then a graduate student in the thropology, which was—and still is—an important venue for dissemination of international research in anthropology. The foundation also recognized the need in biological anthropology Leslie C. Aiello is President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for for replicas of hominin fossils. After funding extensive research Anthropological Research (470 Park Avenue South, 8th Floor, New on casting and molding techniques, it sent technicians around York, New York 10016, U.S.A.). the world to mold more than 180 fossil specimens. In the mid- q 2016 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2016/57S14-0001$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/688052 S212 Current Anthropology Volume 57, Supplement 14, October 2016 venues, the Wenner-Gren symposium books, when and if they were published by the symposium organizers, became just an- other edited volume among a sea of other edited volumes. With the expansion of the field, the Wenner-Gren symposia, al- though still unique in their format, had lost much of their ear- lier cachet.