Margaret Mead

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has".

Margaret Mead was born in 1901 and died in 1978. She was an american cultural anthropologist who became known in 1925 for her fieldwork at Polinesia. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1929, where she was disciple of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict.

Mead focused on child-rearing and personality in Samoa,  New Guinea, and Bali resulting in such  ethnographies as Coming of Age in Samoa in 1928 and Growing Up in New Guinea in 1930.  In Bali she pioneered the use of photography for anthropological research, taking over 30,000 photographs of the Balinese. She continued to write on topics which focused on women's roles, childrearing, and other issues which clarify gender roles in primitive cultures and aspects of American society.

In spite of the critics that she received later because of her work on Samoa and New Guinea, which accused her of having polluted their research with their own prejudices and experiences; I think that she is very important because throughout her life, Margaret Mead was very committed with activist feminism and human rights.