During the half century leading up to the Second World War, Franz Boas helped to define academic anthropology in the United States. Trained as a geographer at the University of Heidelberg, Boas worked initially on the Inuit of Baffin Island and subsequently on the cultures of the Indians of the Northwest Pacific Coast, becoming a leading figure in American anthropology by the first decade of the twentieth century. As Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, Boas made significant theoretical contributions to ethnology, linguistics, and physical anthropology, helping to ingrain the four fields approach in his discipline and introducing the concept of cultural relativism into wide currency. He was, as well, a committed Socialist and an ardent opponent of both racism and fascism. This collection includes correspondence that Boas carried on with his colleagues in anthropology, as well as with those in the other social sciences and sciences. This correspondence is rich as a source for twentieth-century historians interested in "radical" social causes, since Boas was a socialist and an outspoken voice for progressive social causes.

Dell Hymes' doctoral research on Kathlamet Chinook (Indiana University, 1955) grew into a lifelong interest in the relationship between ethnography and linguistics. Following academic appointments at Harvard University (1955-1960) and the University of California, Berkley (1960-1965), Hymes joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. During twenty-two years tenure at Penn he was a professor of folklore, linguistics, sociology and education. In 1975, he was promoted to Dean of the Graduate School of Education (1975-1987). A principal proponent of the emergent field of sociolinguistics, his most influential works include Reinventing Anthropology and Language in Culture and Society. The Hymes papers cover all aspects of Dell Hymes' professional life. Subcollection I is concentrated on his years at the University of Pennsylvania, his presidencies of the American Association of Anthropology and the Linguistic Society of America, and his editorship of the journal Language in Society. Subcollection II is broader, focusing much more on published and unpublished linguistic work on dozens of languages, mostly of North America. Of particular interest is his rich correspondence with colleagues and students on linguistic issues. The papers reflect Hymes' interests in the history of linguistics and anthropology, Native American languages (especially oral literatures), and his comparative ethnographies of communication.