BOAS, FRANZ (1858–1942), German-American anthropologist, was born at Minden, Prussian Westphalia, on July 9, 1858, the son of Jewish parents of comfortable means, both of whom were assimilated into German culture. His education was largely at the local state school and gymnasium. He seems not to have had significant Jewish religious instruction. His mother, Sophie Meyer Boas, who had been part of a circle of liberal and Marxist intellectuals dedicated to the revolutionary principles of 1848, was a major influence in his youth. He studied the sciences at the universities of Heidelberg (1877), Bonn (1877–1879), and Kiel (1879–1881), but he decided upon geography as a career. Shortly after receiving his doctorate, he left for a twelve-month expedition to Baffin Island, studying local geography and anthropology. He qualified as a university instructor at Berlin in 1886 but never taught, instead going to the United States, where he undertook a research trip to the Northwest Coast...