Schedule for Margaret Mead's
December 10-13, 1942,
visit to the Menninger Clinic.
Typescript with handwritten notes
by Dr. Karl Menninger.
Manuscript Division (221b)

Menninger Schedule, December 1942

In 1942, Mead began a professional association with the Menninger Clinic--an innovative mental health facility in Topeka, Kansas--which lasted the rest of her career. This schedule shows the topics she was to address during her first visit: Balinese culture; character structure and international cooperation; and wartime food problems. Arranging her trip, Mead wrote:

"In planning a schedule for me please realise that the only thing I will resent is not being used. I want to fill the time as full as possible."

Demanding a full schedule was characteristic of Mead, who planned trips to include a maximum number of events, including not only lectures, seminars, and interviews, but also visits with family and friends.

Lineage

During World War II, Mead also began consciously articulating influences on her intellectual development. In this appendix for the never-completed Learning to Live in One World, Mead sketched out intellectual "lines of descent," which connect a variety of social scientists, including Mead's own parents and her then-husband Gregory Bateson, as well as Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir, Erich Fromm, John Dollard, and Geoffrey Gorer.

Mead sought to give an institutional basis to the research she and like-minded social scientists were doing. In the early 1940s, she formed organizations to facilitate the flow of intercultural research in order to promote international understanding. This work culminated in 1944 with her founding of the Institute for Intercultural Studies, dedicated to "advancing knowledge of the various peoples and nations of the world, with special attention to those peoples and those aspects of their life which are likely to affect intercultural and international relations." Mead's book royalties and lecture fees went to fund the institute, as did Benedict's book royalties after her death.

Margaret Mead.
"Appendix for Part Two,"
page of notes from unpublished
1945 book manuscript,
Learning to Live in One World.
Typescript [carbon].
Manuscript Division (239)

Edward Sherwood Mead.
Letter to Margaret Mead,
August 4 [probably 1942].
Page 2
Holograph manuscript.
Manuscript Division (229)

Input from Father

Even after she was an established writer and scholar, Mead still sought information and advice from her father, economist Edward Sherwood Mead (1874-1956). In this letter he appears to be answering a question that has arisen while she was writing And Keep Your Powder Dry. The subject he addresses concerns European craftsmen versus American mass production machinery and appears in his daughter's book.

A Student's Comment

Mead's files contain this student essay from a class at American University, passed on by the pupil's instructor. The student has written that she does not identify with the America described in And Keep Your Powder Dry, but this inability is "due not entirely to the fact that I am a Negro and not just 'an American'." She wanted Mead to explain the destructive aspects of American life, the "Frankenstein" American character which "thrives on power, greed, and prejudice apart from the host of American people."

In 1946, this student, Fanny (McConnell) Buford, married the African American writer Ralph Ellison (1914–1994), author of the classic novel Invisible Man (1952).

Fanny Buford.
"A Comment on Miss Mead's Book
And Keep Your Powder Dry,"
January 25, 1943.
Typescript. Enclosed in
letter from [Caroline] Ware,
March 17, 1943.
Typescript.
Manuscript Division (230)

National Character Studies: This type of culture and personality study came about during the World War II years, as the methods of culture and personality were applied to large-scale, so-called "complex cultures." Researchers sought to understand the cultural patterns of nation-states such as Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union, largely through indirect methods rather than by traveling to those countries. These are also sometimes called "studies of culture at a distance."

National character studies in the war and postwar periods were subsequently criticized by scholars for their homogeneity and over-generalization. These studies, some funded directly by government agencies, marked a new stage in the ongoing relationship between social scientists and the U.S. government.

National Research Council
Committee on Food Habits.
"Food and Morale," Appendix I,
November 19, 1942.
Page 2
Typescript.
Manuscript Division (244c)

Valued Foods

At the request of Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead came to Washington, D.C., early in 1942, to assume the role of Executive Secretary of the National Research Council's Committee on Food Habits. One aspect of the committee's work dealt with determining what foods were essential to the cultural habits of people from different national backgrounds. Among other things, ensuring that people had access to the foods most meaningful to them was important to maintaining morale. This document from 1942 summarizes some of the committee's findings on the value of particular foods to different national groups.

Democracies and Dictators

This series of cards comes from a board game developed and marketed by Mead and Bateson as part of their work on national defense and morale. The game is premised on "the basic ideas that Democracies and Dictators play by different rules and work with different values." The game was designed so that it could be played by both children and adults. "Ideally," wrote Mead, "for propaganda purposes it should be played by the whole family with Papa explaining the points." Despite Mead's efforts to sell the game to Parker Brothers, it was never commercially produced.

Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson.
"Disaster for Dictators: Crippled Industries," "Danger for Democracies: Corruption in Industries,"
"Danger for Democracies: Destruction of Food," and "Disaster for Dictators: Food shortage"
playing cards for board game, ca. 1940.
Manuscript Division (247g-j)

Margaret Mead.
Letter to Leo Rosten.
October 14, 1942.
Page 2
Typescript.
Manuscript Division (238a)

Letter about Rumors

One of Mead's wartime concerns--related to her work on food habits--was managing rumors. In this letter to her brother-in-law Leo Rosten, Mead explores the subject of using rumor clinics to analyze and combat rumors, especially in rural areas. The letter, which refers to a previous conversation they had on the subject, is of a sensitive nature. Mead decided not to send the letter, marking it "Not sent--Keep. Destroy carbon." Rosten, a social scientist and writer, did work for the Office of War Information during World War II.

"Rumors Cost Us Lives"

One of the problems social scientists addressed during the war was how to manage rumors. Seemingly innocent conversations could, in wartime, provide damaging information to the enemy. In response to requests from women's groups, the War Department drafted a "Code of Wartime Conversation," which reminded: "What it is not safe to print, it is not safe to say!"

This poster from the Library's collection was part of the American campaign to prevent careless talk.

Rumors Cost Us Lives.
Offset lithograph, ca. 1941-1945.
Prints and Photographs Division (238b)