author
Ralph Linton
1893–1953
A leading American anthropologist of the mid-20th century, he helped make big ideas about culture and society easier to grasp. He is especially remembered for influential books like The Study of Man and for clarifying the difference between social status and role.
1 Audiobook
Use of tobacco among North American Indians
by Ralph Linton
About the author
Born in Philadelphia in 1893, Ralph Linton became one of the most widely read anthropologists of his era. He studied at Swarthmore College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard, and early fieldwork in places such as the Marquesas Islands and Madagascar shaped the broad comparative approach that marked his later writing.
Linton taught at several major institutions, including the University of Wisconsin, Columbia, and Yale. His work helped connect anthropology with questions about personality, social structure, and culture, and he had a lasting influence on how students were introduced to the field.
He is best known today for books including The Study of Man (1936) and The Tree of Culture (published after his death). Clear, ambitious, and accessible, his writing brought anthropology to a wider audience and helped define some of the field's most enduring concepts.