Center for the Study of Man / Smithsonian Institution (1968-1976)

The Center for the Study of Man was established at the Smithsonian Institution in 1968 to develop international research programs focused on the interrelationship between humans and their physical, biological, and cultural environments. Major projects initiated under its auspices included a program in “urgent anthropology”; the 1978 revision of the Handbook of North American Indians; the development of the National Anthropological Film Center (now the Human Studies Film Archives); the establishment of a Research Institute on Immigration and Ethnic Studies (RIIES); and planning for a Museum of Man. Other partially-conceived initiatives included a bibliographic and computerization program; a conference and publication series on topics such as population growth, human fertility, and drug and alcohol use; and a community-based American Indian program. The Center remained an independent research unit at the Smithsonian until 1976, at which point its major programs were discontinued or reassigned elsewhere within the Institution.

Keywords: Visual anthropology | Museum Anthropology | World Anthropology | Colonialism | Anticolonialism | Crisis of Anthropology | Anthropological Archives | Claude Lévi-Strauss | Smithsonian Institution | Sol Tax | Wenner-Gren Foundation | Current Anthropology