Some Implications of Clark Wissler's Race Theory

Abstract

A recent attempt to place the name of Clark Wissler in a central position in the history of anthropology ignores his blatant racism. Wissler's racism was evident not only in scholarly and popular circles, but, as well, was employed by the United States government to give ‘scientific’ status to its Immigration Act of 1924. The Act favoured the inflow of Northwest Europeans at the expense of Eastern European Jews and other groups who had been immigrating in massive numbers, and whose presence had become increasingly unwelcome. It was used by the Nazi propaganda machine to justify German anti-Semitism in 1933 and thereafter, and by the United States Department of State to turn away the eventual victims of Nazi genocide. Wissler thus provides a profound scholarly and human contrast to Franz Boas, who publicly deplored racism and immigration restriction. Boas' stand as a ‘citizen-scientist’ partly accounts for his under-evaluation by later anthropologists, most recently by Derek Freeman in his Margaret Mead and Samoa.