One from the crypt!

Someone was kind enough to pass me a photocopy of the Williams Record from 18 October 1946, which included the headline "Department of Anthropology Urged for Williams by Professor Schuman" as well as an editorial and faculty opinion pieces arguing for (and against) adding the discipline of anthropology to the Williams curriculum.

The Woodrow Wilson Professor of Political Science, Frederick L. Schuman declared in an interview that "anthropology is needed for a well-rounded curriculum in the social sciences." Schuman, then teaching the only anthropology course offered at Williams, went on to argue that the college needed a "trained man" to represent this new field. (In 1946, the American Anthropological Association had already existed for 44 years, suggesting that what is "new" at Williams may not be so new to the rest of the world.)

Prof. Schuman's enthusiasm was not shared by Richard A. Newhall, Professor of History. Under the headline "Significance overrated," Prof. Newhall expressed doubts about anthropology's relevance to the understanding of contemporary societies. In any case, he observed, it was "doubtful . . . that a small undergraduate college can legitimately add to its curriculum any offering in this field sufficient to attract a really competent anthropologist to the faculty."

Williams doesn't rush into things. According to Linda Hall of the college's Archives and Special Collections, a full-time anthropologist wasn't hired by Williams until 1965, when Thomas J. Price joined the faculty. Price, a graduate of Wesleyan and Northwestern's doctoral program, taught here between 1965 and 1970. His special research interests include African communities of the New World. He resigned from Williams in 1970 to accept a position at North Adams State, now Massachusetts College of the Liberal Arts, on whose faculty he served until his retirement in 1986. He died in 1989.