Franz Boas Biography

Franz Boas was of Jewish decedent who was born in Westphalia, Germany. He was born on born on July 9,1858 to a father with a successful business and mother that was civically. He studied at the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn, and graduated from the University of Kiel with a Ph.D. in Physics and a minor in geography in 1881. It is this degree that led him to investigate seawater in Artic Conditions between 1883-1884. It is while he was there that Boas spent time with the tribes of Eskimos in Canada. This experience inspired him to turn to the field of Anthropology. Boas went on to work at the North Pacific Coast of North America museum. While there he spent his time he working on Native American Cultures to general public work. He eventually left this museum and ended up at the American Museum of National History. There he created the Northwest Coast Indian exhibit, which is still up today. In 1905 he went on to teach Anthropology, becoming the first Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University. Franz Boas’ field focus was on collecting information on race, languages, art, dance, and archaeology. In his field he stressed the unimportance of race in understanding humans. Boas was an avid speaker against racism, which seems to have greatly influenced his work. At one point he presented that the skulls in which he had collected from various races showed that there was no correlation between skull size and racial background. One of the model Boas designed was the “four field” model. This model included four branches; they were physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology. When it came to value Boas believed that cultures were so different from one another that there was no way to compare value even if they had similar social, economic, and environmental conditions (Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowsky: A Contrast, Comparison, and Analysis P.42). Franz Boas died in 1942, having established a real anthropology as science. Website for this image

Assignment #3

Genisis Balico Professor Rainville INTD: 108 19th Century American Economies 10 September 2012 Assignment #3: Establishing and Valuing an SBC (Sweet Briar Currency) In order for currency to work it must have value, something that was pointed out a numerous amount of times in Weatherfords A History of Money. Also discussed in Weatherfords book is that it is a society or a culture that decides what has value. The currency I created for this project is something that our little society on campus would find valuable, hence making it a prime candidate for a hypothetical commodity. The things that many students value on campus are computers, printers, and shuttle rides, especially the shuttle rides for obvious reasons. The currency I created would involve all three of these services being seen as commodities. It is similar to the electric money discussed by Weatherford with an occasional barter system method. In this currency there would be a system that involves passes for the computer, printer, and shuttle rides. These passes would come in two forms, in a plastic card form or paper form. This currency would be distributed from an office much like the Business office. The cards would come at three levels. The first would be the lowest; SBC passes with only 94 passes. The second would be SBC Light, which would come with 102 passes. The last card would be the one with the most value, SBC Exclusive. This card would come with 114 passes. I based the number of passes on each card by accounting for the three meals everyday for thirty days, 90, and increased the number of passes according to the amount of times each level would be able to use these three services. The passes could be used for either of the services described earlier. How this system would work is that in exchange for services on campus one would be paid in SBC passes or pay in SBC passes. One way that this could be done is that the consumer of whatever service could pay using the paper passes as discussed earlier. The receiver would in turn go to the Business office and have the Business office transfer the paper money electronically into their account. Another way to transfer funds would be to call the Business office and ask them to transfer the amount of passes owed to the receivers account. The later would most likely be the one used most frequently because it requires less work and less time. Determining how much a service is worth will at times be up for debate thus giving this currency some of the characteristics of a barter system. For example say someone wanted a tutoring session with a fellow student. Well once this person finally found the tutor they needed, it would be between both parties to determine how much the service was worth. Is the service worth giving up a shuttle ride, or a use of the computer or printer? How many time? It would be between both parties to decide. This same principle could be applied to all other similar situations. There would be defined prices in situations directly related to the school. In situations like purchasing food from Prothro, it would be one pass for each meal. The school could then take these passes and pay its student workers in these passes. These passes have value because they allow for the necessary liberty needed on the Sweet Briar campus. Hence making the passes valuable on campus and why the school could use them as currency in which to pay its students with. Who gets these passes and at what level be it SBC passes, SBC Light, or SBC exclusive, would be based on their contributions to the Sweet Briar campus and school in general. The harder a person worked the higher value of card they would receive and the more passes they would receive. These contributions could be academic, sports, or work-study. The currency I’ve devised will be harder to counterfeit because there will be precautions that will aid in it being difficult to counterfeit. For the paper currency, each paper pass will have a watermark of Daisy’s portrait that will prove it’s authenticity and the plastic cards will have a serial number that will be unique to each students account. The symbols on my currency will be symbols that represent Sweet Briar. One symbol on my currency will be a picture of Fletcher Hall because this building is one of the oldest on campus and it bears the name of the family that founded Sweet Briar. This building also encompasses what Sweet Briar is about and like; it is classic, timeless, and full of history and of smart women. The other symbol I’ve chosen for this currency is a horse. I’ve chosen a picture of a white horse running through a field because I feel that this too represents Sweet Briar, more specifically it’s students. Equestrian has always been apart of the Sweet Briar experience even if one does not ride. Putting aside Sweet Briars history with horses this is symbolic of the student in Sweet Briar because like the horse in this picture they are unlimited in how far they want to go in their lives. They’re strong and capable enough to go wherever they wish to go just like the horse in this picture. The symbols on my currency will serve as a reminder to the students of Sweet Briars, of its history and what they themselves are capable of doing because of Sweet Briar. Both of these symbols will be displayed on both forms of currency, plastic and paper. I believe the consequence of the currency I’ve described on the social and economic classes will be that those who work the hardest will receive what they deserve. This is a system in which if one is slothful they will receive very little. Those who do have the most passes will become the wealthy class on campus and will have the ability to do as they please when it came to computers, printers, and shuttle rides. These are all services that on campus are free of charge and because of that many people take these services for granted even though they are of value. If these services where to come with a price I think that they would become a precious commodity on the Sweet Briar campus.

The history in art.

I found this art piece on the first floor of Benedict. This art piece is a view of Sweet Briar from 1928. I like this picture because from Monumental Hill Sweet Briar still looks like this.