ABSTRACT
Ruth Benedict first began her anthropological work as a student of Franz Boas at Columbia University in New York during the 1920s. Benedict's work rejected the social Darwinism so pervasive in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Western thought, and provided a scientific basis for opposition to those social movements premised on the application of Darwinian biology to human society in disciplines like eugenics. As a woman scientist breaking down the barriers of the almost entirely male scientific profession, Benedict's concern with demonstrating that human capacity is plastic and varied across cultures had particular relevance to her own life. Benedict was aware of the role of heredity in determining some of the parameters of human development even though her work refuted the eugenicist position.
