ABSTRACT
The first person to receive a doctorate degree in anthropology in the United States, Alexander Francis Chamberlain made considerable contributions to the body of knowledge in his field–a discipline that was then a combination of anthropological and psychological inquiry. Although Franz Boas did the majority of his theoretical writing after leaving Clark in 1892, the foundations of his radical thinking can be glimpsed from statements made just before Chamberlain became his student. In June, 1888, Chamberlain received communication from an Indian agent at the Mississaga settlement who wrote that the tribe had "no old songs, beliefs peculiar to them; some don't even speak the language". Alexander Chamberlain began teaching at Clark University at the same time that the child study movement, propelled by G. Stanley Hall, began to form. Chamberlain's interest in the role of children and childhood as formative aspects of culture and myth first became apparent in The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought.
