Clellan S. Ford

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Clellan S. Ford
Born(1909-07-27)27 July 1909
Died4 November 1972(1972-11-04) (aged 63)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materYale University
Known forProfessor of Anthropology at Yale University; co-author of Patterns of Sexual Behavior (1951)
Scientific career
FieldsAnthropology

Clellan Stearns Ford (27 July 1909 – 4 November 1972) was an American anthropologist, best known as Professor of Anthropology at Yale University, and as co-author of the 1951 book Patterns of Sexual Behavior.

Biography[edit]

Clellan Ford was born on July 27, 1909, in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was educated at Yale University, where he received the Ph.D. in chemistry in 1931, and a Ph.D. in sociology in 1935.[1] In 1935, Ford spent a year in the Fiji Islands conducting ethnographic field research.[1] The following year, he joined the Institute of Human Relations at Yale, where he co-founded the Cross-Cultural Survey.[1] In 1940, the same year he was appointed Assistant Professor of Yale's anthropology department, he spent time studying the Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia,[1] and initiated a comparative study of human reproduction.[1] During World War II, Ford received a lieutenant's commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and helped prepare military handbooks on the Pacific islands occupied by Japanese forces.[1] Ford returned to Yale in 1946 as associate professor of anthropology. As director of the Cross-Cultural Survey, he expanded the organization and renamed it the Human Relations Area Files.[1] In 1951, along with Frank Beach, Ford published Patterns of Sexual Behavior, which explored the sexual behavior of humans and animals. The work is considered a "classic" of its field.[1] Ford died from cancer in New Haven, Connecticut, on November 4, 1972.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h George P. Murdock (1974) "Clellan Stearns Ford, 1909-1972," American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 76, No. 1 (Mar., 1974), pp. 83-85