Papers of Theodore "Ted" Schwartz, Melanesian anthropologist, UC San Diego Professor of Anthropology and specialist on the Manus people of Papua New Guinea. The collection includes correspondence, writings, notebooks, photographs, sound recordings, films and other materials relating to his field research trips to Papua New Guinea Admiralty Islands from 1953 through 1993.
Theodore Schwartz Papers, 1935-1993 (MSS 790)
Restrictions: Original audiovisual recordings are restricted. Viewing/listening copies may be available
for researchers. Please request recordings through the finding aid.
Extent: 63 Linear feet (110 archives boxes, 19 cartons, 6 oversize folders, and ca. 80 films), + 0.039 GB of digital files
Digital Content
A majority of the sound recordings in this collection have been reformatted, and can be sorted by expedition, date and keyword on the Library's Digital Collections website. Researchers may request access to listening copies by selecting individual recordings via the finding aid.
Theodore (Ted) Schwartz was born in 1928 in Philadelphia. He majored in history at Temple University, then went on to study anthropology as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. He had prepared for fieldwork in Africa, but the opportunity to work as a field assistant on an expedition with Margaret Mead brought him to Papua New Guinea from 1953 to 1954. Schwartz's then-wife, Lenora Shargo Schwartz, also a graduate research assistant, accompanied them. Schwartz's dissertation research arose out of his field study of religious and political movements. He received his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1958.
Schwartz held post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, and the American Museum of Natural History. In 1958 he began a three-year fieldwork research project focused on a psychocultural study of the Mexican village of Chiconcuac, working under Erich Fromm and the Mexican National University. This field study was followed by a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Paris where he studied mathematical modeling in the social sciences and attended lectures given by social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. In 1963, ten years after his initial trip to the Manus Province of Papua New Guinea, Schwartz returned for a three-year study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to study Manus and the people of Admiralty Islands. He was accompanied by his second wife, Lola Romanucci Schwartz.
Schwartz is widely recognized for his research on cargo cults in Melanesia, specifically the Paliau Movement in Papua New Guinea. Schwartz's work on the movement is a unique study of the Papua New Guinean version of Christianity, which arose during World War II when Manus was thrust out of isolation after Allied troops were stationed on the island. Schwartz's study "The Paliau Movement in the Admiralty Islands, 1946-1954" was published in 1962 in Volume 49: Part 2 of Anthropological Papers of The American Museum of Natural History.
Schwartz joined the faculty of UCLA and taught there from 1967 to 1969. At the invitation of Melford Spiro, a cultural anthropologist and the founding chair of the Department of Anthropology, he joined UC San Diego. Schwartz served as chair of the department from 1978-1981.
Schwartz returned to the Admiralty Islands for research expeditions during the summers of 1967 and 1969, and from 1973 to 1975. The latter expedition was dedicated to a study of cognitive acculturation and personality and cognitive testing funded by the National Institute of Education. He was joined on this expedition by researchers Edwin Hutchins, Geoffrey White and Michael French Smith. Schwartz spent several subsequent years analyzing the data gathered on this trip.
Schwartz returned to Manus for nearly a dozen field trips throughout his career, up until the last journey in 1993. While Schwartz became an expert on the people of Manus and social and economic change in Papua New Guinea, his research interests also included psychological anthropology, religion, movements, cults, linguistics, and cultural change from cognitive and cultural evolutionary perspectives. Schwartz has published numerous papers on these research topics and also served on the editorial board of ETHOS: Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology.
Schwartz is an emeriti professor of anthropology at UC San Diego, and is collaborating with anthropologist Michael French Smith on publishing the sequel to Schwartz's earlier book on the Paliau Movement which spans from the cult's inception in the 1940s through the current millennium.
Papers of Theodore "Ted" Schwartz, noted Melanesian anthropologist, UC San Diego emeriti professor of anthropology and specialist on the Manus people of Papua New Guinea. His papers include correspondence, writings, notebooks, photographs and other materials documenting field research trips to Papua New Guinea from 1953 through the 1990s. Also included are writings by Schwartz; selected writings by other prominent Melanesian anthropologists, ethnographers and linguists; research proposals; teaching and other materials which document Schwartz's professional life; sound recordings and films; and materials relating to research conducted by Schwartz's mentor Margaret Mead, whom he accompanied on various expeditions to the Manus Province beginning in 1953.
Arranged in eleven series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL, 2) CORRESPONDENCE, 3) WRITINGS, 4) WORKS BY OTHERS, 5) PAPUA NEW GUINEA FIELDWORK, 6) MEXICO RESEARCH MATERIALS, 7) PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES, 8) PHOTOGRAPHS AND SLIDES, 9) INDEXES, 10) SOUND RECORDINGS and 11) FILMS.