1978
Margaret Mead Speaks at Commencement
Margaret Mead, curator emerita of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, professor of anthropology at Columbia University and author of Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), speaks at commencement. She was also awarded an honorary degree. Mead’s address centered on gender—the norms children are subjected to, the workplace barriers, and the modern woman’s hunger for more. She concludes her speech by telling the class of 1978 that they are “the generation that is going to make a breakthrough”. Mead would lose her battle with pancreatic cancer six months later.
Access a transcript of her speech here.