num_pages: 340
description: During her life Margaret Mead represented many things to the American public; sage, scientist, noncomformist, crusader for world peace &amp; archetypal grandmother. An enduring cultural icon, she came to symbolize a new kind of woman, one who successfully combined marriage &amp; motherhood with a career &amp; scholarship with a singular concern for its role in the lives of ordinary people. Even today, when memoirs of successful women scientists &amp; scholars remain scarce, Blackberry Winter, 1st published in '72, provides a rare glimpse of a pioneering woman's formative journey. In her chapters "On Being a Granddaughter" &amp; "The Pattern My Family Made Me," Mead examines the wisdom she gained from her maternal grandmother as well as the inheritance she recieved from her ancestors, &amp; how her upbringing fueled her desire for a fulfilling career that would reflect her own emerging values. We are treated to captivating portraits of bohemian life in NYC in the '20s; her early days at the American Museum of Natural History, where she met her longtime mentor, Franz Boas, &amp; friend, Ruth Benedict; &amp; 1st field trip to study adolescent girls in Samoa. Near the book's end, in "On Being a Grandmother," she reflects on the legacy she leaves her descendants, indeed, all of humanity. This autobiography, reissued for a new generation of readers, will appeal to any eager to discover a woman of our century who made her way in a world seldom hospitable to the dreams &amp; accomplishments of women.
language: English
title: Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years
titlecomplete: Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years (Kodansha Globe)
genres: Autobiography, Feminism, Travel, Biography Memoir, Womens, Biography, Science, Memoir, Nonfiction, Anthropology
ratings_count: 430
awards: awardedAt: 94723200000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Biography
publisher: Kodansha USA Inc