John Montgomery Cooper | |
|---|---|
| Professor of Anthropology at theCatholic University of America | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 1905[1] |
| Personal details | |
| Born | John Montgomery Cooper (1881-10-28)October 28, 1881 Rockville, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | May 22, 1949(1949-05-22) (aged 67) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Denomination | Roman Catholic |
| Profession | Priest, sociologist, ethnologist |
| Alma mater | Pontifical North American College |
Ordination history of John Montgomery Cooper | |||||||||||
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John Montgomery Cooper (October 28, 1881 – May 22, 1949) was an Americanpriest, anthropologist, and sociologist. He was a sociology professor at theCatholic University of America and from 1934 to 1949 served as chairman of the first Department of Anthropology in a Catholic university. In his anthropological fieldwork, he specialized in studying the Indians of South America andNative Americans of North America.
John Montgomery Cooper was born on October 28, 1881, inRockville, Maryland and grew up in the city ofBaltimore.[2][1] He was a descendant ofQuaker Christians from England.[2] He received his education atPontifical North American College and was ordained apriest in 1905, having completedDoctor of Philosophy andDoctor of Sacred Theology degrees.[2]
After hisordination to thepriesthood in 1905, Cooper received an invitation from the rector of theCatholic University of America to join the Department of Apologetics.[2] Cooper established the Department of Religious Education at the Catholic University of America in 1920.[2] He became an associate professor of sociology in 1923 and gained a professorship in sociology in 1928. From 1934 to 1949, he served as chairman of the first Department of Anthropology in a Catholic university.[1][2][3]
As an anthropologist, his original fieldwork was in the Tête de Boule ofOttawa.[2] Though Cooper's expertise was in the Indians ofSouth America, he never did fieldwork there; instead, he took research trips to study Native American tribes who spokeAlgonquian languages, making several visits to theGreat Plains and northeasternCanada.[1] From his studies there, Cooper wrote many articles about Algonquian culture, customs, and religion.[1] Cooper developed the theory that both the South American and North American Indians were "marginal peoples" who were cultural relics from prehistoric times and had been displaced by subsequent migrations into less desirable living areas.[1] He first publicized this theory in his 1941 bookTemporal Sequence and the Marginal Cultures.[1]
In a hearing before theUnited States Senate in 1945,To Permit all people from India residing in the United States to be Naturalized, Cooper recorded that: "The people of India are predominantly Caucasoid. Their features, hair texture, hairiness, the shape of the nose, mouth, and so on, are all distinctly Caucasoid".[4]
Cooper founded theacademic journalPrimitive Man, which was renamedAnthropological Quarterly in 1953.[1]
Cooper died on May 22, 1949, in Washington, D.C.[1]
In 1923 he became an associate professor, and in 1928 a professor of anthropology. A separate department was created in 1934 with Cooper as its head.
