William Montague Cobb
Montague Cobb | |
---|---|
President of the NAACP | |
In office 1976–1982 | |
Preceded by | Kivie Kaplan |
Succeeded by | James Kemp |
Personal details | |
Born | William Montague Cobb October 12, 1904 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Died | November 20, 1990 Washington, D.C., U.S. | (aged 86)
Spouse | Hilda Smith |
Children | 2 |
Relatives | Ruth Smith Lloyd (sister-in-law) |
Education | Amherst College (BA) Howard University (MD) Case Western Reserve University (PhD) |
William Montague Cobb (1904–1990) was an American board-certified physician and a
Early and personal life
Cobb was born on October 12, 1904, in
The tipping point for Cobb's initial interest in anthropology came from a book of the animal kingdom that his grandfather owned. In this book, there were illustrations of human beings separated by race, but were illustrated with what Cobb called "equal dignity." This led to an interest in the concept of race, as the same type of "equal dignity" was not granted in the society that surrounded Cobb's life.[2]
Cobb attended Dunbar High School, a highly esteemed Washington, DC. African-American high school in 1917.[4] He was a successful student and athlete, and went on to win championships in cross-country as well as lightweight and welterweight boxing during his high school and collegiate years.[6] He married Hilda B. Smith, Ruth Smith Lloyd's sister, and they had two children.[7][8] Cobb died of pneumonia on November 20, 1990, at the age of 86.[4]
Education
Following his graduation from Dunbar High School in 1921, Cobb earned his Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College in 1925. Following completion of his baccalaureate degree, he received a Blodgett Scholarship for proficiency in biology which allowed him to pursue research in embryology at Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory.[4] He earned his MD (Doctor of Medicine) in 1929 from the Howard University Medical School. He worked jobs throughout his time in medical school.[1]
Cobb then accepted a position at Howard University which he was offered prior to his graduation.
Career
Following the conferral of his doctorate, Cobb remained at Case Western Reserve University as a fellow, where he continued work on the Hamman-Todd Collection with a focus on cranial suture closure. His 1940 publication "Cranio-Facial Union in Man" produced as a result of this work established his expertise as a functional anatomist and is one of his most widely cited works to date.[5] During this period, Cobb also worked with physical anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička on a survey of the skeletal collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.[4] He returned to the Howard University Medical School in 1930 where he taught for the majority of his career and established the W. Montague Cobb Skeletal Collection.[6] He became the university's first distinguished professor in 1969 and became professor emeritus in 1973.[4] In addition to his work at Howard, Cobb also taught at Stanford University, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Washington, the University of Maryland, West Virginia University, Harvard Medical School, the Medical College of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and the Catholic University of America during his lifetime.[6]
Cobb was heavily involved with a number of anthropological and medical organizations during his career. He was an active member of the
Throughout his lifetime Cobb pursued work aimed at furthering the opportunities of African Americans both within society in general and within the health sciences. He was an active member of the
Scholarship
Throughout his career, Cobb applied his technical expertise in functional anatomy and medicine to a variety of topics, including the issues of African-American health, child development, and disproving scientific justifications for racism. His approach has been characterized as a form of applied anthropology and activist scholarship.[4] His work explicitly critiqued hierarchical understandings of human variation, and he often subverted racist evolutionary arguments through highlighting the resiliency of African Americans. He took as an example the experience of the Transatlantic slave trade which he argued acted as a selective pressure and would have led to a genetically stronger population relative to European Americans who did not experience this population bottleneck.[5]
Cobb often used his expertise in anatomy and biology in order to combat racist explanations for perceived differences between African Americans and European Americans. One of the most widely cited studies in this effort was Cobb's "Race and Runners," published in 1936. In this work, Cobb took the case of Jesse Owens to dispel the idea that his success as a quadruple gold medal winner could be explained by his " African-American genes," an argument that stemmed from the idea that Black people were stronger and more athletic than whites at the cost of decreased intelligence.[5] Proponents of this idea often pointed to the supposed existence of extra musculature or differences in nerve thicknesses that allowed African-American athletes to excel relative to European Americans. Cobb addressed this question by surveying the anatomical characteristics of Owens as well as other prominent African Americans in different sports. Cobb demonstrated that not only could their successes not be explained by a shared racial trait, the physiology that would make a superior athlete in one sport would be very different from another. Instead, Cobb accounted for the achievements of African-American athletes relative to European Americans in sports as due to "training and incentive" rather than any "special physical endowment".[11]
During the latter years of his career, Cobb took a more philosophical approach to his anatomical perspective of humanity. He often used biological metaphors to point to key issues within society. Cobb's most prominent philosophical contribution was arguably his 1975 publication, "An anatomist's view of human relations. Homo sanguinis versus Homo sapiens--mankind's present dilemma".
Legacy
Cobb distinguished himself by representing the pursuit of social responsibility in the field of anthropology, as well as by being an activist scholar who often applied anthropological methods to issues of racism and inequality.[4] He undertook studies within the scope of his expertise in anatomy that aimed at disproving racist explanations for social difference. He believed that scholars must take responsibility "not only for their own thoughts and actions but also for their own society" because the values that are expressed in scientific work, whether subtly or overtly, are key in the shaping of culture and society.[2] He was one of the first anthropologist to undertake a demographic analysis that illustrated the consequences of segregation and racism on the African-American population, and he wanted to create the resources so he would not be the last.[4] One of Cobb's greatest contributions to this end is the expansive skeletal collection he curated during his time at Howard University which is now housed at the university's W. Montague Cobb Research Laboratory, a research laboratory led by biological anthropologist Fatimah Jackson that also houses the New York African Burial Ground collection.[1]
Cobb was long involved in African descendants' struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. He assumed a number of roles in African-American-led organizations, including the
During his lifetime, Cobb was honored by more than 100 organizations for his efforts as a scholar and as an activist, including the
Selected publications
- "Human Archives" – 1932.
- "Race and Runners" –1936.
- "Cranio Facial Union of Man" – 1940.
- "The Cranio-Facial Union and the Maxillary Tuber in Mammals" – 1943.
- "Medical Care and the Plight of the Negro in Medicine" – 1947.
- "An anatomist's view of human relations. Homo sanguinis versus Homo sapiens--mankind's present dilemma" – 1975.
- "Human Rights—A New Fight in Cultural Evolution" – 1978.
- "The Black American in Medicine" – 1981.
- "Human Variation: Informing the Public" – 1988.
In addition those listed above, Cobb had more than 1100 publications on various topics.[5]
See also
References
- ^ a b c "The Life of Dr. William Montague Cobb". W. Montague Cobb Research Laboratory. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-252-06736-5.[page needed]
- PMID 6381741.
- ^ .
- ^ .
- ^ PMID 1404467.
- PMC 2627008.
- PMID 8254696.
- ^ "William Montague Cobb bio". 12 February 2007. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
- ^ "History – National Medical Association". www.nmanet.org. Retrieved April 23, 2020.
- .
- ^ PMID 1142453.
- PMID 3392752.
- ^ "Distinguished Professor of Anatomy Cobb". The Crisis: 358. November 1969.
- ^ II, Vann R. Newkirk (June 27, 2017). "The Fight for Health Care Has Always Been About Civil Rights". The Atlantic. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
- ^ DiAntonio, Andrew (2 July 1964). "1964 – The Civil Rights Act". National Health Law Program. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
- ^ "Award Honors Dr. W.M. Cobb, Recognizes Promising Anatomy Researchers".
Further reading
- Harrison, Ira E., and Faye V. Harrison, eds. African-American Pioneers in Anthropology. New York: University of Illinois P, 1998.
- Redman, Samuel J. Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2016.