Sol Tax, an anthropologist who was the central organizer of the Darwin Centennial Celebration in November, 1959, a five-day celebration held in Chicago, was born on this date in 1907. Tax was a specialist on Native American cultures who founded Current Anthropology, an international journal that he edited from 1957 until 1974. The Darwin Centennial, which marked the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, the 100th anniversary of the publication On the Origin of Species, and the 125th anniversary of the second voyage of the HMS Beagle, attracted the participation of more than 2,500 scholars worldwide and helped reunite anthropology (including the study of human culture) with evolution and the rest of biology. Throughout his career, Sol Tax brought people together: In 1961, he was coordinator of a conference that brought 700 Native Americans from more than 80 tribes to the University of Chicago to prepare a “Declaration of Indian Purpose,” which sought to present a united front on Native American rights to the federal government; in 1968, Tax organized a conference on the draft that brought together military and political figures; in 1973, he organized “One Species, Many Cultures,” an anthropology conference attended by 4,000 scholars from more than 100 countries.
“He used Current Anthropology as a means of providing communication worldwide on important issues in anthropology. Particularly in developing countries and in the former Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, Sol Tax was the name people associated with anthropology.” —Professor George Stocking