Oscar Lewis

Oscar Lewis (born Lefkowitz, December 25, 1914, New York City- died December 16, 1970) was an American anthropologist who is best known for his vivid depictions of the lives of slum dwellers and for postulating that there was a cross-generational culture of poverty among poor people that transcended national boundaries. Lewis contended that the cultural similarities occurred because they were "common adaptations to common problems", and that "the culture of poverty is both an adaptation and a reaction of the poor to their marginal position in a class-stratified, highly individualistic, capitalistic society."^[1]

Lewis grew up on a farm in upstate New York. He received a bachelor's degree from City College of New York in history in 1936, and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University in 1940. His Ph.D. dissertation on the effects of white contact on the Blackfeet Indians was published in 1942.^[1]

He taught at Brooklyn College, and Washington University, and helped to found the anthropology department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.^[1][2]

Books

• Five Families; Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty, 1959
• Tepoztlán, Village in Mexico, 1960
• The Children of Sanchez, Autobiography of a Mexican Family, 1961
• Pedro Martinez - A Mexican Peasant and His Family, 1964
• La Vida; A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty—San Juan and New York, 1966
• A Death in the Sánchez Family, 1969
• Village Life in Northern India

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Whitman, Alden. "Oscar Lewis, Author and Anthropologist, Dead; U. of Illinois Professor, 55, Wrote of Slum Dwellers", New York Times, December 18, 1970, accessed August 4, 2009.
2. ^ Gardner, David. "A short biography", EMuseum at Minnesota State University, Mankato, 2007, accessed August 4, 2009. (archived 2010)

Persondata
Name	Lewis, Oscar
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Date of birth	December 25, 1914
Place of birth
Date of death	December 16, 1970
Place of death