Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 – December 21, 1942) was a German-born ethnographer who was deeply influential on the development of anthropological research, especially in the United States. Born in Minden, Westphalia, Boas studied physics and geography at several German universities. On the advice of his advisor, geographer Theobald Fischer, Boas traveled in 1883 to Baffin Island to study indigenous cultures, sparking an interest in the peoples of the Artic and Subarctic that would lead him to return to the region several times in subsequent years. In 1887, Boas journeyed to the Pacific Northwest of the United States to research Native American peoples. Due to limited opportunities in Germany and concerns over growing antisemitism (his grandparents were secularized Jews), Boas decided to stay in the U.S. After taking a position for several years at Clark University, where he repeatedly clashed with university president G. Stanley Hall, Boas was selected by Frederic Ward Putnam, director and curator of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, to prepare ethnographic exhibits for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Afterwards, he helped to establish the Field Museum in Chicago and then went to work for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Boas was a pioneer in understanding cultures on their own terms and in their proper context, making him one of the formulators of cultural relativism. He was continually frustrated by both fellow scholars and the wider public in their portrayal of indigenous cultures as 'savage' and insisted that the differences between cultures were the product of particular physical and historical conditions rather than the relative 'advancement' or 'superiority' of one culture versus another. More by this mapmaker...

Julius (Julien) Bien (September 27, 1826 - December 21, 1909) was a German-Jewish lithographer and engraver based in New York City. Bien was born in Naumburg, Germany. He was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts, Cassell and at Städel's Institute, Frankfurt-am-Main. Following the suppression of the anti-autocratic German Revolutions of 1848, Bien, who participated in the pan-German movement, found himself out of favor in his home country and joined the mass German immigration to the United States. Bien can be found in New York as early as 1849. He established the New York Lithographing, Engraving & Printing Company in New York that focused on the emergent chromo-lithograph process - a method of printing color using lithographic plates. His work drew the attention of the U.S. Government Printing Office which contracted him to produce countless government maps and surveys, including the Pacific Railroad Surveys, the census, numerous coast surveys, and various maps relating to the American Civil War. Bien also issued several atlases both privately and in conjunction with a relation, Joseph Bien. At the height of his career Bien was elected president of the American Lithographers Association. After his death in 1909, Bien's firm was taken over by his son who promptly ran it into insolvency. The firm was sold to Sheldon Franklin, who, as part of the deal, retained the right to publish under the Julius Bien imprint. In addition to his work as a printer, Bien was active in the New York German Jewish community. He was director of the New York Hebrew Technical Institute, the New York Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and president of the B'nai B'rith Order. Learn More...