Clellan Stearns Ford was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on July 27, 1909. He attended Yale University and received two Ph.D.’s, one in Chemistry and the other in Sociology. After finishing his university education he spent a year on the Fiji islands partaking in an ethnographic field study.
In 1937 he helped to found the Cross-Cultural Survey with G. P. Murdock and John W. M. Whiting. In 1940, Ford returned to the field to study the Kwakiutl Indians of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. He wrote a biography about the Kwakiutl Chief Charles James Nowell entitled Smoke from their Fires (1941). Smoke from their Fires was a chronological summary of Chief Charley’s life. After completing his study of the Kwakiutl, Ford was appointed Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. During World War II, Ford was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Naval Reserve. There, along with his colleague Murdock, he wrote seven different military government handbooks on Pacific Island groups.
Returning to Yale in 1946, he became the Director of the Cross-Cultural Survey and an Associate Professor of Anthropology. Under Ford’s leadership the Cross-Cultural Survey became the Human Relations Area Files which expanded to its’ present 24 universities and over 150 members. Ford contributed greatly to research on comparative studies of human reproduction.
In 1951 he, along with Frank Beach, published his most famous book, Patterns of Sexual Behavior. The book explored the sexual behavior of humans and animals. The two studied 190 different societies and many animal species from mice to chimpanzees. They examined sexual behavior from three different perspectives; biological, psychological, and sociological. “Patterns of Sexual Behavior” has become a classic and has been published in six different European languages. On November 4, 1972, Clellan Stearns Ford died of cancer at the age of 63. He has made many important contributions to the field of Anthropology and left a long-lasting legacy.
George P. Murdock, “Clellan S. Ford, 1909-1972,” American Anthropologist, Vol. 76 (1974)
Clellan S. Ford, Smoke from their Fires. New Haven: Yale University Press (1941)
Clellan S. Ford (with Frank Beach), Patterns of Sexual Behavior. New York (1951)
Written by: Lyle Arnason