American anthropologist and writer Margaret Mead was BOTD in 1901. Born in Philadelphia, she studied cultural anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University. In 1925, she spent a year living in Samoa, studying indigenous communities. Her research formed the basis of her 1928 book Coming of Age in Samoa, in which she described Samoa as a primitive utopia in which adolescents were given sexual freedom and casual sex before marriage was socially acceptable, compared in favourable terms to sexually repressive Western cultures. The book became an international sensation, making Mead world famous, and became highly influential on 1960s counter-culture, particularly the work of Dr Benjamin Spock (Mead’s friend and paediatrician), who argued for more permissive approaches to child-rearing. Married three times, Mead also had a long-term relationship with her teacher Ruth Benedict and lived for nearly 20 years with her colleague Rhoda Métraux. Mead never publicly identified as lesbian or bisexual, though her daughter Mary Bateson revealed the extent of Mead’s romantic relationships in a 1984 memoir. Feted throughout her career, Mead also wrote about the the overbearing Jewish mother archetype and studied matriarchal communities in Papua New Guinea. She died in 1978, aged 76. In 1979, she was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honour. In 1983, the anthropologist Derek Freeman published a critique of Mead’s research, arguing that she had misunderstood and romanticised Samoan culture and drawn false conclusions based on sloppy research. Her work has also drawn criticism for sexual and racial stereotyping. In a bizarre posthumous tribute, her name was given to a cross-dressing character in the musical Hair who sings the ballad My Conviction.