QUESTION: Please characterize the prevailing ideas of race around 1900. MATTHEW JACOBSON: We tend to think of race in this country almost entirely in binary terms of black and white. And then ...

Historian Matthew Frye Jacobson has documented the quest of many white ethnic groups during this era, including Jews, to seek “authentic” culture to bolster their ethnic identities.

The idea of a cultured individual is merely relative. MR. WATTENBERG: Gentlemen, Lee Baker, Matthew Frye Jacobson, thank you for joining us. Lee, tell us a little bit about who Franz Boas was.