Coming of Age

Coming of Age focuses on five years in Mead's young life when she began to question the traditional attitudes towards sex, marriage, and courtship that dominated the early 20th century. This story begins in 1921, when Mead is a young woman of twenty-one, on the one hand conventional enough to accept the role society has handed to her, on the other hand ambitious enough to rise up against it. When Mead moves to New York City to attend Barnard College, she experiences new friendships and many firsts: dating, marriage, and an affair. She also finds her true love, anthropology. When Mead leaves New York in 1925 to spend nine months studying the native people of Samoa, she is most inspired by their openness and sexual freedom. Mead's subsequent internal and external struggles against the invisible chains of society infuses the story with ample drama, adventure, and passion. By story's end, Mead has found sexual liberation, professional fulfillment, and grown into her own identity. Drawing on letters, diaries, and other historical documents, Blum recreates the colourful and dramatic young life of one of the most provocative thinkers of the 20th century.