Thank you, Skip, for sharing the information about Dr. Cobb. It was an honor and a pleasure to meet him in the mid-1980s at an Amherst Black Alumni gathering. Although I now know that he was not to be with us for more than just a few more years, he was as sharp and delightful to converse with as any brilliant 35-year-old Amherst alumnus! He was the center of attention at the event. He communicated with precision and eloquence. His memory of his days at Amherst, as well as his knowledge of the day's current events, were almost overwhelming!
Everitt, this is a fascinating biography. Wiliam Montague Cobb is one month older than my father – and what a set of contributions Cobb made.
Cobb was about 40 years behind me at Amherst, but I wasn’t in his reunion year – the 5 and 0 years. So I wouldn’t have been to any presentations or panels he would have been on. I hope the college and his class took advantage of his potential presence at reunions.
Thank you, Amina. You are right about the photos. But Harold's book was almost fifty years ago. You would be surprised by how much more information there is now. God willing, I will make it back to Amherst in 2025 for my 50th Class Reunion Year. When I return, I hope to collect the Freshmen Year Photos for all those who are on my Memorial List and include them on my Amherst College Biographies Posts. As time progresses, I hope to be able to add updated photos to bookend the beginning and end of each person's Amherst journey.
Who knows maybe one day, someone will even do the same for me.
Fun Fact and coincidence: I went to Armstrong High School in Richmond Va. As a young budding scientist, I was a member of the "W. Montague Cobb Science Club".All I knew was that he was a great Black scientist. When I went to Amherst, I never knew of the connection between Amherst and Dr. Cobb, but the required physics and calculus courses in freshman year at Amherst quickly drove me away from anything that looked like science. It was not until I graduated that I learned about him and that class of 1925.
But I did know about Mercer Cooke and William Hatie, two other prominent members of the race and that class. Bill Hastie Jr. and Jacque Cook were the sons of each of these men who were in the class of 1967, and remain my good friends even though I haven't seen them in quite some time. They should be invited to join this chat group, and I'm asking them to chime in about their Daddies. And to say hello.
Junius Williams'65
On Fri, Jul 26, 2024 at 1:25 PM Amina Merritt
Hey Thanks Skip:
There are also great profiles of the 1925 men in Harold Wade's Black Men of Amherst with good photos of them.
William Montague Cobb was born in Washington, D.C. October 12, 1904. He earned his B.A. from Amherst College in 1925 and continued his research in embryology at Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory in Massachusetts. Cobb then went to Howard University, and earned his medical degree in 1929. Cobb was given an offer by Howard to “name a position” he wanted to teach. He chose the newly emerging discipline of physical anthropology (human evolutionary biology, physical variation). Before setting up his own lab, Cobb went to Western Reserve University in Cleveland to study under T. Wingate Todd, a progressive leader in the new field.
In 1932 Cobb returned to Howard as a professor of physical anatomy, where he continued to teach until his death in 1990. A prolific writer, he authored 1,100 articles on a variety of physical anatomy topics and issues relating to African American health. Cobb is considered to be one of the most influential scholars in physical anatomy. To Howard, he left a considerable collection of more than 700 skeletons and the complete anatomical data for nearly 1,000 individuals.
One of Cobb’s most well-known articles was “Race and Runners” which appeared in 1936. He sought to refute the idea that Jesse Owens, a quadruple gold medalist in the 1936 “Nazi” Olympics, was superior because of African Americans’ innate physical prowess that corresponded to a decreased intelligence. Cobb used countless measures of different physical attributes involved in running and jumping and showed that there were no significant differences due to race.
Cobb continued to apply his science to social issues, showing how racism was harming African American health and thus negatively impacting all American society. He initiated the Imhotep Conferences on Hospital Integration in 1957. This annual conference sought to end hospital and medical school segregation and continued until 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was passed. Cobb also provided expert testimony to Congress on health care legislation, culminating in the passage of Medicare in 1965. The epitome of Cobb’s social activism was serving as President of the NAACP from 1976 to 1983. He was also a member of the Sigma Pi Phi fraternity.
W. Montague Cobb died on November 20, 1990 in Washington, D.C. at the age of 86.
William Montague Cobb, as a member of the Amherst College Class of 1925, was part of a foursome of African American graduates whose careers greatly impacted the world. Along with fellow Class of 1925 graduates, Will Mercer Cook, Benjamin Jefferson Davis, and William Henry Hastie, the Class of 1925 is arguably the greatest class in terms of African American achievement. Below is the Wikipedia article for William Montague Cobb.
William Montague Cobb(1904–1990) was an American board-certified physician and aphysical anthropologist.[1]As the firstAfrican-AmericanPh.Dinanthropology, and the only one until after theKorean War,[2]his main focus in the anthropological discipline was studying the idea of race and its negative impact on communities of color. He was also the first African-American President of theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People.[3]His career both as a physician and a professor atHoward Universitywas dedicated to the advancement of African-American researchers and he was heavily involved in civil rights activism.[4]Cobb wrote prolifically and contributed both popular and scholarly articles during the course of his career. His work has been noted as a significant contribution to the development of the sub-discipline ofbiocultural anthropologyduring the first half of the 20th century.[5]Cobb was also an accomplished educator and taught over 5000 students in the social and health sciences during his lifetime.[6]
Cobb was born on October 12, 1904, in Washington DC. His mother, Alexizne Montague Cobb, grew up in Massachusetts and was partly of Native American descent. His father, William Elmer Cobb, grew up in Selma, Alabama. His parents met in Washington DC when his father started his own printing business for the African-American community.
The tipping point for Cobb's initial interest in anthropology came from a book of the animal kingdom that his grandfather owned. In this book, there were illustrations of human beings separated by race, but were illustrated with what Cobb called "equal dignity." This led to an interest in the concept of race, as the same type of "equal dignity" was not granted in the society that surrounded Cobb's life.[2]
Cobb attended Dunbar High School, a highly esteemed Washington, DC. African-American high school in 1917.[4] He was a successful student and athlete, and went on to win championships in cross-country as well as lightweight and welterweight boxing during his high school and collegiate years.[6] He married Hilda B. Smith, Ruth Smith Lloyd's sister, and they had two children.[7][8] Cobb died of pneumonia on November 20, 1990, at the age of 86.[4]
Following his graduation from Dunbar High School in 1921, Cobb earned his Bachelor of Arts from Amherst College in 1925. Following completion of his baccalaureate degree, he received a Blodgett Scholarship for proficiency in biology which allowed him to pursue research in embryology at Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory.[4] He earned his MD (Doctor of Medicine) in 1929 from the Howard University Medical School. He worked jobs throughout his time in medical school.[1] Cobb then accepted a position at Howard University which he was offered prior to his graduation.[4]Numa P. G. Adams, who was the Dean of Howard University at the time, was assigned the task of organizing a new faculty of African-American physicians to help advance the school in the medical field. Cobb, in turn had the aspirations of creating a laboratory of anatomy and physical anthropology at Howard University that would have the resources for African-American scholars to contribute to debates in racial biology. As a part of Dean Adams' efforts, Cobb was sent to study under biological anthropologist T. Wingate Todd at Case Western Reserve University.[2] Cobb's dissertation work was an expansive survey of the Hamann-Todd Skeletal Collection, a large skeletal population now housed at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History which is associated with Case Western Reserve University.[4] He earned his Ph.D in Anthropology in 1932 and his dissertation was published under the title Human Archives the following year.[4]
Cobb was heavily involved with a number of anthropological and medical organizations during his career. He was an active member of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists since its second meeting in 1930 and served on its board on multiple occasions, both as its vice president (1948–50 and 1954–56) and president (1957–59). He also held leadership roles with the Anthropological Society of Washington, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Eugenics Society, and the Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia. He also served as chairman on the Council of Medical Education and Hospitals for two terms (1948–63).[4]
Throughout his lifetime Cobb pursued work aimed at furthering the opportunities of African Americans both within society in general and within the health sciences. He was an active member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and served as its president from 1976 to 1982.[4] He created the Imhotep Conferences on Hospital Integration in 1957 as a part of the NAACP, an annual conference seeking to end hospital and medical school segregation that continued until 1964.[9] He was an active member of the National Medical Association, an organization dedicated to the advancement of African-American physicians and other health professionals.[4][10] He was a longtime contributor to its journal, the Journal of the National Medical Association, of which he served as editor from 1944 to his death in 1990. He also served as the organization's president from 1964 to 1965.[4] In addition to his involvement in both African-American and European American-led professional organizations and journals, Cobb was active in community outreach through work on race and health published in popular African-American magazines such as Negro Digest, Pittsburgh Courier, and Ebony.[4]
Throughout his career, Cobb applied his technical expertise in functional anatomy and medicine to a variety of topics, including the issues of African-American health, child development, and disproving scientific justifications for racism. His approach has been characterized as a form of applied anthropology and activist scholarship.[4] His work explicitly critiqued hierarchical understandings of human variation, and he often subverted racist evolutionary arguments through highlighting the resiliency of African Americans. He took as an example the experience of the Transatlantic slave trade which he argued acted as a selective pressure and would have led to a genetically stronger population relative to European Americans who did not experience this population bottleneck.[5]
Cobb often used his expertise in anatomy and biology in order to combat racist explanations for perceived differences between African Americans and European Americans. One of the most widely cited studies in this effort was Cobb's "Race and Runners," published in 1936. In this work, Cobb took the case of Jesse Owens to dispel the idea that his success as a quadruple gold medal winner could be explained by his " African-American genes," an argument that stemmed from the idea that Black people were stronger and more athletic than whites at the cost of decreased intelligence.[5] Proponents of this idea often pointed to the supposed existence of extra musculature or differences in nerve thicknesses that allowed African-American athletes to excel relative to European Americans. Cobb addressed this question by surveying the anatomical characteristics of Owens as well as other prominent African Americans in different sports. Cobb demonstrated that not only could their successes not be explained by a shared racial trait, the physiology that would make a superior athlete in one sport would be very different from another. Instead, Cobb accounted for the achievements of African-American athletes relative to European Americans in sports as due to "training and incentive" rather than any "special physical endowment".[11]
During the latter years of his career, Cobb took a more philosophical approach to his anatomical perspective of humanity. He often used biological metaphors to point to key issues within society. Cobb's most prominent philosophical contribution was arguably his 1975 publication, "An anatomist's view of human relations. Homo sanguinis versus Homo sapiens--mankind's present dilemma".[4] This work focused primarily on the fundamental conflict in human nature he described as being between the civilized people suggested by our binomial designation Homo sapiens ("Man the Wise") and the much older and violent organism he described via his coined term Homo sanguinus ("Man the bloody").[12] Cobb described the recent "adaptations" of civilization and ethics as similar to recently evolved anatomical traits like bipedalism, a key human trait which has nonetheless resulted in a host of health conditions due to our lineage's adaptations for quadrupedal locomotion. Cobb argued that man the wise is up against the ancient evolutionary tradition of man as a "bloody, predatory primate" and that this history of violence and hatred will thus be difficult to overcome.[12] Cobb's final presented publication in 1988, "Human Variation: Informing the Public," applied his Homo sanguinus more closely to the rapid cultural change of the late 20th century.[4] Cobb saw this period of rapid development as both a key opportunity for continued progress against racism and other forms of inequality and a potential for such issues to become more firmly embedded within the system of the society: "Just as an embryological defect cannot be corrected, so our mammoth construction programs can be wrong, which is not obvious until it is too late."[13]
Cobb distinguished himself by representing the pursuit of social responsibility in the field of anthropology, as well as by being an activist scholar who often applied anthropological methods to issues of racism and inequality.[4] He undertook studies within the scope of his expertise in anatomy that aimed at disproving racist explanations for social difference. He believed that scholars must take responsibility "not only for their own thoughts and actions but also for their own society" because the values that are expressed in scientific work, whether subtly or overtly, are key in the shaping of culture and society.[2] He was one of the first anthropologist to undertake a demographic analysis that illustrated the consequences of segregation and racism on the African-American population, and he wanted to create the resources so he would not be the last.[4] One of Cobb's greatest contributions to this end is the expansive skeletal collection he curated during his time at Howard University which is now housed at the university's W. Montague Cobb Research Laboratory, a research laboratory led by biological anthropologist Fatimah Jackson that also houses the New York African Burial Ground collection.[1]
Cobb was long involved in African descendants' struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. He assumed a number of roles in African-American-led organizations, including the National Urban League and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and he was a longtime editor of the first African-American medical journal, the Journal of the National Medical Association.[14] He was a member of the board of directors for the NAACP from 1949 until his death and president from 1976 to 1982.[4] Cobb played a key role in efforts to expand access to medical care through his active leadership in the National Medical Association, and this activism led to his testimony to congress during the hearings leading up to the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. He was present at the signing of this bill into law by invitation of President Lyndon B. Johnson.[15][16]
THE LEGACY OF WILLIAM
MONTAGUE COBB, MD, PhD
(1 904- 990) 1
Melvin 1. Douglass, PhD
Huntington Station, New York
The number of people whose lives have been affected
by Dr William Montague Cobb is relatively small
compared to the wide ranging impact of a Michael
Jordan or an Oprah Winfrey. Nevertheless, the importance of Dr Cobb's life is so much greater than that of
these well-known figures because Dr Cobb has taught
and inspired men and women who have risen to
positions of importance far beyond what their numbers
suggest. They are the professors, physicians, and other
professionals who are the driving forces of our society.
EARLY LIFE AND DEVELOPMENT
William Montague Cobb was born on October 12,
1904 in Washington, DC. He was the only child of
William Elmer, a printer, and Alexzine (Montague)
Cobb, a teacher. Cobb's parents taught him how to read
and write before he entered school1:
During his formative years, according to Cobb, before
he reached school age he learned the basic rudiments of
reading, writing, and computing from his mother. It
was not long before he was able to read some of the
magazines and books in the family's library. He also
read religious materials that he received in his Sunday
School class at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian
Church.
When Cobb entered the segregated elementary
schools (Patterson and Garnet) in Washington, DC, he
was one of the best students in the class. In 1917, Cobb
attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. The high
school was named after the black writer and poet. At
Dunbar, he was an outstanding student and athlete. His
Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr Melvin I.
Douglass, Depts of English and Social Studies, Henry L.
Stimson Middle School, 401 Oakwood Rd, Huntington Station,
NY 1 1746.
efforts earned him a scholarship to Amherst College,
located in Amherst, Massachusetts. While at Amherst,
Cobb continued to be outstanding in the classroom and
on the playing field.2 To quote his biographical
summary: "He.. .won college cross-country championships at Amherst and in successive years was
college lightweight and welterweight boxing champion."2 Cobb received the AB degree from Amherst
College in 1925. He also won the Blodgett Scholarship
from the college that same year.2
Among the outstanding student athletes at Amherst
College during Cobb's four years were: Charles Drew,
who became a scientist; Mercer Cook, who became a
US ambassador; and William Hasite, who became a
federal judge. All of these men were also former
students of Dunbar High School in Washington, DC.
After graduation, Cobb enrolled at the Howard
University College of Medicine. In 1929, he received the
MD degree. Dr Cobb was licensed for the practice of
medicine and surgery in the District of Columbia in 1930.
His desire to learn as much as possible caused him to
enroll in the PhD program at Western Reserve University.
In 1932, Dr Cobb received a doctoral degree in anatomy
His dissertation was titled "Human Archives."2
CAREER
Urged by his former teacher, Dr Numa P.G. Adams,
Dr Cobb entered the teaching profession. He started his
career as an instructor in the anatomy department at
Howard University College of Medicine in 1930 and
ended his career as Distinguished Professor Emeritus in
1973. During this time, Dr Cobb taught more than 5000
medical, dental, and graduate students in the healthrelated sciences.2
While teaching his students, he would frequently mix
the study of philosophy with the study of medicine. Dr
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 84, NO. 10 885
MEDICAL HISTORY
Cobb did so by asking the students to come up with an
example of "new wisdom" for which he could not find
an antecedent. He contended that there is a constant
explosion of new knowledge but there is no new
wisdom in the world.2
At his beloved alma mater, Dr Cobb built a collection
of over 600 documented skeletons, a comparative
anatomy museum in the gross anatomy laboratory, and
a comprehensive collection of casts of fossil primates,
hominids, and men.2 According to his biographical
summary3:
The concept and goals of this work were described in a
bound brochure produced in 1936 at Dr Cobb's
expense, entitled, "The Laboratory of Anatomy and
Physical Anthropology of Howard University." This
book of 107 pages and 25 illustrations was very
favorably reviewed by the distinguished biologist of
Johns Hopkins University, Dr Raymond Pear.
Dr Cobb taught anatomy in a rather unique fashion to
students at Howard3:
He developed a graphic method of teaching and
learning anatomy in which students learn to draw
outlines of the human figure with the skeleton in it
according to a canon of proportions, and subsequently
to draw in all the structures uncovered as the dissection
proceeds.
In addition to teaching at Howard University College
of Medicine, he taught at the University of Arkansas for
Medical Sciences in Little Rock, the University of
Washington in Seattle, Stanford University, the University of Maryland, West Virginia University, Harvard
Medical School, the Medical College of Wisconsin in
Milwaukee, and the Catholic University of America.3
During his teaching career, Dr Cobb authored nearly
700 published works. Among them are five books. In
1939, he wrote a small book entitled: The First Negro
Medical Society: A History of the Medico-Chirurgical
Society of the District of Columbia, 1844-1939. This
historical treatise was published by Associated Publishers Inc under the supervision of Dr Carter G. Woodson.
Dr Cobb had 1000 copies published for $650, of
which half was to be submitted with the manuscript and
the other half when the book was completed. He was
told by Dr Woodson to sell the book for $2 per copy.4
"Incidentally, the price of this historical treatise is now
$75. It is considered a collector's item."5 Dr Cobb also
wrote an article that appeared in the Journal of Negro
History. It was titled "Education in Human Biology:
An Essential for the Present and Future."
In addition to writing in historical journals, Dr Cobb
was a contributing editor of the Journal of the National
Medical Association (JNMA) for 28 years.2 While
editor of the JNMA, he wrote numerous articles on
prominent black figures such as Dr Charles Richard
Drew, Dr Louis Tompkins Wright, Dr William Augustus Hinton, Dr Dorothy Boulding Ferebee, and Dr Jane
Wright. As a result of his work, Dr Cobb was
universally considered the principal historian of the
black American in medicine.
NAACP PAMPHLETS AND IMHOTEP
CONFERENCES
In 1947 and 1948, respectively, Dr Cobb wrote two
pamphlets for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The first
pamphlet was entitled "Medical Care and the Plight of
the Negro." The second pamphlet was titled "Progress
and Portents for the Negro in Medicine." Both of these
scholarly works were well received by the medical
community.2
With the aid of organizations like the NAACP and
NMA, Dr Cobb organized the Imhotep National
Conference on Hospital Integration. The purpose of the
conference was to eliminate discrimination in our
hospital systems through voluntary cooperation. There
were seven Imhotep National Conferences in all.2
Dr Cobb pointed out that the Imhotep conference
took its name from the Egyptian demigod of medicine
who lived about 3000 BC. Imhotep was the first
historical figure in medicine. His name means "He who
cometh in peace."2
ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITIES
In addition to his work with the Imhotep National
Conference, Dr Cobb was involved with other organizations. He was president of the American Association of
Physical Anthropologists, 1957-1959; the Anthropological Society of Washington, 1949-1951; NMA,
1964-1965; and NAACP, 1976-1982. He was also
chairman of the NAACP Search and Screening Committee for an Executive Director in 1976.2
It was the NAACP's Search and Screening Committee that was primarily responsible for the hiring of
Benjamin Lawson Hooks, the first black member of the
Federal Communications Commission, to the post of
Executive Director of the NAACP.
Dr Cobb welcomed the appointment of Hooks. He
stated that Benjamin L. Hooks understood "the vital
role of communications in everyday life and communicating the goals, policies, and programs of the NAACP
886 JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 84, NO. 10
MEDICAL HISTORY
to the world, particularly to those citizens denied
freedom and justice." '
In 1980, Dr Cobb had the pleasure of presenting the
NAACP's highest award, the Spingarn Medal, to
Rayford W. Logan for his monographs on conditions
that affect blacks.6
HONORS
Because of his outstanding contributions to medicine
and civil rights, Dr Cobb received numerous awards.
Among them are the Distinguished Public Service
Award, "for exceptionally outstanding contributions to
the US Navy in the fields of equal opportunity and
community relations." Dr Cobb also received an
honorary doctorate from Howard University (DHL,
1980), the Medical College of Wisconsin (ScD, 1979),
Georgetown University (ScD, 1978), the University of
the Witwatersrand (LLD, 1977), Morgan State College
(LLD, 1964), and Amherst College (ScD, 1955).
When the latter honorary degree was conferred on Dr
Cobb, it was said to him:
Author of scores of learned articles and works, you
have cast light on such diverse subjects as the dentition
of the walrus, the effects of aging on the human
skeleton, graphical techniques of teaching anatomy,
and the physical anthropology of the American Negro.
Teacher, scholar, scientist, physician, you have strived
valiantly for the cause of interracial justice and
understanding and by your efforts that cause has been
measurably advanced in the whole field of medical
care.
In 1981, Dr Cobb was selected by Ciba-Geigy
Corporation for its "Exceptional Black Scientists
Poster Series." One year earlier, he was the subject of
the writer's doctoral dissertation entitled "The Black
Family as a Matrix of Achievement: The Historical
Case of Dr William Montague Cobb." The study was
the first in-depth historical study of Dr Cobb and certain
key members of his family. It is housed in the library at
Columbia University in New York City.
EPILOGUE
Dr Cobb's family was important to him, but his work
was also important. He devoted his life to medical
scholarship and civic leadership. As a result, Dr Cobb's
contributions were numerous. Yet, his death on November 20, 1990 in Washington, DC, was not widely
publicized in the media. Dr Cobb is survived by two
daughters, Carolyn Wilkerson and Amelia Gray, and
four grandchildren. His wife of 47 years, Hilda B.
Smith, died in 1976. "Sic transit gloria mundi." (Thus
passes the glory of the world.)2
Literature Cited
1. Douglass MI. The Black Family as a Matrix of Achievement: The Historical Case of Dr William Montague Cobb. New
York, NY: Columbia University Teachers College; 1981. Doctoral dissertation.
2. Douglass Ml. Dr William Montague Cobb (1904-1990):
the principal historian of Afro-Americans in medicine. Crisis
Magazine. 1991;98:30-31, 40.
3. Cobb WM. Biographical Summary. Washington, DC;
1981:1-3.
4. Cobb WM. Carter Godwin Woodson. Negro History
Bulletin. 1973;36:152-153.
5. Douglass Ml. Carter Godwin Woodson: a biography. The
Prince Hall Sentinel. 1990;40:15.
6. Douglass MI. Black Winners: A History of Spingarn
Medalists, 1915-1983. New York, NY: Theo Gaus Ltd; 1984.
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 84, NO. 10
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Dr. W. Montague Cobb, a physician, educator and a former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, died Tuesday at George Washington University Hospital in Washington. He was 86 years old and lived in Washington
He died of cardiac arrest, a family spokesman said.
Dr. Cobb was also the retired chairman of the anatomy department at Howard University Medical School and a past president of the National Medical Association, with which he was affiliated for 42 years. He was editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association from 1949 to 1977 and, with the exception of one year, was chairman of its Council on Medical Education from 1948 to 1963.
A 1925 graduate of Amherst College, Dr. Cobb earned his medical degree at Howard University in 1929 and a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1932. He was active in civil rights causes and was on the board of directors of the N.A.A.C.P. for more than 30 years and served as president of the organization from 1976 to 1982. Professor at Howard
He was a professor at the Howard medical school for more than 40 years, after having been appointed as an assistant professor of anatomy in 1932. He became a full professor 10 years later and in 1947 was named chairman of the anatomy department. He held the post until 1969. when he was elevated to the rank of Distinguished Professor. In 1973, he was named Distinguished Professor Emeritus. In retirement he continued as a visiting professor at several universities, including Stanford University, the University of Maryland and Harvard University.
Dr. Cobb was the recipient of nine honorary degrees, including ones from Amherst, Georgetown University, Brown University and Colby College. He was a member of numerous civic and professional organizations, including the Friends of the National Zoo, the Junior Police and Citizens Corporation, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, the Anthropological Society of Washington and the Washington Society for the History of Medicine.
He is survived by two daughters, Carolyn Wilkinson of Washington and Amelia Gray of Silver Spring, Md., and four grandchildren.
