Hastrom was an anthropology professor who was teaching at the University of Chicago in 1934. Disappointed that their most promising student Alan James Mauberg had turned in an otherwise A-grade paper on Tylor's Primitive Culture that fell below his usual standard of work, Hastrom gave it a B and encouraged Mauberg to look into a more recent or little known work for his term paper in the hopes that that made the most of his potential to become a great scientist rather than simply passing the course.