Joseph Campbell was born and raised in White Plains, New York in an upper middle class Roman Catholic family. As a child, Campbell became fascinated with Native Americanculture after his father took him to see the American Museum of Natural History in New York where he saw on display featured collections of Native American artifacts. He soon became versed in numerous aspects of Native American society, primarily in Native American mythology. This led to Campbell's lifelong passion for myth and to his study of and mapping of the cohesive threads in mythology that appeared to exist among even disparate human cultures.
