In the spring of 1929, archaeologist Alfred Kidder offered the following explanation to Elsie Clews Parsons as to why women should be excluded from the Museum of New Mexico`s Laboratory of Anthropology field schools: ”This business of women in anthropology is a perplexing one,” he wrote in a letter. ”. . . a young woman, because of the likelihood of her marriage, is an unreliable element to build into the foundation of a staff structure.”
Florence Hawley Ellis, now in her 80s and living in Santa Fe, remembers that it was nearly impossible for a woman to land a position on an
archaeological excavation in the `20s: ”In the first place, it was unheard of for girls to wear pants, and secondly, there was the matter of the number and placement of lavatories.”
Despite discouragement, Parsons carried out fieldwork in the American Southwest, Latin America and the Caribbean and, having been born to wealth, generously financed the research of countless other women. She served as president of the American Folklore Society and the American Ethnological Society and was the first woman elected president of the American
Anthropological Association. Ellis (who, like Parsons, was married) was one of the first women to receive a doctorate in archaeology and to use both statistics and tree ring dating in her analyses.
Parsons and Ellis are just two of the women featured in ”Daughters of the Desert: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest, 1880-1980,” an exhibition that examines the role women have played in the study, presentation and preservation of native cultures in the Southwest. The result of nearly six years of research by Barbara Babcock and Nancy Parezo,
”Daughters of the Desert” is being presented across the country under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
”The exhibition highlights some 45 women and their work, concentrating on those who began their careers before 1940 and who have worked primarily with indigenous cultures of Arizona and New Mexico,” explains Parezo, associate curator of ethnology at the Arizona State Museum in Tucson. ”As scientists, humanists, novelists and activists, they significantly shaped anthropological understandings, public conceptions and government policies regarding American Indians and the Southwest.”
Babcock, a professor of anthropology and director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University, describes many of the ”Daughters of the Desert” as having been restless and rebellious.
”We found that most were a bit unconventional,” Babcock says, ”in that they were more adventuresome than the stereotypical woman of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who adhered to restrictive Victorian standards.”
”They were explorers,” Parezo adds, ”interested in discovering different cultures. Unlike other sciences, anthropology can`t be learned in a laboratory setting. It entails fieldwork. These women willingly bucked the thinking of their day, which claimed that by going to the Southwest they would foolishly be risking their lives.”
Babcock observes that many ”Daughters” indeed were the daughters of men who provided intellectual or financial support to their efforts. First, there were male scholars who did welcome women into the field. And several of the women-including Parsons, wealthy Bostonian Mary Cabot Wheelwright and Millicent Rogers (whose grandfather was known as the ”hell hound of Wall Street”)-channeled inheritances or family influence into expeditions and publications. Some worked to establish national parks, schools and museums.
The first woman ethnographer to collect data in the Southwest was Matilda Coxe Stevenson. After graduating from Miss Annabele`s Academy in Philadelphia and studying law with her father, Stevenson accompanied her husband, James, and several others to the Pueblo villages of New Mexico in 1879 on the first collecting and research expedition of the Smithsonian`s newly formed Bureau of American Ethnology. While the men did survey work, she learned the Zuni language and gained entrance not only into the women`s domestic domain, but the men`s religious rituals as well.
As a pioneer in the emerging field of anthropology, Stevenson quickly developed a reputation as a diligent and enthusiastic scientist. Her sometimes prickly disposition and zeal in collecting data occasionally offended her subjects. Colleagues told the story of a name the Indians gave her, which she proudly informed friends was an affectionate sobriquet meaning, alternately,
”Washington Mother” or ”Little Flower.” In reality, the translation was
”big broad buttocks like a mesa.”
”After her husband`s death in 1888,” Parezo says, ”Matilda was hired by the Bureau of American Ethnology to put James` notes in order. Two years later, the position became permanent, making her the first, and for a long time the only woman to be paid as a government anthropologist.” Stevenson`s extensive ethnographic studies of the Zuni and Zia Indians were to become a foundation for future Pueblo research.
Parezo reports that Stevenson`s participation in collecting expeditions generally was supported because, as a woman, there was a belief that she would have access to Indian women and children, whose knowledge was crucial to anthropology but inaccessible to male researchers. Thereafter, women were invited into the realm of anthropological research.
At the turn of the century, most anthropologists were largely self-taught, and many were employed by museums and trained in the field. After about 1911, universities began offering courses in anthropology, combining methods and theories with fieldwork.
”While their male colleagues worked at being more `scientific,`
” Babcock observes, ”most of the women drawn to anthropology devoted themselves to translating the findings of anthropological research and the complexities of Indian cultures to the general public. They made notable contributions to such areas as folklore, linguistics and ethnomusicology.”
Natalie Curtis and Frances Densmore studied the music of various Indian groups. After a visit to her brother in Arizona in 1900, Curtis gave up a career as a concert pianist and concentrated on recording Indian music. She helped persuade President Theodore Roosevelt both to remove a ban imposed on Indians singing native songs as part of an effort to assimilate them into the white culture, and also to enact a policy to preserve and encourage Indian music, art and poetry.
Densmore`s early work focused on the lyrics of American Indian music, until she realized that ”nothing is lost so irrevocably as the sound of a song.” A professional musician who achieved recognition in her piano and organ performances, Densmore subsequently recorded more than 3,350 native American songs.
In their research, Parezo says, she and Babcock also found that women scholars often competed equally with men in terms of publishing opportunities and obtaining research grants. Nonetheless, there was a crunch when it came to career movement. Bertha Dutton, they say, is an example of how one woman circumvented that obstacle.
Dutton left Lincoln, Neb., in 1932, and headed to the Southwest. In 1936, she joined the staff of the Museum of New Mexico as assistant to the director. Although she earned a master`s degree in anthropology the following year, Dutton`s job remained essentially clerical. ”After a few years I suggested to the director that he create a Department of ethnology,” the distinguished archaeologist recalls. ”He did and I was appointed curator. In those days, you had to invent your job in so many places.” Dutton still lives in New Mexico and regularly writes for a number of publications.
