Elsie Clews Parsons Explained

Elsie Clews Parsons
Birth Name:Elsie Worthington Clews
Birth Date:27 November 1875
Birth Place:New York City
Death Place:New York City
Education:Ph.D. in Sociology, Columbia University (1899)
Occupation:Anthropologist
Spouse:Herbert Parsons
Parents:Henry Clews, Lucy Madison Worthington
Children:Elsie ("Lissa", 1901)
John Edward (1903)
Herbert (1909)
Henry McIlvaine ("Mac", 1911)[1]
Relations:James Blanchard Clews (cousin)

Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons (November 27, 1875 – December 19, 1941) was an American anthropologist, sociologist, folklorist, and feminist who studied Native American tribes—such as the Tewa and Hopi—in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. She helped found The New School.[2] She was associate editor for The Journal of American Folklore (1918–1941), president of the American Folklore Society (1919–1920), president of the American Ethnological Society (1923–1925), and was elected the first female president of the American Anthropological Association (1941) right before her death.[3] [4] [5]

She earned her bachelor's degree from Barnard College in 1896.[6] She received her master's degree (1897) and Ph.D. (1899) from Columbia University.

Every other year, the American Ethnological Society awards the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize for the best graduate student essay, in her honor.[7] [8]

Biography

Elsie Worthington Clews was the daughter of Henry Clews, a wealthy New York banker, and Lucy Madison Worthington. Her brother, Henry Clews Jr., was an artist. On September 1, 1900, in Newport, Rhode Island,[9] she married future three-term progressive Republican congressman Herbert Parsons, an associate and political ally of President Teddy Roosevelt.[10] When her husband was a member of Congress, she published two then-controversial books under the pseudonym John Main.[11]

Parsons became interested in anthropology in 1910. She believed that folklore was a key to understanding a culture and that anthropology could be a vehicle for social change.[12]

Her work Pueblo Indian Religion is considered a classic; here she gathered all her previous extensive work and that of other authors.[13] It is, however, marred by intrusive and deceptive research techniques.[14] [15] [16]

Feminist ideas

Parsons' feminist beliefs were viewed as extremely radical for her time. She was a proponent of trial marriages, divorce by mutual consent and access to reliable contraception, which she wrote about in her book The Family (1906).[17]

Works

Early works of sociology

Anthropology

Ethnographies

Research in folklore

Reprints

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Behavioral Psychologist Henry McIlvaine Parsons, 92, Dies . The Washington Post . 2004-08-01.
  2. [Leslie Spier|Spier, Leslie]
  3. Web site: Del Monte . Kathleen . Karen Bachman . Catherine Klein . Bridget McCourt . Elsie Clews Parsons . Celebration of Women Anthropologists . University of South Florida . 1999-03-19 . 2007-05-16 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20070607163546/http://web3.cas.usf.edu/main/depts/ANT/women/elsie/Elsieclews.html . 2007-06-07 .
  4. Web site: Elsie Clews Parsons Papers . American Philosophical Society . 2007-05-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070310210354/http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/p/parsons.htm . 2007-03-10.
  5. Gladys E. Reichard. "Elsie Clews Parsons". The Journal of American Folklore. Vol. 56, No. 219, Elsie Clews Parsons Memorial Number (January–March 1943), pp. 45–48.
  6. Book: Daughters of the Desert: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest, 1880–1980. Babcock. Barbara A.. University of New Mexico Press. 1988. 978-0-8263-1087-3. 15. Parezo. Nancy J..
  7. Web site: Elsie Clews Parsons Prize . AESonline.org . American Ethnological Society . 2012-02-01 . 2012-04-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120531122750/http://aesonline.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=22&Itemid=20 . 2012-05-31 . dead .
  8. Web site: 2007 Elsie Clews Parsons Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper . AESonline.org . American Ethnological Society . 2007-04-02 . 2007-05-16 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070625081741/http://www.aesonline.org/2007ECP . 2007-06-25.
  9. News: Miss Clews is Married . The New York Times . Newport, Massachusetts . 1900-09-02 . 5 . 2010-01-01 .
  10. Web site: Kennedy . Robert C . Cartoon of the Day . HarpWeek . HarpWeek, LLC . 2007-05-16.
  11. Encyclopedia: Parsons, Elsie Clews . Encyclopædia Britannica . Encyclopædia Britannica Online . 2007 . 2007-05-16 .
  12. Web site: Revolt, They Said. andreageyer.info. 2017-06-19.
  13. Book: Gladys A. Reichard . The Elsie Clews Parsons collection Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society vol. 94, No. 3, Studies of Historical Documents in the Library of the American Philosophical Society . June 20, 1950 . 308–309.
  14. Strong. Pauline. 2013. Parsons, Elsie Clews.. Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology, ed. R. Jon McGee and Richard L. Warms. 2. 609–612.
  15. Book: Grande, Sandy. Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought. Rowman & Littlefield. 2015. 9781610489881. 10th anniversary [2nd]. Lanham, MD. 190.
  16. Book: Jacobs, Margaret D.. Engendered encounters: feminism and Pueblo cultures, 1879–1934. University of Nebraska Press. 1999. 978-0-8032-7609-3. Lincoln, NE. 102.
  17. Book: Eby, Clare Virginia. Until Choice Do Us Part. The University of Chicago Press. 2014. 978-0-226-08597-5. Chicago and London. preface.

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