Mary Lindsay Elmendorf Explained

Mary Lindsay Elmendorf
Birth Date:13 April 1917
Birth Place:Ruby, South Carolina, United States
Spouse:John van Gaasbeek Elmendorf (1937 -1980)
John L. Landgraf (1981 - 2010)

Mary Lindsay Elmendorf (1917-2017) was an American applied anthropologist, recognized mainly for her work with the Mayan women of Mexico and her application of anthropology in consultation with technology.[1] Her early work involved rural south and the slums of Boston and New Haven as well as in the Putney School in Vermont and Mexico. Her application of anthropology focused mainly on involving women with planning and implementation of suitable technologies for those women and others to choose and manage their development strategies.

Life and education

Elmendorf met her first husband, John Elmendorf, as a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; they married in December 1937.[1] John Elmendorf died in 1980 and she eventually remarried Dr. John Landgraf (1914 - 2010).[2] [3]

She attended St. Pauls High School in 1933 and was a valedictorian.[4] [5] and earned her B.A. Psychology (1937) and her M.A. equivalent in Public Administration and Social Work (1941) at UNC-Chapel Hill.[4] She graduated from school in Anthropology (1946 - 1948) and then attended Union Graduate School in 1972 earning a Ph.D. in Anthropology.

Elmendorf became affiliated with the American Anthropological Association, the Society for Applied Anthropology, the Association for the Advancement of Science, the AAUW, the United Nations Association of the US, the UNIFEM/Gulf Coast Chapter, and the Democratic Club.[4] She volunteered with the American Friends Service Committee in 1944 - 1946. She was the head of the CARE office in Mexico (1952 - 1960) and became the first anthropologist hired by the World Bank (1975). Elmendorf was involved in various educator projects like Brown University (1962–65), Goddard College (1973), etc. Based on her work and application of anthropology, she aided at the United Nations Conferences on Women held in Mexico, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing.

Elmendorf died on September 15, 2017, at 100 years old[6]

Books and other publications

Nine Mayan Women

Elmendorf's best-known work, Nine Mayan Women, illustrates her case studies in the village of Chan Kom of Mayan women in the Yucatán Peninsula.[13] The book studies nine women who are spoken about in chapter two.[14] She covered background information on Chan Kom as well as the study itself. The rest of the book is a broader reflection of the preceding vignettes interwoven with mentions and attribution of other sources that relate to Mayan communities and culture. The main focus of her study was on the quality of life issues and the life satisfaction of Mayan women. In studying these aspects, she was able to see the Mayan women are happy and content with their lives and appear to value work as they also share a mutual respect with their husbands.

Her work has been reviewed by other scholars like Steffen W. Schmidt in Latin American Research Review. [15] And influences other scholar's work like John G. Frazier (and others) in their book, Rights, resources, culture, and conservation in the land of the Maya.[16]

Awards

List of some awards received (all from the same source):[4]

Leadership roles and honors[17]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Elmendorf. Mary L. (Mary Lindsay). Elmendorf. Mary L. (Mary Lindsay). A Guide to the Mary L. Elmendorf Papers MS Group 093. 2020-11-18. www.library.ufl.edu.
  2. Web site: John Landgraf - Obituary. 2020-10-07. www.legacy.com. en.
  3. Web site: NCFDC Home - John van G. Elmendorf, 1965-1972. 2020-10-07. ncf.sobek.ufl.edu.
  4. Web site: Mary Lindsay Elmendorf. 2020-09-23. National Women's History Museum. en.
  5. Web site: Webpage Temp. 2020-10-04. www.library.ufl.edu.
  6. Web site: Mary Elmendorf (1917 - 2017) - Obituary. 2020-10-07. www.legacy.com. en.
  7. Book: Elmendorf, Mary L. (Mary Lindsay). Nine Mayan women: a village faces change.. Schenkman Pub. Co. 1976. 0-470-23862-3. Cambridge, Mass.. 979286.
  8. Book: Elmendorf, Mary L. (Mary Lindsay). Sociocultural aspects of water supply and excreta disposal. 1980. Transportation, Water and Telecommunications Dept., the World Bank. 7297099.
  9. Book: Elmendorf, Mary. Water and sanitation-related health constraints on women's contributions to the economic development of communities. 1982. WASH. 9876815.
  10. Elmendorf. Mary. Isely. Raymond. 1981. Public and Private Roles of Women in Water Supply and Sanitation Programs. Human Organization. 42. 3. 195–204. 10.17730/humo.42.3.d866372826q05745. 0018-7259.
  11. Book: International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (9th, 1973, Chicago, Ill.). Women cross-culturally : change and challenge. 2011. Mouton. 978-3-11-081856-7. 1030396000.
  12. Book: Elmendorf, Mary L. (Mary Lindsay). From Southern belle to global rebel : memoirs of anthropologist and activist Mary Lindsay Elmendorf. Sharon Fitzpatrick Publications. 2012. 978-0-9841385-3-1. 342. 793519816.
  13. Web site: Elmendorf, Mary L. (Mary Lindsay). Nine Mayan women: a village faces change.
  14. Schmidt. Steffen W.. 1983. Lavrin. Asuncion. Henderson. James D.. Henderson. Linda Roddy. Kelley. Jane Holden. Elmendorf. Mary Lindsay. Roberts. George W.. Sinclair. Sonja A.. León de Leal. Magdalena . Magdalena León de Leal. Committee. Wellesley Editorial. Women, Politics and Development. Latin American Research Review. 18. 1. 210–227. 10.1017/S0023879100034154 . 2502868. 253139751 . 0023-8791. free.
  15. Book: Schoultz, Lars. Human Rights and United States Policy Toward Latin America. 1981-12-31. Princeton University Press. 978-1-4008-5429-5. Princeton. 10.1515/9781400854295.
  16. Gorenflo. Larry J.. 2004. Rights, Resources, Culture, and Conservation in the Land of the Maya edited by Betty B. Faust, E.N. Anderson and John G. Frazier (2004), xxi + 296 pp., Praeger Publishers, Westport, USA. ISBN 0 89789 731 5 (hbk), £46.99/$82.00.. Oryx. 39. 2. 228. 10.1017/s0030605305220483. 0030-6053. free.
  17. Web site: Webpage Temp. 2020-11-23. www.library.ufl.edu.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mary Lindsay Elmendorf".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.