Elsie Clews Parsons


Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons 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. She was associate editor for The Journal of American Folklore, president of the American Folklore Society, president of the American Ethnological Society, and was elected the first female president of the American Anthropological Association right before her death.
She earned her bachelor's degree from Barnard College in 1896. She received her master's degree and Ph.D. 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.

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, she married future three-term Progressivism in [the United States|progressive] Republican congressman Herbert Parsons, an associate and political ally of President Teddy Roosevelt. When her husband was a member of Congress, she published two then-controversial books under the pseudonym John Main.
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.
Her work Pueblo Indian Religion is considered a classic; here she gathered all her previous extensive work and that of other authors. It has, however, been criticised as having been based on intrusive and deceptive research techniques.

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.

Works

Early works of sociology

  • The Family
  • Religious Chastity
  • The Old-Fashioned Woman
  • Fear and Conventionality
  • *
  • Social Freedom
  • ''Social Rule''

Anthropology

  • The Social Organization of the Tewa of New Mexico
  • Hopi and Zuni Ceremonialism
  • ''Pueblo Indian Religion''

Ethnographies

  • Mitla: Town of the Souls
  • ''Peguche''

Research in folklore

  • Folk-Lore from the Cape Verde Islands
  • Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, S.C.
  • Micmac Folklore
  • ''Folk-Lore of the Antilles, French and English''

Reprints