Elsie Clews Parsons

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 12 MAY 1997

Feminist and anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons (1874-1941) published numerous articles and books on the Pueblo and other Southwestern Native American tribes, and became the first woman president of the American Anthropological Association shortly before her death. Her interest in cultural anthropology concerned the changes in ceremonies and rituals that followed the Spanish occupation of Native American lands. Considered an eccentric visionary and philanthropist by her friends and well-known colleagues, including Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, Parsons was born to a wealthy family and spent her childhood in New York and Newport. A Barnard graduate in sociology, Parsons did not adhere to traditional upper-class concepts of women's roles. She considered herself a "new woman," and her life included several lovers, adventurous arduous travel, as well as an "experimental" marriage and children. Drawing on Parsons's extensive personal and professional papers, as well as the memoirs (Mabel Dodge) and fiction (Robert Herrick) of her contemporaries, Deacon (Managing Gender) presents her material in a pedantic style ("The assertion of sexual plasticity and cultural mobility was part of the modernist project to repudiate history...") unlikely to appeal to the general reader. Although this volume boasts some 80 pages of notes, its viewpoint is not detached, and often reads more like a tribute than a biography--lacking in objective analysis of Parsons's research or writings. Although this work covers the relevant facts of Parsons's career, she never comes to life as the archetypal modern professional woman, the author intended. Photos.