Elsie Clews Parsons

Lore & Background

Elsie Clews Parsons was an American anthropologist, sociologist, folklorist, and feminist. Her physical appearance is not recorded in the source. Her professional range extended across the southwestern United States and Mexico, where she conducted fieldwork among Native American tribes including the Tewa and Hopi. Her habitat was primarily academic and intellectual; she helped establish The New School and held editorial roles at *The Journal of American Folklore*, serving as its associate editor for over two decades. She also served as president of the American Folklore Society and the American Ethnological Society, and was elected the first female president of the American Anthropological Association shortly before her death. Defining characteristics of her career include a belief that folklore is essential for understanding a culture and that anthropology could serve as a tool for social change. Her major work, *Pueblo Indian Religion*, is considered a classic but has been criticized for relying on intrusive and deceptive research methods. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and her master’s and Ph.D. from Columbia University. The American Ethnological Society awards the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize for the best graduate student essay in her honor.

Reader's Guide

Elsie Clews Parsons’s career bridged sociology, anthropology, and folklore, with a conviction that folklore unlocked cultural understanding and that anthropology could drive social reform. She conducted extensive fieldwork among Native American groups, notably the Tewa and Hopi of Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. Her synthesis *Pueblo Indian Religion* remains a landmark compilation of her own and others’ research, though later scholars criticized its reliance on intrusive and deceptive methods. She also produced ethnographic works on Mitla, Mexico, and Peguche, as well as folklore collections from the Cape Verde Islands, the Sea Islands, the Micmac, and the Antilles. Parsons helped found The New School and held key editorial and leadership roles: associate editor of *The Journal of American Folklore* (1918–1941), president of the American Folklore Society (1919–1920), president of the American Ethnological Society (1923–1925), and, shortly before her death, the first female president of the American Anthropological Association (1941). Her feminist writings, published under the pseudonym John Main, advocated trial marriages, divorce by mutual consent, and reliable contraception—views considered extremely radical at the time. The American Ethnological Society honors her with the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize for the best graduate student essay, awarded every other year.

Did You Know?

• Elsie Clews Parsons was elected the first female president of the American Anthropological Association shortly before her death.
• She helped found The New School.
• She published two controversial books under the pseudonym John Main while her husband was in Congress.
• Her work Pueblo Indian Religion is considered a classic, though it has been criticized as based on intrusive and deceptive research techniques.