Ethel Alpenfels was born in 1907. She was a professor of anthropology at N.Y.U. Alpenfels was very strongly against racism. She helped bring programs that taught anthropology and race to high school kids. Alpenfels said this regarding race, "People are always making positive statements to children about race. Why not tell them the facts as far as science has discovered them? I start right in telling them that what looks like inferiority turns out to be mere difference." She also co-wrote a book on racism called Sense and Nonsense about Race.
Alpenfels did some research on the number of women in teaching positions in colleges. In the start of the sixties she found that the number of women teaching was lower then in the years leading up to that point. It was also found that less women were going into science. She stated that women have every right to teach and that teaching should be based on the performance of the individual. These findings helped fuel a modern women's movement.
She also earned many awards for her teaching and activism. She earned the teacher of the year award, the Woman of the year award by the National Organization for Negro Women in 1955 and an award from the Child Welfare League, just to name a few. She was so influential that she was put in the Who’s Who or American Women book.
Ethel Alpenfels died in 1981.
References
Who’s Who? Of American Women, 8th Edition, Chicago, IL, Marquis, 1969
Alepnfels, Ethel J, Anthropology Newsletter, 23:3, 1982
Anthropology for Youngsters, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,933401,00.html (2008)
Written By: Kaitlin Astleford
Edited By: Laura Buswell 2008