Alice Cunningham Fletcher was one of America's first female anthropologists. She is best remembered for her fieldwork among the Plains Indian tribes, her writings about Indian music and culture, and her work for Indian reform and education.
Alice Fletcher was born March 15, 1838 to Thomas Gilman Fletcher, a New York lawyer, and Lucia Jenks Fletcher, a Boston socialite, in Havana, Cuba. Her parents had traveled to Cuba in an attempt to restore Thomas' ailing health. Unfortunately, he died of consumption (TB) when Alice was only 20 months old. Her mother moved to Brooklyn to raise Alice and her stepbrother and eventually remarried.
Little is known of Alice's early life. Alice herself had little to say about her first forty years, except that she attended “the best schools” and was a governess for some time. She also traveled to Europe. On her return, she lectured on a variety of topics, including women's rights, temperance and anti-tobacco. By the 1870's, she had become an active participant in several upper class feminist and suffrage groups in New York City.
Fletcher began her career in anthropology relatively late in life. By 1880
she began to study archaeology under the mentorship of Frederic Ward Putnam,
the Director of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard
University. She conducted her early fieldwork with Indian remains in Florida
and Massachusetts. Her studies in archaeology sparked an interest in living
Indians, and in 1881 she began to live among the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska.
Alice was fascinated by the culture of this tribe, especially their music
and dances. She became close to several tribal members, to the point of
unofficially adopting the son of an Omaha chief. This young man, Francis
La Flesche, became an anthropologist in his own right, and collaborated
with Alice on several of her scholarly works.
Alice's efforts to improve the lot of Native Americans reflected a missionary zeal and paternalistic attitude towards Indians that was characteristic of this time period. Fletcher, like many of her contemporaries, believed that “helping” Native Americans, whom she often referred to as her children, meant encouraging their nations to assimilate into the emerging culture of the United States. She was instrumental in the passage of the Dawes Act of 1877, which divided the communally held tribal lands among individual native owners. Alice was employed by the Department of the Interior as the first woman Indian Agent. Alice, along with her companion Jane Gay, served in this capacity with the Winnebago and Nez Perce tribes, to ensure that they received their allotment of reservation lands.
Fletcher's employment as an Indian Agent gave her the financial means to continue her intellectual pursuits and studies. In 1890, thanks to a wealthy benefactor by the name of Mary Copely Shaw, Alice gained a position at the Peabody Museum; the first woman to become a Fellow at Harvard University. Alice was a prolific author, and published numerous papers and articles. She authored several major works, including The Omaha Tribe, still considered to be the definitive work on the topic. She wrote a study on Hako, a Pawnee ceremony, and transcribed hundreds of songs of the Plains Indians.
Alice Fletcher was one of the first women to be professionally recognized for her work in anthropology. In 1883, Miss Fletcher became a Fellow Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was a Founding Member of the American Anthropological Association. She was also the first woman President of the American Folklore Society.
Alice Cunningham Fletcher died in Washington DC. on April 6, 1923, at the age of 85. Her legacy is that of a pioneering figure in anthropology. She was a woman of determination, strong opinions and enormous observational skills.
References:
“Alice Cunningham Fletcher.” Celebration of Women Anthropologists (Former) http://www.cas.usf.edu/anthropology/women/fletcher/fletcher.htm 6 Dec. 2002 (October 2006)
“Alice Cunningham Fletcher.” MPR http://news.mpr.org/features/199702/01_smiths_densmore/docs/fletcher.shtml 6 Dec. 2002
“Fletcher, Alice Cunningham.” Women in American History, Encyclopedia Britannica http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Fletcher_Alice_Cunningham.html 6 Dec. 2002
Haviland, William A. 1990 Cultural Anthropology. Sixth edition. Fort Worth, TX: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Hough, Walter. “Obituary: “Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923).”
American Anthropologist. 1923 Vol. 25:254-25.
Mark, Joan. A Stranger in Her Native Land. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1988.
Temkin, Andrea S. Ute Gacs, Aisha Khan, Jerrie McIntyre, and Ruth Weinberg, eds. Women Anthropologists: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.
A picture of Alice Fletcher can be found on either of these sites:
(Former) http://www.cas.usf.edu/anthropology/women/fletcher/fletcher.htm 6 Dec. 2002 (October 2006)
http://news.mpr.org/features/199702/01_smiths_densmore/docs/fletcher.shtml
Written by: Sue Eichhorst, 2002