Matilda Coxe Evans Stevenson 1849 - 1915 |
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Matilda Coxe Stevenson with Pueblo woman, mid 1890s. "It is my wish
to erect a foundation upon which students may
build... I make no claim that my paper on Zuni will
exhaust the subject. On the contrary, it but opens
the subject but I think and hope it may open wide the
gates for other students to pass the more rapidly over
the many, many parts which I have left unexplored (in
Parezo 1999: 38)."
Selected Works By Evans Stevenson (includes unpublished manuscripts on file at the Smithsonian Institution) 1881 The Zuni and the Zunians. Washington, D.C.: Privately printed. 1886 The Sandpaintings of the Navaho. Paper presented to the Women's Anthropological Society of America. 1894 The Sia. Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1889-1890. Washington, D.C.: GPO. Pp. 9-349. 1903 Zuni Games. American Anthropologist 5(3):468-497. 1910 Studies of the Late Washington Matthews. American Anthropologist 12:345. 1915 Ethnobotany of the Zuni
Indians. Thirtieth Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology for 1908-1908. Washington, D.C.:
GPO. Pp. 3-102. Sources and Works About Stevenson Historical Maps of the United States. 1999 The Perry-Castaņeda Library Map Collection. The University of Texas at Austin [downloaded from the Internet February 26]. Parezo, Nancy J. 1989 Matilda Coxe Evans Stevenson. In Women Anthropologists: Selected Bibliographies. Ute Gacs, Aisha Khan, Jerrie McIntyre, and Ruth Weinberg, eds. Pp 337-343. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Parezo, Nancy J. 1999 Matilda Coxe Stevenson: Pioneer Ethnologist. In Hidden Scholars: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest. Nancy J. Parezo, ed. Pp. 38-62. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Whiteford, Andrew. 1999 Interview with Catherine Klein, February 24.
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A pioneer in
American ethnology, Matilda Coxe Evans Stevenson was the
first woman to work in the American Southwest.
Known especially for her work with the Zuni, Matilda
Stevenson was part of the first research expedition
undertaken by the Bureau of Ethnology, assisting in the
collection of thousands of ethnographic objects and in
gathering important aspects of Pueblo cultural and social life. Largely self-taught, Evans Stevenson never earned a formal undergraduate or advanced degree which to some makes her accomplishments are all the more impressive. She was the first American ethnologist to consider children and women "worthy of notice" (Parezo 1999:41), and she was able to use her female identity to obtain information not easily accessible to male ethnographers. However, Evans Stevenson's own primary interest was religion. Evans Stevenson often felt hindered in her professional advancement (both in terms of recognition and, in the beginning, funding) and found it necessary to fight for women's professional equality. She was the first woman to be paid as a staff government anthropologist, being officially hired in the late 1890s as a temporary employee with the Bureau. The position was to become permanent and she would hold it until her death in 1915. Throughout her career, however, Evans Stevenson was always paid considerably less than her male counterparts. Elected to the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1891, and to the American Association for the Advancement of Science the following year, she was also a member of the National Society of the Fine Arts and a founding member of the Washington Academy of Sciences. Evans Stevenson was not afraid to voice her opinion and was known to be vocal about demands to be taken seriously. A formidable woman, today we celebrate Matilda Coxe Evans Stevenson - a scientist, explorer, pioneer, activist, scholar, and organizer.
Map of Zuni area in American Southwest Matilda Coxe Evans Stevenson "...was a dynamic, aggressive woman. ....[she was known to have] had a belligerent attitude.... But I wished I had known her" (Dr. Andrew H. Whiteford, 1999). Links of Interest
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