Ruth Sawtell Wallis
1895-1978

"Wallis devoted most of her intellectual enery to her teaching and encouraged the next generation of anthropologists, having a significant impact on their lives and careers" (Case 1988:365)

Selected Works by and about Wallis

Collins, June M.
1979  Ruth Sawtell Wallis 1895-1978.  American Anthropologist 81:85-87.

Wallis, Ruth Sawtell
1929  Ossification and Growth of Children from One to Eight Years of Age.   American Journal of Diseases of Children 37:61-87.

1944  No Bones About It.  New York: Dodd, Mead, and Co.

     Interesting Websites

American Association of Physical Anthropologists

Elizabeth Colson

Sources:

Case, Patricia
1988  Ruth Sawtell Wallis.  In Women Anthropologists: A Biographical Dictionary.  Ute Gacs, Aisha Khan, Jerrie McIntyre, Ruth Weinberg, eds.  Pp. 361-366.  New York: Greenwood Press.

Collins, June M.
1979  Ruth Sawtell Wallis 1895-1978.  American Anthropologist 81:85-87.

Wallis, Ruth Sawtell
1931  Azilian Skeletal Remains from Montardit (Ariege) France.  In Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University 11 (4):213-53.

Wallis, Wilson D., and Ruth Sawtell Wallis
1955  The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada.  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Home

After receiving a B.A. in English from Radcliffe in 1919, Wallis, influenced by E. A. Hooten's work in physical anthropology, decided to enroll in the anthropology graduate program at Radcliffe.  Because of a Traveling Fellowship in Science from Radcliffe, Wallis was able to do research in France, Germany, and England (1923-25). Wallis excavated two Azilian graves at Montardit (Ariege) in the French Pyrenees, and discovered the first Azilian skeletons in France. 

Cranium of Montardit I

Wallis wrote both a scholarly work, Azilian Skeletal Remains from Montardit (Ariege) France (1931), and a popular account, Primitive Hearths in the Pyrenees (1927), based upon her research of the Azilian skeletons. Her well-written popular account of the project made archaeology accessible to the general public.

Upon her return from France, Wallis transferred to Columbia University, where she worked for Boas, whose research on the growth of children insired her. Her work in children's growth studies for the Bureau of Home Economics (1937-38) was the largest effort to gather data on children's growth.  This work led to the standardization of children's clothing sizes. 

In the 1950s, Ruth Wallis conducted fieldwork in collaboration with her husband.  Their ethnography of the Micmac, The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada, which was begun by Wilson Wallis in 1911-12, was expanded in 1955. 

A Micmac family group in Nova Scotia

They sought to document the extent of culture loss and changes in attitudes and motivation among the Micmac.