Parsons, Elsie Clews

Parsons, Elsie Clews
orig. Elsie Worthington Clews

born Nov. 27, 1875, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died Dec. 19, 1941, New York City

U.S. sociologist, anthropologist, and folklorist.

She was trained in sociology. Her early works, advocating women's rights, included The Family (1906) and The Old-Fashioned Woman (1913). She later turned to anthropology under the influence of Franz Boas and Alfred L. Kroeber. Her Pueblo Indian Religion (1936) and Mitla (1936) remain standard studies of Pueblo and Zapotec Indian cultures. She also produced notable collections of West Indian and African American folklore.

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▪ American anthropologist
née  Elsie Worthington Clews 
born Nov. 27, 1875, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died Dec. 19, 1941, New York City

      American sociologist and anthropologist whose studies of the Pueblo (Pueblo Indians) and other Native American peoples of the southwestern United States remain standard references.

      Elsie Clews attended private schools and graduated from Barnard College (1896). She then studied history and sociology at Columbia University (M.A., 1897; Ph.D., 1899) and was appointed a Hartley House fellow at Barnard. In 1900 she married Herbert Parsons, a New York attorney and politician. From 1902 she was a lecturer in sociology at Barnard, but with her husband's election to Congress in 1905 she resigned and accompanied him to Washington, D.C. Her first book, The Family, was published the following year; a textbook and a feminist tract founded on sociological research and analysis, it contained a lengthy discussion of trial marriage, which generated some notoriety and helped it to enjoy a large sale. To avoid further embarrassing her husband in his political career, Parsons used the pseudonym “John Main” for her next two books, Religious Chastity (1913) and The Old Fashioned Woman (1913), the latter of which is a sharp and witty analysis of the genesis of traditional sex roles and behaviour and the cultural codes that sustain them. Fear and Conventionality (1914), Social Freedom (1915), and Social Rule (1916) appeared under her own name.

      On a trip to the Southwest in 1915, Parsons met the anthropologists Franz Boas (Boas, Franz) and Pliny E. Goddard, who interested her in their work among Native Americans of the region. After further studies with Boas at Columbia, she embarked on a 25-year career of field research and writing that established her as perhaps the leading authority on the Pueblo and on other tribes in North America, Mexico, and South America. Aware of the need for exactness and detail, she collected a vast amount of data that led to useful and influential syntheses of knowledge, culminating in Pueblo Indian Religion, 2 vol. (1939). Her interest in all possible influences on Pueblo peoples led her to investigations among Native Americans of the Great Plains and of Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and the Caribbean. The Zapotec Indians of the state of Oaxaca, in Mexico, are the subject of her widely acclaimed work Mitla: Town of the Souls (1936). The results of her Andean researches were published in Peguche, Canton of Otavalo (1945).

      Parsons also published a number of works on West Indian and African American folklore, including Folk-Tales of Andros Island, Bahamas (1918); Folk-Lore from the Cape Verde Islands (1923), gathered from black Cape Verdeans in Massachusetts; Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina (1923), dealing with the area's the Gullah-speaking people; and Folk-Lore of the Antilles, French and English, 3 vol. (1933–43).

      From 1918 Parsons was associate editor of the Journal of American Folklore. Her only teaching post in later years was a lectureship in 1919 at the newly opened New School for Social Research, where one of her students was Ruth F. Benedict (Benedict, Ruth). She was the first woman to be elected president of the American Anthropological Association, but she did not live to deliver her inaugural address, which dealt with the abuse of anthropology to further racist schemes.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Parsons, Elsie Clews — orig. Elsie Worthington Clews (27 nov. 1875, Nueva York, N.Y., EE.UU.–19 dic. 1941, N.Y.). Socióloga, antropóloga y folclorista estadounidense. Se graduó en sociología. Entre sus primeras obras, centradas en la defensa de los derechos de la mujer …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Elsie Clews Parsons — Infobox Person name = Elsie Clews Parsons image size = caption = birth date = birth date|1875|11|27 birth place = death date = death date|1941|12|19 death place = education = Ph.D. in sociology, Columbia University (1899) occupation =… …   Wikipedia

  • Elsie Clews Parsons — (* 27. November 1875 in New York City; † 19. Dezember 1941 in New York City) war eine US amerikanische Soziologin und Anthropologin. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Leben 2 Ämter 3 Veröffentlichungen …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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  • Elsie — /el see/, n. a female given name, form of Elizabeth. * * * (as used in expressions) de Wolfe Elsie Franklin Rosalind Elsie Parsons Elsie Clews Elsie Worthington Clews * * * …   Universalium

  • Elsie — (as used in expressions) Franklin, Rosalind (Elsie) Parsons, Elsie Clews Elsie Worthington Clews Wolfe, Elsie de …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Parsons — The name Parsons may refer to:People* Alan Parsons * Albert Parsons * Alibe Parsons * Andy Parsons * Benny Parsons * Betty Parsons, New York art dealer * Bob Parsons * Charles Parsons (philosopher) * Charles Algernon Parsons, engineer, best known …   Wikipedia

  • Parsons — /pahr seuhnz/, n. 1. Talcott /tawl kot, tal /, 1902 79, U.S. sociologist and author. 2. Theophilus, 1750 1813, U.S. jurist. 3. a town in SE Kansas. 12,898. * * * (as used in expressions) Burkitt Denis Parsons Parsons Elsie Clews Parsons Sir… …   Universalium

  • Clews — may refer to: Clew, a part of a sail Clews Competition Motorcycles, a British motorcycle manufacturer People Benj Clews, founder of the website Four Word Film Review Charles Clews (1919–2009), Maltese comedian Elsie Clews Parsons (1875–1941),… …   Wikipedia

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