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Alice Cunningham Fletcher was an ethnologist who because a special agent for the US Indian Bureau and eventually a research fellow at the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her objective in life was to come to understand and appreciate the Native American view of the world and to convey that understanding to others.
She had studied archaeology at the Peabody, starting rather late in her life - in the late 1870's.
Her field work was extensive -
1881, 1882 ................Sioux
1881-1882 ................ Omahas, Nebraska
1886 ......................Alaska
1887 ......................Winnebagoes
1889-1890, 1891............Nez-Percé, Lapwai, Idaho
She brought the scientific rigor of archaeology to the study of ethnology. In 1873 she helped to found the Association for the Advancement of Women (AAW). In 1887 she pushed the Dawes Act through the Congress - the act apportioned land by individual rather than by tribe. She served as vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1896), president of the Anthropological Society of Washington (1903), president of the American Folk-Lore Society (1905) and founding member of the American Anthropological Association (1902). She was the first ethnologist ever to produce a complete description of a Plains Indian ceremony. The PBS web site has a very nice article about her that includes a photo. She also served as a consultant to President Cleveland on "the Indian problem".