FLETCHER, ALICE

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. She had studied archaeology at the Peabody, starting rather late in her life - in the late 1870's. Her objective was to come to understand and appreciate the Native American view of the world and to convey that understanding to others. In 1881 she arranged to live with and study the Omaha Indians of Nebraska. In 1889 she moved to the Nez Percé Reservation in Lapwai, Idaho. She brought the scientific rigor of archaeology to the study of ethnology. 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 - 1st woman to hold that position) 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 was a consultant to President Grover Cleveland on the "Indian Problem". She was also the 1st woman to be recognized as a fellow at Harvard University.