Alice Cunningham Fletcher facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Alice Cunningham Fletcher
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| Born | March 15, 1838 |
| Died | April 6, 1923 (aged 85) |
| Nationality | American |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Ethnology |
| Institutions | Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Anthropological Society of Washington American Folklore Society School of American Archaeology |
Alice Cunningham Fletcher (born March 15, 1838, in Havana, Cuba; died April 6, 1923, in Washington, D.C.) was an important American scientist. She was an ethnologist, anthropologist, and social scientist.
Alice Fletcher spent her life studying and recording the cultures of American Indian peoples. She helped us understand their traditions and ways of life.
Contents
Early Life
Not much is known about Alice Fletcher's parents. Her father was a lawyer from New York. Her mother came from a well-known family in Boston.
Her parents moved to Havana, Cuba, hoping the climate would help her father's illness. Alice was born there in 1838. After her father died in 1839, her family moved to Brooklyn Heights, New York City. Alice attended the Brooklyn Female Academy, a special school for wealthy families.
Her Career and Work
Alice Fletcher first worked as a teacher. Later, she became a public speaker to support herself. She believed that anthropologists and archaeologists were best at discovering the ancient history of humans. She also thought that Native Americans should get an education. She felt this would help them fit into American society.
Alice Fletcher became very interested in American Indian culture. This happened after she met Frederic Ward Putnam. She began working with him at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. She studied old remains of Indian civilizations in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. In 1879, she joined the Archaeological Institute of America.
From 1881, Fletcher worked with the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. At this school, Native American children learned English, math, and other skills. The goal was to help them become part of American society.
In 1881, Alice Fletcher did something very new. She traveled to live with and study the Sioux people on their reservation. She was representing the Peabody Museum. With her was Susette La Flesche, an Omaha woman who spoke for her people. Susette had helped Standing Bear in his important civil rights court case. Also with them was Thomas Tibbles, a journalist.
This time also marked the start of a 40-year friendship with Francis La Flesche. He was Susette's half-brother. They worked together professionally and had a close, almost mother-son, relationship. They shared a home in Washington, D.C., starting in 1890.
Besides her research and writing, Fletcher held several special jobs. In 1883, the U.S. government asked her to help give land to the Miwok tribes. In 1884, she created an exhibit for the World Cotton Centennial. It showed how much Native Americans in North America had progressed in 25 years. In 1886, she visited the natives of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. This was a mission from the commissioner of education. In 1887, she was a special agent for the U.S. government. She helped divide land among the Winnebago and the Nez Perce tribes. This was done under the Dawes Act.
She became an assistant in ethnology at the Peabody Museum in 1882. In 1891, she received the Thaw fellowship, which was created just for her. She was active in many professional groups. She became president of the Anthropological Society of Washington. In 1905, she was the first woman president of the American Folklore Society. She also served as vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was a longtime member of the Literary Society of Washington.
Alice Fletcher worked with the Women's National Indian Association. She started a program to give small loans to Native Americans. This helped them buy land and homes. She also helped Susan La Flesche Picotte, an Omaha woman, get a loan for medical school. Susan graduated at the top of her class. She became the first Native American woman doctor in the United States.
Later, Fletcher helped write and promote the Dawes Act of 1887. She also helped manage it. This act divided up reservation lands. It gave individual families their own plots of land instead of communal ownership.
In 1888, Fletcher published Indian Education and Civilization. This was a special report for the Bureau of Education. She was a pioneer in studying American Indian music. She started this research with a paper she gave in 1893. This was at the Chicago Anthropological Conference. In 1898, she spoke at the Congress of Musicians in Omaha, Nebraska. She read essays about the songs of North American Indians. Some Omaha Indians sang their native songs there. This led to her book Indian Story and Song from North America (1900). It explored early forms of music.
Fletcher worked with Frederic Ward Putnam on his research about Serpent Mound in Ohio. She helped raise money to buy the site in 1886. The site was given to the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society in 1900. It is now a National Historic Landmark.
In 1930, Margaret Mead began working with the Omaha people. She focused on their modern life. This was because Alice Fletcher had already done so much work on their past.
Over her life, Alice Fletcher worked with and for many tribes. These included the Omaha, Pawnee, Sioux, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Oto, Nez Percé, Ponca, and Winnebago tribes.
The Dawes Act
Alice Fletcher helped write and pass the Dawes Act of 1887. This law changed how Indigenous tribes owned land. Traditionally, these tribes owned land together as a community. The Dawes Act made individual Indigenous people own up to 160 acres of land. This land was tax-free. The government held it in trust for 25 years.
At the time, Fletcher believed this act would help Native Americans adapt to European-American ways. She thought it was the best way for them to survive. The government also wanted to gain "extra" land to sell to other Americans. The Dawes Act caused the breakup of almost all Indigenous reservations. By 1932, Native American groups had lost about 92 million of the 138 million acres they owned in 1887.
Fletcher's work with land allotment is now seen as a mistake in how Native American policies were handled. Fletcher herself may have realized this. She stopped her political policy work after 1900. She then focused only on studying cultures.
Studying the Sioux
Fletcher wrote about her 1881 trip in two journals. These journals included drawings of the plains, reservations, and her campsites. These were in eastern Nebraska and South Dakota. Some of her writings about the Sioux might seem old-fashioned today. However, "Her writings show the ideas about history and social change common in her time."
As an Author
In 1911, Alice Fletcher and Francis La Flesche published The Omaha Tribe. This book is still considered the most important work on the Omaha people. Overall, she wrote 46 detailed studies on ethnology. In 1908, she helped start the School of American Archaeology in Santa Fe, New Mexico. From 1899 to 1916, Fletcher was on the editorial board of the American Anthropologist journal. She also wrote many important articles for it.
Fletcher was a pioneer in studying Native American music. She loved their music and dancing. She wrote down hundreds of their songs. In 1898, she gave several talks about Native American songs. This was at the Congress of Musicians in Omaha, Nebraska. These talks led to her books "Indian Story and Song from North America" and "The Hako: A Pawnee Ceremony."
Death and Legacy
Alice Fletcher became President of the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1903. In 1905, she was the first woman President of the American Folklore Society. Her colleague, Walter Hough, remembered her as someone who "Mildly, peaceably, yet with great fortitude...did what she could to advance the cause of science." Her ashes are buried in the patio wall of the New Mexico Museum of Art. There is a bronze plaque with a quote from her.
Some of her recordings are kept at the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology.
Arthur Farwell's String Quartet in A major, Op. 65 The Hako, written in 1923, was inspired by Fletcher's work.
Awards and Honors
Alice Fletcher received many awards for her work. In 1890, she was given the Margaret Copley Thaw Fellowship at Harvard. This gave her money for her studies of cultures and her reform work.
Fletcher Nunatak in Antarctica is named after Alice Cunningham Fletcher.
See Also
In Spanish: Alice Cunningham Fletcher para niños
