Mildred Mott Wedel facts for kids
Mildred Mott Wedel (born Mildred Ingram Mott; September 7, 1912 – September 4, 1995) was an American expert in Great Plains archaeology and ethnohistory. Archaeology is the study of human history through digging up old sites and artifacts. Ethnohistory combines history and anthropology to study cultures and their past. Mildred Wedel was one of the first women to be professionally trained in archaeology. She was very well-known and respected in her field.
Much of her work focused on the Siouan people. She also wrote important articles about French explorers in the central and southern parts of the Great Plains.
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Mildred's Early Life and Learning
Mildred Ingram Mott was born on September 7, 1912, in Marengo, Iowa. Her parents were Vera Ingram and Frank Luther Mott. Her father was a famous journalist and a professor at the University of Iowa.
Mildred went to the University of Iowa and earned a degree in history in 1934. She then studied anthropology at the University of Chicago. In the summer of 1935, she also studied archaeology at the University of New Mexico's Jemez Field School.
In 1936, Mildred helped archaeologist Ellison Orr with excavations in Allamakee County, Iowa. She joined the University of Chicago's Dendrochronology Lab in 1937 and 1938. During this time, she worked on a field trip to the Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site with Florence Hawley.
Mildred earned her master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1938. Her master's paper was about how historic Native American tribes related to archaeological sites in Iowa. It was the most complete study of Iowa's archaeology and Native American tribes at that time.
Mildred's Career and Discoveries
In June and July 1938, Mildred Wedel led an excavation project near Webster City, Iowa. This site was from the Woodland period, an important time in North American history.
On August 12, 1939, she married Waldo Rudolph Wedel, who was also an archaeologist. They had three children together. At that time, her husband worked at the Smithsonian Institution, a famous museum and research center. In the summer of 1940, the Wedels worked together on an archaeology project in Kansas.
After World War II, from 1945 into the 1960s, Mildred helped her husband with "salvage archaeology" projects for the Smithsonian. These projects often involved quickly digging up sites before they were destroyed, especially in the Dakotas.
Mildred also did a lot of her own ethnohistory research. She studied French explorers in the Central and Southern Plains, like Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe and Pierre-Charles Le Sueur. She wrote about the origins of the Caddoan Mississippian culture and about the Ioway and Wichita people.
In 1951, the Wedel family, including their children, went to an excavation site in South Dakota. In the 1960s and 1970s, Mildred worked as a consultant for the Ioway and Otoe people. She helped them with their legal cases about land. She also advised the 1700 Ioway Indian Farm at Living History Farms, an outdoor museum in Iowa. In 1974, she became a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution.
Awards and Special Recognition
Mildred Wedel received several awards for her important work:
- In 1980, she won the Keyes/Orr Award for Distinguished Service from the Iowa Archeological Society.
- In 1992, she received the Distinguished Service Award for her lifetime achievements from the Plains Anthropological Society.
- In 1985, the American Anthropological Association honored her.
- In 1988, a special meeting was held in her honor at the Plains Conference.
Mildred's Legacy
Mildred Wedel passed away on September 4, 1995, in Boulder, Colorado.
Her contributions to archaeology and ethnohistory are still remembered. She is one of the women featured in the Plaza of Heroines at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.
