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"Before Margaret Mead, even before Ruth Benedict, it was Elsie Clews Parsons who paved the way as the first woman president of the American Anthropological Association. Born into a prominent New York family in 1874, Parsons showed early determination to be free of social constraints. Everything she did until her death in 1941 stemmed from her concern for the ways in which expression of personality is affected by social conventions. Her proposal of "trial marriage" in 1906 and even her pacifism in World War I (in association with Randolph Bourne) derived from that concern.Parson's personality was fascinating in its tensions and complexity. She was a feminist who admitted to prejudice against her own sex and seldom enjoyed the companionship of other women. She was devoted to her politically prominent husband from whom she never concealed her relationships with other men. However, her husband's companionship with another woman tormented her. Her publications ranged from iconoclastic propaganda to technical science. She loved rugged adventure in the wild, yet thrived on scholarly work. Though her convictions were passionately held, her voice was never raised". - Publisher.
Boss-lady had a unique position in Boss-man's, an old, retired, pimp's, whorehouse. She was the madam in charge of keeping the girls on their toes, or backs, as it were. And to top things off, Boss-man had given her permission to throw weekly parties in which she was allowed to freak with any of the women she chose. She being a recently released lesbian from prison, took full advantage of Boss's gratuity.Everything was running fine until the elderly Boss-man suffered a fatal heart attack, some saying, because of the pressure he was under to sell the Mob's dope, which they forced on him, and he didn't know how to handle, while fearing the wrath of the organization if he messed up.Immediately ...
Elsie Clews Parsons was a pioneering feminist, an eminent anthropologist, and an ardent social critic. In Elsie Clews Parsons, Desley Deacon reconstructs Parsons's efforts to overcome gender biases in both academia and society. "Wonderfully illuminating. . . . Parsons's work resonates strikingly to current trends in anthropology."—George W. Stocking, Jr., Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "This is the biography of a woman so interesting and effective—a cross between Margaret Mead and Georgia O'Keeffe. . . . A nuanced portrait of this vivid woman."—Tanya Luhrmann, New York Times Book Review "A marvelous new book about the life of Elsie Clews Parsons. . . . It's as though she is sitting on the next rock, a contemporary struggling with the same issues that confront women today: how to combine work, love and child-rearing into one life."—Abigail Trafford, Washington Post "Parsons's splendid life and work continue to illuminate current puzzles about acculturation and diversity."—New Yorker
Widely admired by cultural critics and the avant garde when it was first published, Fear and Conventionality broke new ground for American anthropology. In it, Elsie Clews Parsons turns a cool and ironic eye on the mores and customs of her own upper-class New York society. A modern mind at the turn of the century, Parsons challenged social conventions about gender and family as part of the new feminist movement. Witty, graceful, and impassioned, this book will be of interest to social and cultural historians and anyone interested in early twentieth-century America.
The rich religious beliefs and ceremonials of the Pueblo Indians of Arizona and New Mexico were first synthesized and compared by ethnologist Elsie Clews Parsons. Prodigious research and a quarter-century of fieldwork went into her 1939 encyclopedic two-volume work, Pueblo Indian Religion. The author gives an integrated picture of the complex religious and social life in the pueblos, including Zuni, Acoma, Laguna, Taos, Isleta, Sandia, Jemez, Cochiti, Santa Clara, San Felipe, Santa Domingo, San Juan, and the Hopi villages. In volume I she discusses shelter, social structure, land tenure, customs, and popular beliefs. Parsons also describes spirits, cosmic notions, and a wide range of rituals...
DIVNearly 100 tales offer an unparalleled glimpse into beliefs, culture of Pueblo Indians: "The Kachina Suitors and Coyote," "The Envious Hunter," "The Jealous Girls," "Echo Boy," many more. /div
Noted pioneer anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons published four articles on Laguna, Zuni, Hopi, and Tewa mothers and children in the British anthropological journal Man. Editor Babcock, a professor at the University of Arizona, has supplemented these unfamiliar pieces with seven Parsons articles from American journals on Zuni fertility, conception and pregnancy beliefs, women's life cycle, men-women; Hopi and Tewa wedding practices; the Nativity Myth at Laguna and Zuni (1918). Babcock, known for her work on women anthropologists in the Southwest and on Cochiti potter Helen Cordero and the Pueblo Storyteller tradition, provides a valuable introduction on Elsie Clews Parsons and the Pueblo Construction of Gender.
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