Frederica de Laguna
Encyclopedia
Frederica de Laguna (1906, Ann Arbor, Michigan
– October 6, 2004) was an American anthropologist. Her parents, Theodore Lopez de Leo de Laguna
and Grace Mead Andrus
, were, respectively, Spanish-American
and, in Frederica's own words, "Connecticut Yankee". Both received doctorates from Cornell
and would later teach philosophy at Bryn Mawr College
. On her father's side she also had French, German, and Italian ancestry.
She is most noted for her work with the Tlingit and Athapaskan peoples, as well as being one of the first female archaeologists in the United States
. Margaret Mead
and Dr. de Laguna were the first female anthropologist
s elected to the National Academy of Sciences
, in 1975. Later, she was also influenced by A. Irving Hallowell.
She received a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College, graduating summa cum laude, in 1927. She then pursued a doctorate in anthropology at Columbia University
, where she studied under Franz Boas
and took classes with Ruth Benedict
and Gladys Reichard. Her doctoral research in Greenland
and France
was initiated by Boas's suggestion that she search for possible European paleolithic
sources for Eskimo (Inuit
) art styles, with an eye toward proving that the Inuit were of European, not Siberia
n, derivation. Around this time she also took courses at the London School of Economics
with Bronislaw Malinowski
and C. G. Seligman. She reports that Malinowski tormented her because of her association with his nemesis, Boas.
In 1929, she assisted Therkel Mathiassen
at his Norse culture archaeological excavation at Inugsuk, Greenland. Beginning in 1930 from the Kachemak Bay
area, she did archaeological fieldwork in Alaska
and the Yukon
. In 1930 Kaj Birket-Smith
was supposed to join her, but due to illness, the latter was unable to come. Thus in 1930, she went to Alaska on her own. While in Cordova, Alaska
, the local marshal began to explain to her about the indigenous peoples
of the area, insisting that the Eyak
were a people of their own, thus introducing them to American science. In 1933 Birket-Smith was able to come, and he, Frederica, her brother Wallace de Laguna and mother Grace de Laguna
as well as Norman “Sandy” Reynolds spent that summer mostly in archaeological excavations in the Prince William Sound. However, when they came to Cordova, the area was still covered with snow and ice, and archaeological work was impossible. Thus they spent the first 17 days with the Eyak, and their now extinct (as of January 21, 2008) language. Frederica and Reynolds brought their notes to the attention of Franz Boas
and Edward Sapir
, i.e. western academic attention for the first time. The result was that these two scholars concluded that Eyak was not an Athapaskan language, but formed an independent branch of the same language family
, being also more distantly related to Tlingit. (It is curious to note that the Russians had known about them since Zaikov’s visit to Prince William Sound
in 1783, but no information was passed on concerning it to the scholars of the United States after the sale of Alaska, even though Russians, e.g. Ferdinand von Wrangell (1839) and Ioann Veniaminov (1840) had published information on them).
She received her Ph.D. from Columbia in 1933.
In 1936 and 1937 she did fieldwork on the Pima
reservation in Arizona
and with Salish, Makah, and other peoples in Washington State and on Vancouver Island
.
Starting in 1938, she taught anthropology at Bryn Mawr and eventually founded the anthropology program there. She retired in 1975.
She joined the U.S. Naval Reserve
in 1942 and taught at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School for Women at Smith College
in Northampton, Massachusetts
, where she taught cryptography
. She spent most of the Second World War working for Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C.
, and reached the rank of lieutenant commander.
Beginning in 1949, she did extensive fieldwork among the Tlingit of southeast Alaska
, the work for which she is best known. She focused on the communities of Angoon
and Yakutat and did some fieldwork with her former students Catherine McClellan and Marie-Françoise Guédon
.
She was scientifically active until the very last days of her life. She also followed modern technology and made use of it. While aged 82, she observed the faculty of the Alaska Native Language Center
use a Macintosh
computer. She immediately recognized the value of this device and bought one for herself. Later, at age 92, she began to use e-mail
, which she finally had to give up some months prior to her death due to her failing eyesight.
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
– October 6, 2004) was an American anthropologist. Her parents, Theodore Lopez de Leo de Laguna
Theodore de Laguna
Theodore de Laguna was an American philosopher who taught for years at Bryn Mawr College and was known as an early feminist.-Biography:He was the son of Alexandro Francisco Lopez de Leo de Laguna, a French-U.S...
and Grace Mead Andrus
Grace de Laguna
Grace de Laguna was an American philosopher who taught at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.Grace Mead Andrus, as she was born, was of Connecticut ancestry, her father Wallace R. Andrus, having served in the 17th Connecticut Volunteers in the Civil War; he was later a land agent for the Northern...
, were, respectively, Spanish-American
Spanish American
A Spanish American is a citizen or resident of the United States whose ancestors originate from the southwestern European nation of Spain. Spanish Americans are the earliest European American group, with a continuous presence since 1565.-Immigration waves:...
and, in Frederica's own words, "Connecticut Yankee". Both received doctorates from Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
and would later teach philosophy at Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
. On her father's side she also had French, German, and Italian ancestry.
She is most noted for her work with the Tlingit and Athapaskan peoples, as well as being one of the first female archaeologists in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
and Dr. de Laguna were the first female anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
s elected to the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, in 1975. Later, she was also influenced by A. Irving Hallowell.
She received a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College, graduating summa cum laude, in 1927. She then pursued a doctorate in anthropology at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where she studied under Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
and took classes with Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict
Ruth Benedict was an American anthropologist, cultural relativist, and folklorist....
and Gladys Reichard. Her doctoral research in Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
was initiated by Boas's suggestion that she search for possible European paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
sources for Eskimo (Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
) art styles, with an eye toward proving that the Inuit were of European, not Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
n, derivation. Around this time she also took courses at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
with Bronislaw Malinowski
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bronisław Kasper Malinowski was a Polish-born- British-naturalized anthropologist, one of the most important 20th-century anthropologists.From 1910, Malinowski studied exchange and economics at the London School of Economics under Seligman and Westermarck, analysing patterns of exchange in...
and C. G. Seligman. She reports that Malinowski tormented her because of her association with his nemesis, Boas.
In 1929, she assisted Therkel Mathiassen
Therkel Mathiassen
Therkel Mathiassen was an archaeologist, anthropologist, cartographer, and ethnographer notable for his scientific study of the Arctic....
at his Norse culture archaeological excavation at Inugsuk, Greenland. Beginning in 1930 from the Kachemak Bay
Kachemak Bay
Kachemak Bay is a 64-km-long arm of Cook Inlet in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southwest side of the Kenai Peninsula. The communities of Homer, Halibut Cove, Seldovia, Nanwalek, Port Graham, and Kachemak City are on the bay as well as three Old Believer settlements in the Fox River...
area, she did archaeological fieldwork in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and the Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
. In 1930 Kaj Birket-Smith
Kaj Birket-Smith
Kaj Birket-Smith was a Danish philologist and anthropologist. He specialized in studying the habits and language of the Inuit and Eyak. Birket-Smith was a member of Knud Rasmussen's 1921 Thule expedition...
was supposed to join her, but due to illness, the latter was unable to come. Thus in 1930, she went to Alaska on her own. While in Cordova, Alaska
Cordova, Alaska
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,454 people, 958 households, and 597 families residing in the city. The population density was 40.0 per square mile . There are 1,099 housing units at an average density of 17.9 per square mile...
, the local marshal began to explain to her about the indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
of the area, insisting that the Eyak
Eyak
The Eyak are an indigenous group traditionally located on the Copper River Delta and near the town of Cordova, Alaska.-Territory:The Eyak's territory reached from present day Cordova east to the Martin River and north to Miles Glacier....
were a people of their own, thus introducing them to American science. In 1933 Birket-Smith was able to come, and he, Frederica, her brother Wallace de Laguna and mother Grace de Laguna
Grace de Laguna
Grace de Laguna was an American philosopher who taught at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.Grace Mead Andrus, as she was born, was of Connecticut ancestry, her father Wallace R. Andrus, having served in the 17th Connecticut Volunteers in the Civil War; he was later a land agent for the Northern...
as well as Norman “Sandy” Reynolds spent that summer mostly in archaeological excavations in the Prince William Sound. However, when they came to Cordova, the area was still covered with snow and ice, and archaeological work was impossible. Thus they spent the first 17 days with the Eyak, and their now extinct (as of January 21, 2008) language. Frederica and Reynolds brought their notes to the attention of Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
and Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was an American anthropologist-linguist, widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the early development of the discipline of linguistics....
, i.e. western academic attention for the first time. The result was that these two scholars concluded that Eyak was not an Athapaskan language, but formed an independent branch of the same language family
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
, being also more distantly related to Tlingit. (It is curious to note that the Russians had known about them since Zaikov’s visit to Prince William Sound
Prince William Sound
Prince William Sound is a sound off the Gulf of Alaska on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is located on the east side of the Kenai Peninsula. Its largest port is Valdez, at the southern terminus of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System...
in 1783, but no information was passed on concerning it to the scholars of the United States after the sale of Alaska, even though Russians, e.g. Ferdinand von Wrangell (1839) and Ioann Veniaminov (1840) had published information on them).
She received her Ph.D. from Columbia in 1933.
In 1936 and 1937 she did fieldwork on the Pima
Pima
The Pima are a group of American Indians living in an area consisting of what is now central and southern Arizona. The long name, "Akimel O'odham", means "river people". They are closely related to the Tohono O'odham and the Hia C-ed O'odham...
reservation in Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
and with Salish, Makah, and other peoples in Washington State and on Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
.
Starting in 1938, she taught anthropology at Bryn Mawr and eventually founded the anthropology program there. She retired in 1975.
She joined the U.S. Naval Reserve
United States Navy Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve, until 2005 known as the United States Naval Reserve, is the Reserve Component of the United States Navy...
in 1942 and taught at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School for Women at Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
in Northampton, Massachusetts
Northampton, Massachusetts
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of Northampton's central neighborhoods, was 28,549...
, where she taught cryptography
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
. She spent most of the Second World War working for Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and reached the rank of lieutenant commander.
Beginning in 1949, she did extensive fieldwork among the Tlingit of southeast Alaska
Alaska Panhandle
Southeast Alaska, sometimes referred to as the Alaska Panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, which lies west of the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The majority of Southeast Alaska's area is part of the Tongass National Forest, the United...
, the work for which she is best known. She focused on the communities of Angoon
Angoon, Alaska
Angoon is a city on Admiralty Island in Hoonah-Angoon Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 572, by the 2010 census the population had declined to 459...
and Yakutat and did some fieldwork with her former students Catherine McClellan and Marie-Françoise Guédon
Marie-Françoise Guédon
Marie-Françoise Guédon, Ph.D., is a Canadian anthropologist and professor of religious studies at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada. She has done fieldwork among the Inuit, Gitksan, Ahtna, and Tanana peoples of Canada and Alaska....
.
She was scientifically active until the very last days of her life. She also followed modern technology and made use of it. While aged 82, she observed the faculty of the Alaska Native Language Center
Alaska Native Language Center
The Alaska Native Language Center, established in 1972 in Fairbanks, Alaska, is a research center focusing on the research and documentation of the Alaska's Native languages. It publishes grammars, dictionaries, folklore collections and research materials, as well as hosting an extensive archive of...
use a Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
computer. She immediately recognized the value of this device and bought one for herself. Later, at age 92, she began to use e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, which she finally had to give up some months prior to her death due to her failing eyesight.
Works
- (1956) Chugach Prehistory: The Archaeology of Prince William Sound, Alaska. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
- (1972) Under Mount Saint Elias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit. Washington: Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
Press. - (1977) Voyage to Greenland: A Personal Initiation into Anthropology. New York: W. W. NortonW. W. NortonW. W. Norton & Company is an independent American book publishing company based in New York City. It is well known for its "Norton Anthologies", particularly the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the "Norton Critical Editions" series of texts which are frequently assigned in university...
. - (1995) Tales from the Dena: Indian Stories from the Tanana, Koyukuk and Yukon Rivers. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
- (2000) Travels among the Dena: Exploring Alaska's Yukon River. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Sources
- de Laguna, Frederica (2004) "Becoming an Anthropologist: My Debt to European and Other Scholars Who Influenced Me." In: Coming to Shore: Northwest Coast Ethnology, Traditions, and Visions, ed. by Marie Mauzé, Michael E. Harkin, and Sergei Kan, pp. 23–52. Lincoln: University of Nebraska PressUniversity of Nebraska PressThe University of Nebraska Press, founded in 1941, is a publisher of scholarly and popular-press books. It is the second-largest state university press in the United States and, including private institutions, ranks among the 10 largest university presses in the United States...
.
External links
- http://www.fredericadelaguna.com/
- http://www.brynmawr.edu/emeritus/delaguna.html
- http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/cdmg21&CISOPTR=1666&REC=2 : Early Portrait of Frederica De Laguna at Alaska's Digital Archives
- Register to the Papers of Frederica de Laguna, Part 1: Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
- Register to the Papers of Frederica de Laguna, Part 2: Audio Reels, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution