Fletcher, Alice C. (Alice Cunningham), 1838-1923

Alice Cunningham Fletcher (March 15, 1838 in Havana – April 6, 1923 in Washington, D.C.) ; American ethnologist, anthropologist, and social scientist who studied and documented American Indian culture ; credited Frederic Ward Putnam for stimulating her interest in American Indian culture and began working with him at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University; from 1881, Fletcher was involved with the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania ; in 1881, Fletcher traveled to live with and study the Sioux on their reservation as a representative of the Peabody Museum, accompanied by Susette "Bright Eyes" La Flesche ; collaborated professionally and had an informal mother-son relationship with Francis La Flesche ; she was made assistant in ethnology at the Peabody Museum in 1882, and in 1891 received the Thaw fellowship, which was created for her ; in 1883 she was appointed special agent by the US to allot lands to the Miwok tribes ; in 1886 visited the natives of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands on a mission from the commissioner of education ; she worked with Frederic Ward Putnam in his research on Serpents Mound in Ohio and assisted in the efforts to raise funds to purchase the site in 1886 ; in 1887 she was appointed United States special agent in the allotment of lands among the Winnebago and the Nez Perce under the Dawes Act ; helped write, lobbied for and helped administer the Dawes Act of 1887, which broke up reservations and distributed communal land in allotments for individual household ownership of land parcels ; in 1888 Fletcher published Indian Education and Civilization, a special report of the Bureau of Education ; she was a pioneer in the study of American Indian music, a field of research inaugurated by a paper she gave in 1893 before the Chicago Anthropological Conference ; active in professional societies, she was elected president of the Anthropological Society of Washington and in 1905 as the first woman president of the American Folklore Society ; in 1908 she led in founding the School of American Archaeology in Santa Fe, New Mexico ; in 1911, with Francis La Flesche, she published The Omaha Tribe (altogether she wrote 46 monographs on ethnology).

Chronology of the Life of Alice Cunningham Fletcher ;
1838 March 15
Born in Havana, Cuba ;
1873-1876
Secretary, American Association for Advancement of Women ;
1879
Informal student of anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University ;
1881
Field trip to Omaha and Rosebud Agencies ;
1882
Assistant in ethnology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University ;
1882
Helped secure land in severalty to Omaha Indians ;
1882-1883
Begins collaboration with Francis La Flesche on the Peabody Museum's collection of Omaha and Sioux artifacts ;
1883-1884
Special Agent, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Omaha Agency ;
1886
Bureau of Education investigation of Alaskan native education ;
1887-1888
Special Disbursing Agent, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Winnebago Agency ;
1889-1892
Special Agent for allotment, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Nez Perce Agency ;
1890-1899
President, Women's Anthropological Society of America ;
1891-1923
Mary Copley Thaw Fellow, Peabody Museum, Harvard University ;
1892-1893
Department of Interior consultant, World's Columbian Exposition ;
1896
Vice-President, Section H, American Association for the Advancement of Science ;
1897
Collaborator, Bureau of American Ethnology ;
1899-1916
Editorial board, American Anthropologist ;
1900
Published Indian Story and Song from North America ;
1901-1902
Advisory committee, Anthropology Department, University of California at Berkeley ;
1903
President, Anthropological Society of Washington ;
1904
Published The Hako: A Pawnee Ceremony with James Murie ;
1904
Member, ethnology section, Louisiana Purchase Exposition ;
1905
President, American Folk-lore Society ;
1908-1913
Chair, Managing Committee of School of American Archaeology ;
1911
Honorary Vice-President, Section H, British Association for Advancement of Science ;
1911
Published The Omaha Tribe with Francis La Flesche ;
1913
Chair Emeritus, Managing Committee of School of American Archaeology ;
1915
Published Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs Arranged from American Indian Ceremonials and Sports ;
1923 April 6
Died in Washington, D.C.