Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1654

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

.21 linear feet (1 box)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Frederica de Laguna and Mary Jane Downs Lenz fieldwork journal, 1954, Ms. Coll. 1654, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1954

Creator:

de Laguna, Frederica and Lenz, Mary Jane

Form:

Diaries

Abstract:

This journal contains typed entries written by anthropologist, Frederica de Laguna (1906-2004) and her assistant, Bryn Mawr College graduate fellow in sociology and anthropology, Mary Jane Downs Lenz (1930-2016), while conducting fieldwork on the Tlingit Indians in Yakutat, Alaska in 1954.

Frederica Annis Lopez de Leo de Laguna was born on October 3, 1906 in Ann Arbor, Michigan to Theodore de Laguna (1876-1930) and Grace Mead Andrus (1878-1978). She was known as Freddy, and was raised in Bryn Mawr, PA where her parents taught philosophy at Bryn Mawr College. She earned a Bachelor's in politics and economics from Bryn Mawr College in 1927 and a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University in 1933, with fieldwork focused on Europe and Greenland.

Her career was marked by fieldwork in Alaska, where she conducted archaeological excavations and ethnographic studies particularly among the Athobaskan, Eyak, Chugach and Tlingit people. Over the course of her career, she would lead 5 expeditions to Alaska, from 1930 through the 1950s. She founded and chaired the anthropology department at Bryn Mawr College from 1938 to 1972, served as vice-president of the Society for American Archaeology from 1949-1960, and president of the American Anthropological Association from 1966 to 1967. In 1975, de Laguna and Margaret Mead were the first two women anthropologists elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

de Laguna died on October 6, 2004.

Mary Jane Downs Lenz was born in Milwaukee, WI, on March 24, 1930 to Edna Joyce Brooks and William Burr Downs. She earned a BA in anthropology at Beloit College in 1952. She received her master's degree in sociology and anthropology from Bryn Mawr College in 1954, where she served as Frederica de Laguna's assistant on a field expedition to Alaska during her last semester. While at Bryn Mawr, she met her future husband, Ben Lenz, who was attending The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. They were married in 1955 and she began volunteering at the Museum of American Indian-Heye Foundation in Harlem, New York and became director of its archaeological lab in 1976. In 1977, she became a full-time curatorial assistant and four years later enrolled at the City University to pursue her Ph.D. in anthropology. In 1989, the museum collection was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution and it became the core collection for the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). Lenz relocated to the Washington, DC area and served as a curator. In 2011, she retired as the NMAI's first Curator Emeritus.

Lenz died on March 30, 2016.

Sources: New York Times

Capitol Hill Village News

This collection of typed journal entries were written by anthropologist Frederica de Laguna and Bryn Mawr graduate fellow in sociology and anthropology Mary Jane Downs Lenz, while conducting field work on the Tlingit Indians in Yakutat, Alaska in 1954. The purpose of the expedition was to continue the program of combining archeological, ethnological and historical research that de Laguna had begun in 1949, according to an interview she gave with Bryn Mawr College's The College News in January 1954. The winter expedition, funded by the Social Science Research Council and the American Philosophical Society, provided de Laguna with the opportunity to observe old customs that were only now practiced in the winter months.

The journal is arranged chronologically, with the entries of the two writers interleaved. The entries for each author are identified by their initials typed in the top right corner of the page, FdeL for de Laguna and MJD for Mary Jane Downs (Downs was not married at this time). De Laguna's entries cover the dates from February 8 through April 1, while Lenz's entries cover the period of February 13 through April 18, with each author adding their own perspective and information to the same events. The entries mainly focus on the women's everyday activities, the weather, housing problems, anecdotes about local events, and their interaction with residents, colleagues and government officials. Interviews of locals are mentioned but transcripts for those interviews are not found within these entries. De Laguna's mother, referred to as Delly, accompanied the women on this trip and is mentioned frequently.