Margaret Lantis

Margaret Lantis obtained her BA from the University of Minnesota in 1930 with a double major in Spanish and anthropology. Afterwards, she went on to study anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley under Robert Lowie and A. L. Kroeber. Furthermore, these accounts are based on personality sketches and Rorschach tests from 12 men and 6 women from the island. Lantis contributed studies and heritage websites such as the Native Village of Afgonak website, In the Heritage- Resource Archives, Lantis is listed four times as a contributor. In this article, Lantis reflects on her interest in U.S culture and society as a themed issue she edited in the American Anthropologist "The U.S.A as Anthropologists See It". By comparing everyday situations such as going to a bus station or an after football game event, Lantis argues that there are behaviors expected or expressed in any given scenario. These places or subcultures are related to vernacular culture. Lantis argues that there are particular ways of behavior that are used in any culture-area. In the article she demonstrates a list of components such as: values and goals, appropriate time or place, common knowledge, attitude and relationship systems and finally communication. Vernacular culture, like any 'functional', unitary segment of the total culture, has these components. This issue makes the case for the use of the concept of "vernacular culture" while studying complex cultures. Lantis therefore stimulated a 'widespread use' of the term in several disciplines, most notably in architecture. ==Career==

After receiving her PhD, Lantis worked in several public agencies, including almost ten years with the United States Public Health Service. In these positions she researched socialization, health, and economy in rural communities. Lantis was appointed professor of anthropology at the University of Kentucky in 1965 By 1967 Lantis received tenure at the university and was appointed to the graduate school faculty where she taught until her retirement in 1974. By the 1970s the University of Kentucky Press had published a collection of papers edited by Lantis in what they claimed as a relatively new field in anthropology-ethnohistory Ethnohistory in South Western Alaska and the Southern Yukon: Method and Content was published in 1970 to which Lantis contributed a chapter on the Aleut. Towards the end of her career she continued to write about the people of Nunivak Island and the greater Alaskan territory as well as Southern Yukon. And applied topics The U.S Bureau of Indian Affairs also published a series of lectures given by Lantis at a workshop in Anchorage Alaska in 1968. She also contributed a chapter on Arctic Aleut people to the Handbook of North American Indians in 1984. While teaching graduate students at the University of Kentucky Lantis was also working with several committees and societies. She served as the president of the American Ethnological Society 1964-65 she was on the Polar Research Committee of the National Academy of Sciences 1969-72 and was elected president of the Society for Applied Anthropology 1973–74. She contributed a paper to the second volume published by the National Academy of Sciences on the earthquake entitled Human Ecology of the Great Alaska Earthquake Lantis went on to publish another book on the disaster, titled When the Earthquake hits Home: Anchorage in the "Great Alaska Earthquake" which explored how households in Anchorage coped with the disaster in the immediate emergency period and household practices that existed two years later. ==Later life==

Considered a "specialist in Arctic and Subarctic anthropology" her life's work became an important contribution to knowledge of Alaskan Native people's personality and culture. After nearly nine years teaching at the University of Kentucky, Lantis retired in 1974 though she remained an active participant in the anthropology community at the school for many years helping generations of arctic scholars by offering advice and sharing her research notes. 1977 and 1978. Among the artifacts is a collection of Nunivak children's toys. She was designated as an honorary life member of the Alaska Anthropology Association and was recognized for her contributions to Alaskan anthropology with a lifetime achievement award in 1993 and was the recipient of the Society for Applied Anthropology's Bronislaw Malinowski Award in 1987 which she was given in recognition of the years she spent applying anthropology to help people through her work in public service. Addressing applied anthropologists Lantis presented a survey of characteristics of leadership in her Malinowski award presentation entitled Two important roles in organizations and communities which focused on the roles of leader and follower in those institutions. According to her obituary in American Anthropologist, Lantis never learned to drive a car but "mastered the techniques of dog sledding." She never married instead dedicated herself to her work as a professional anthropologist and later in her life served the discipline through her continued interest in current events related to Alaskan natives. She was inspiring generations of arctic scholars and applied anthropologists by sharing her experiences and offering advice well into her nineties before her death at the age of 100. ==Bibliography==