Elsie Clews Parsons

Elsie Worthington Clews was the daughter of Henry Clews, a wealthy New York banker, and Lucy Madison Worthington. Her brother, Henry Clews Jr., was an artist. On September 1, 1900, in Newport, Rhode Island, she married future three-term progressive Republican congressman Herbert Parsons, an associate and political ally of President Teddy Roosevelt. When her husband was a member of Congress, she published two then-controversial books under the pseudonym John Main. Parsons became interested in anthropology in 1910. Her work Pueblo Indian Religion is considered a classic; here she gathered all her previous extensive work and that of other authors. It has, however, been criticised as having been based on intrusive and deceptive research techniques. == Feminist ideas ==

Parsons' feminist beliefs were viewed as extremely radical for her time. She was a proponent of trial marriages, divorce by mutual consent and access to reliable contraception, which she wrote about in her book The Family (1906). ==Works==

Early works of sociology • The Family (1906) • Religious Chastity (1913) • The Old-Fashioned Woman (1913) • Fear and Conventionality (1914) • • Social Freedom (1915) • Social Rule (1916) Anthropology • The Social Organization of the Tewa of New Mexico (1929) • Hopi and Zuni Ceremonialism (1933) • Pueblo Indian Religion (1939) Ethnographies • Mitla: Town of the Souls (1936) • Peguche (1945) Research in folklore • Folk-Lore from the Cape Verde Islands (1923) • Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, S.C. (1924) • Micmac Folklore (1925) • Folk-Lore of the Antilles, French and English (3v., 1933–1943) Reprints • • • • Parsons, Elsie Clews (1996). Pueblo Indian Religion. 2 vols. Introductions by Ramon Gutierrez and Pauline Turner Strong. Bison Books reprint. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press. ==See also==