Matilda Coxe Stevenson

Matilda Coxe Stevenson (née Evans) (May 12, 1849 – June 24, 1915), who also wrote under the name Tilly E. Stevenson, was an American ethnologist, geologist, and explorer.

Matilda Coxe Stevenson
circa 1870
Born
Matilda Coxe Evans

(1849-05-12)May 12, 1849
San Augustine, Texas
DiedJune 24, 1915(1915-06-24) (aged 66)
Oxon Hill, Maryland
NationalityAmerican
Alma materMiss Annable's Academy; private study of law with her father, Alexander H. Evans; of chemistry and geology with Dr. N. M. Mew of the Army Medical School, Washington, D.C.; of ethnology with her husband, James Stevenson, of the USGS
Spouse(s)James D. Stevenson (m. 1872)
Scientific career
FieldsEthnologist
InstitutionsBureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution

Early life and education

Matilda Coxe Evans was born in San Augustine, Texas, the third child out of four to Maria Matilda Coxe Evans from New Jersey and Alexander Hamilton Evans from Virginia. Her parents moved from Washington D.C. to newly annexed Texas sometime between 1846 and 1847.[1] The family then moved between Texas, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania throughout Matilda's early years.[1] Her education varied, as well, given the gender expectations and restrictions for middle-class white women at the time. Her formal education most likely began with governesses from private schools, then transitioned to academies and seminaries for women where the goal was to prepare their students to become wives and mothers. However, Coxe Evans was able to also study science, mathematics, history, geography, and other subjects because of the developed curriculum in Philadelphia schools. She attended Miss Anabel's English, French, and German School, originally located at 1350 Pine Street in Philadelphia. When she returned to Washington, she continued her studies under her father (a lawyer) and William M. Mew, a chemist at the Army Medical Museum, since most colleges and universities were only open to men.[1] Still, Coxe Evans desired to expand her opportunities beyond the household and hoped to become a mineralogist. Her plans altered when she met James Stevenson (1840-1888),[2] a geologist and ethnologist with the US Geological Survey of the Territories.

Career

Evans married James Stevenson on April 18, 1872 before he left for another expedition under Ferdinand V. Hayden to conduct geological surveys in Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. By 1879, when the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) was created, Matilda Stevenson was appointed "volunteer coadjutor [sic] in ethnology" and she went with James on his BAE expeditions to the Southwest.

She spent 13 years in explorations of the Rocky Mountain region with her husband. In the 1880s, the Stevensons "formed the first husband-wife team in anthropology."[3] Matilda Coxe Stevenson's contributions often focused on women and family life, for which she "quickly developed a reputation as a vigorous and devoted scientist."[4]

In 1885, Matilda Coxe Stevenson became the first President of the Women's Anthropological Society of America.[3][5][6]

After her husband's death in 1888, she was hired by John Wesley Powell as the first woman employed by Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, initially to organize his notes and later taking on a bigger role and leading her own research.[7] From 1890 to 1907, Stevenson did substantial individual fieldwork exploring the cave, cliff, and mesa ruins of the Zuni who resided in the Zuni River Valley in western New Mexico. She then studied all the rest of the Pueblo tribes of that state. From 1904 to 1910, she embarked on a special comparative study of the Zia, Jemez, San Juan, Cochiti, Nambe, Picarus, Tesuque, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Taos and Tewa Native Americans. During that time, in 1907, Matilda Stevenson purchased a ranch (Ton'yo) near San Ildefonso, which became her base for fieldwork. Stevenson died in Maryland on June 24, 1915.

Legacy

Artifacts collected by Matilda and James Stevenson are in the collections of the Department of Anthropology in the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. Papers from Stevenson are in the Institution's National Anthropological Archives.

Among Stevenson's protegés were John Peabody Harrington [8]

Works
Library resources about
Matilda Coxe Stevenson
By Matilda Coxe Stevenson

Stevenson was the author of:

References
  1. Miller, Darlis A., 1939- (2007). Matilda Coxe Stevenson : pioneering anthropologist. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3832-9. OCLC 85898997.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. "Yellowstone National Park: Its Exploration and Establishment (Biographical Appendix)". Retrieved April 6, 2012.
  3. McBride, Jennifer. "Matilda Coxe Evans Stevenson". Archived from the original on June 23, 2011. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
  4. Babcock, Barbara A.; Parezo, Nancy J. (1988). Daughters of the Desert: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest, 1880-1980. University of New Mexico Press. pp. 9. ISBN 978-0826310873.
  5. Lorini, Alessandra (2003). "Alice Fletcher and the Search for Women's Public Recognition in Professionalizing American Anthropology". Cromohs. 8. Archived from the original on January 27, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2012.
  6. "Guide to the Collections of the National Anthropological Archives". Retrieved January 15, 2013.
  7. "Matilda Coxe Stevenson photographs · SOVA". sova.si.edu. Retrieved October 18, 2019.
  8. Kathryn Klar (2002). "John P. Harrington's field work methods: in his own words" (PDF). Report of the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Conference. 12: 9–17. Retrieved November 30, 2010.

Sources
  • Parezo, Nancy J. (1989). "Matilda Coxe Evans Stevenson". In Gacs, Ute; Khan, Aisha; McIntyre, Jerrie; Weinberg, Ruth (eds.). Women Anthropologists: Selected Biographies (Illini Books edition, Reprint of Westport, CT: Greenwood Press original, 1988. ed.). Urbana: University of Illinois Press. pp. 337–343. ISBN 978-0-252-06084-7. OCLC 19670310.
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Matilida Coxe Stevenson". New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.

Further reading
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