Erminnie A. Smith | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Erminnie Adelle Platt April 26, 1836 |
| Died | June 9, 1886 |
| Resting place | New York Bay Cemetery |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | Emma Willard School |
| Known for | Published works on the Iroquois people and founder of the Aesthetic Society of Jersey City |
| Spouse | Simeon H. Smith |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Ethnography |
| Institutions | Smithsonian Institution |
Erminnie A. Smith, née Erminnie Adelle Platt (April 26, 1836– June 9, 1886) was a linguist, ethnologist, anthropologist and geologist who worked at the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology.[1][2][3] She has been called the "first woman field ethnographer"[4] and was the first female member elected to the New York Academy of Sciences on November 5, 1877.[5]
Erminnie Smith published multiple works on the language and culture of the Iroquois people. She was active in cataloging their legends and employed John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt to assist in this work.[6] Her work on the Iroquois, along with that of Alice Fletcher on the Omaha and other tribes, and Matilda Coxe Stevenson on the Zuni people, challenged views of women's position in both indigenous North American and Victorian societies. Smith's accounts showed that Iroquois women held rights to property and other social freedoms that American and European women lacked, and that they were honored and respected for their involvement and contributions to culture, economics and ritual practice.[3]
- ^ Kilarski, Marcin (31 December 2021). "Erminnie A. Smith (1836–1886): A portrait of a linguist". Historiographia Linguistica. 48 (2–3): 228–263. doi:10.1075/hl.00094.kil. ISSN 0302-5160. S2CID 249349794. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
- ^ Elliott, Clark A; Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory (1979). Biographical Dictionary of American Science: The Seventeenth Through the Nineteenth Centuries. Westport and London: Greenwood Press. p. 238. ISBN 978-0-313-20419-7.
- ^ a b Visweswaran, Kamala (October 1997). "Histories of Feminist Ethnography". Annual Review of Anthropology. 26 (1): 591–621. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.591. ISSN 0084-6570. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
- ^ Kirstin Olsen (1994). Chronology of Women's History. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-313-28803-6.
- ^ Fairchild, Herman Le Roy (1887). A History of the New York Academy of Sciences, Formerly the Lyceum of Natural History. New York Academy of Sciences. p. 133. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
- ^ Johansen, Bruce Elliott; Mann, Barbara Alice (2000). "John Napoleon Brinton Hewitt". Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-313-30880-2. Retrieved 11 January 2011.