Elsie Clews Parsons (1875-1941)

She was born in New York City, the daughter of one of Wall Street's most successful stockbrokers and the sister of the eccentric artist, Henry Clews Jr. She graduated from Barnard College in 1896, received her Masters in 1897, and completed her Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1899. She was an American anthropologist, sociologist, folklorist, and feminist who studied Native American tribes (notably the Tewa and Hopi) in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. She was President of the American Folklore Society, President of the American Ethnological Society, and the first female President of the American Anthropological Association. She helped found The New School and every other year the American Ethnological Society awards the "Elsie Clews Parsons Prize". After her husband's death she lived at 320 East 72nd Street, New York.

She was married at Newport in 1900 to Herbert Parsons, U.S. Representative from New York, a close friend and political ally of Theodore Roosevelt. They had four children: (1) Elsie, Mrs John Drummond Kennedy (2) John, married Fanny Wickes (3) Herbert Jr., (4) Henry McIlvaine Parsons, noted Behavioral Psychologist, married Marjorie Thorson.