Elsie Clews Parsons: Inventing Modern Life (Volume 1997) (Women in Culture and Society)

Elsie Clews Parsons (1874-1941) was a pioneering anthropologist whose writings on the Pueblo Indians challenged American notions about racial and cultural purity. She was also a committed feminist whose unconventional marriage survived many infidelities and included an agreement to share childcare. In short, she was one of those remarkable individuals who live entirely by their own code and publicly urge society to grant everyone the same freedom they have seized for themselves. Vigorous prose and impeccable research distinguish this enthralling narrative of a thoroughly modern woman whose fierce independence seems only to have augmented her enormous charm.