Wonder Woman of the Week: Frederica de Laguna

I got to talk to some great scientists today as I was a runner for a biology day for 4th graders. The students were able to learn about wildlife and marine biology in the field from experts in ornithology, entomology, and marine life. The whole experience made led me to think about my scientific background- anthropology. This week’s spotlight is one of the most important women in the field of sociological anthropology, but few anthropology students know her name. Frederica de Laguna is the Wonder Woman of the Week.

Frederica Annis Lopez de Leo de Laguna (Hispanic names for the win) was the daughter of two philosophy professors as Bryn Mawr College. Like with most childred born before 1920, Federica had to overcome childhood illness to make survive to adulthood. By the time she was a teenager, Laguna’s father- who name Frederica after his sister- became her biggest role model. He would tell Frederica tales of his adventures as an English teacher in Japan and the Philippines, and it led her passion for learning about foreign cultures. [1]

Frederica de Laguna then enrolled at Bryn Mawr for economics and psychology, following in the footsteps of family, but further illness caused her enough grief that she had to drop psychology as a major. Laguna was set to study abroad in the Bryn Mawr European Fellowship program, but instead took a semester off to study anthropology at Columbia University. She was a student of Franz Boaz. (I should insert here that Franz Boaz- for those unaccustomed to anthropology- is the single most important American anthropologist ever. He founded the American anthropology program and was the revolutionary that was the first sociologist to stress cultural relativism and criticize racism.) Boaz would listen to Laguna criticize sociological authors, accusing them of racism, ethnocentrism, and being just plain idiotic. Boaz approved. Boaz’s very first field study centered around the Inuit (Eskimo) Peoples, so it showed an incredible amount of respect when Boaz urged Laguna to pursue a dissertation about the Inuit. [1]

The budding anthropologist began working on a dissertation connecting Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) art with that of the Inuit Peoples. She went off to Europe to scavenge caves for prehistoric paintings, dabbled in Danish prehistory, studied in London and Paris, and joined in an excavation on Greenland where she assisted in the discovery of a long-lost Inuit culture. Upon returning to the United States, Laguna published her dissertation explaining a connection between Paleolithic and Inuit art could not be proven or disproven. (Boaz was famous for sending his students on paths where the journey was more important than the destination.) She soon moved to Alaska to write about Cook Inlet Archaeology- a piece republished in the 1970’s and known today as the most thorough piece on the subject. She continued her field work in Alaska and later in Arizona for nearly two decades. [1]

Professionally, Laguna was the authority on Prehistoric Alaska. She was one of the few women in the man’s world of archaeology. She traveled to villages that didn’t exist on any map, survived bitter cold temperatures, swarms of mosquitoes, and was never afraid to put sexist men in there place. Along with former WWoW Margaret Mead, Laguna was one of the first two women anthropologists elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Apart from being a professional badass in Alaska, she founded the anthropology program at Bryn Mawr College and was an active professor from 1938 until she retired in 1975. After retiring, Laguna continued to be an authority in archaeology and Native Alaskan history before dying at the age of 98 in 2004. [2]

Frederica de Laguna is often overshadowed by her colleague Margaret Mead, but the two were equally important to the furthering of women’s involvement in anthropology. While Mead would go on to become a major figure in socio-cultural anthropology, Laguna was the authority on 20th Century archaeology- especially in Alaska. As a college student, she embarked on a quest leading her to take part in the discovering of Greenland’s long-lost Inuit people. She literally wrote the book (actually multiple books) on the archaeology of Native Alaskans, and she even founded her former university’s anthropology department. Frederica Annis Lopez de Leo de Lagunis was one of the most important archaeologists of all time (sorry Indiana Jones) and is the Wonder Woman of the Week.

"Frederica De Laguna." Frederica De Laguna. Accessed May 21, 2015.

"The New York Times Obituaries: Frederica De Laguna." The New York Times Obituaries Frederica De Laguna, 98, Arctic Anthropologist, Dies. November 28, 2004. Accessed May 21, 2015.