Isabel Truesdell Kelly (1906–1982) was an American
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
known for her work with the members of the
Coast Miwok tribe, members of the
Chemehuevi
The Chemehuevi are an indigenous people of the Great Basin. They are the southernmost branch of Southern Paiute. people in the 1920s and 1930s, and her work later in life as an archaeologist working in
Sinaloa, Mexico.
She was trained by anthropologist
Alfred L. Kroeber at the
University of California, Berkeley.
Kelly was awarded Guggenheim Fellowships for the academic years 1940–1941 and 1941–1942. In 1946 she was appointed Ethnologist-in-Charge of the Mexico city office of the
Smithsonian Institution's Institute of Social Anthropology (ISA). She taught at the ISA and, with the assistance of students, did research among the
Totonac in the Mexica state of
Veracruz.
The ISA was started in 1943 and disbanded at the end of 1952 — at that time Kelly and the ISA's other remaining anthropologists were transferred to the Institute of Inter-American affairs.
[
Her papers are on file today in the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University.
]
Publications
Most widely held works by Kelly:[https://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n80106725/ ]
* ''The carver's art of the Indians of northwestern California'', 1930
* ''Ethnography of the Surprise Valley Paiute'', 1932
* ''Excavations at Culiacán, Sinaloa '', 1945
* ''The archaeology of the Autlán-Tuxcacuesco area of Jalisco'', 1945
* ''Excavations at Apatzingan, Michoacan'', 1947
* ''The Tajin Totonac'', 1952
* ''Folk practices in north Mexico; birth customs, folk medicine, and spiritualism in the Laguna Zone'', 1965
* ''The Hodges Ruin : a Hohokam community in the Tucson Basin'', 1978
* ''Ceramic sequence in Colima : Capacha, an early phase'', 1980
* ''Isabel T. Kelly's Southern Paiute Ethnographic Field Notes, 1932-1934, Las Vegas'', 2016
References
External links
Isabel T. Kelly Ethnographic Archive digital collection
Southern Methodist University
Isabel T. Kelly's Southern Paiute Ethnographic Field Notes, 1932-1934
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Isabel
1906 births
1982 deaths
American women anthropologists
20th-century American anthropologists
American women archaeologists
20th-century American archaeologists
University of California, Berkeley alumni
20th-century women writers
20th-century American women