Nancy J. Parezo – författare

World's fairs and industrial expositions constituted a phenomenally successful popular culture movement during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to the newest technological innovations, each exposition showcased commercial and cultural exhibits, entertainment concessions, national and corporate displays of wealth, and indigenous peoples from the colonial empires of the host country. As scientists claiming specialized knowledge about indigenous peoples, especially American Indians, anthropologists used expositions to promote their quest for professional status and authority. Anthropology Goes to the Fair takes readers through the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition to see how anthropology, as conceptualized by W J McGee, the first president of the American Anthropological Association, showcased itself through programs, static displays, and living exhibits for millions of people  "to show each half of the world how the other half lives." More than two thousand Native peoples negotiated and portrayed their own agendas on this world stage. The reader will see how anthropology itself was changed in the process.

The writings of the American West have long dealt with masculine ideals. Well into the twentieth century, what little attention was afforded to women typically reflected prescribed or stereotyped roles, and the work of women scholars received less attention than that of men. And yet the early twentieth century saw a host of pioneering scholars who would not be ignored, erased, or marginalized.  The ten women intellectuals showcased in this volume were pioneers in the writing of Indian-centered history, ethnology, and folklore that incorporated the insights, voices, and perspectives of American Indians. These authors not only produced significant works that are still useful to modern-day scholars; they also pioneered research methods and theoretical concepts that helped lay the foundation for the new scholarship on western history, American Indian studies, and ethnohistory. Noted scholars have provided individual biographies describing the struggles and contributions these foremothers made to the creation of late twentieth-century scholarship: Annie Heloise Abel, Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša), Angie Debo, Ella Cara Deloria, Isabel T. Kelly, Marjorie Ferguson Lambert, Dorothea Cross Leighton, Alice Marriott, Mari Sandoz, and Ruth Underhill.

World's fairs and industrial expositions constituted a phenomenally successful popular culture movement during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition to the newest technological innovations, each exposition showcased commercial and cultural exhibits, entertainment concessions, national and corporate displays of wealth, and indigenous peoples from the colonial empires of the host country. As scientists claiming specialized knowledge about indigenous peoples, especially American Indians, anthropologists used expositions to promote their quest for professional status and authority. Anthropology Goes to the Fair takes readers through the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition to see how anthropology, as conceptualized by W J McGee, the first president of the American Anthropological Association, showcased itself through programs, static displays, and living exhibits for millions of people  "to show each half of the world how the other half lives." More than two thousand Native peoples negotiated and portrayed their own agendas on this world stage. The reader will see how anthropology itself was changed in the process.