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Reflections on Regina Flannery's Career Reflections on Regina Flannery's Career LUCY M. COHEN The Catholic University of America I am honored by your invitation to share reflections with you about Regina Flannery. She always looked forward to the Algonquian Confer­ ences and, indeed, she was here in Ottawa at the 1988 Conference. On a number of occasions I have asked what was life like for our pioneering women who opened the doors of universities for other women, and distinguished themselves by their contributions to knowledge. Permit me to share some reflections about our esteemed colleague, Regina Flan­ nery, a woman in the vanguard of anthropology. My reflections are based on material from Flannery's accounts and papers, on selected aspects of her anthropological research, her academic life at the Catholic University of America, and my personal experiences as her former student, col­ league, and friend. In 1904, the year that Regina Flannery was born, her father Martin Markham Flannery, an attorney, became the director of trade practice con­ ferences for the Federal Trade Commission in Washington; in 1922 he was described as "one of the great prosecutors of his generation" for his "demonstrated ability, fearlessness and devotion to principle" (Anon. 1922:8). Her mother, Regina Fowler, came from an old family on the east- em shore of Maryland; the Fowlers were Quakers. Flannery attended Holy Cross Academy, a Catholic school for girls in Washington, graduating in 1923. She cited her teachers there - particu­ larly those who inspired her love of Latin and English literature - as pre­ eminent influences in her life (Marinucci 1999). At Trinity College, a Catholic institution for young women close to the Catholic University of America (cf. Mullaly 1987), she majored in Latin and History and gradu­ ated in 1927. Throughout her life she valued these studies, noting that in addition to her classical education she had learned practical skills such as 1. Regina had two older brothers, Markham and Cyril, and a younger sister, Elizabeth. (Telephone conversation between Regina Flannery's first cousin, Estelle Achstetter, and Lucy M. Cohen, 2005; see also Bryant 1995). Actes du 37e Congres des Algonquinistes, sous la dir. de H.C. Wolfart (Winnipeg: Universite du Manitoba, 2006), pp. 375-389. 376 LUCY M. COHEN Gregg shorthand, which became a useful tool for gathering the detailed notes which characterized her ethnological field records. She then passed the Department of State Spanish language examina­ tion with distinction, but instead of pursuing a career in the Department of State, Flannery accepted Dr. John M. Cooper's invitation to serve as his research assistant in a national study of Programs and Policies in Catholic Children's Institutions; she worked with the project from 1927 to 1931. In the final report, Cooper (1931 :xxiv) commented that Regina Flannery had "committed a large share of responsibility" to this study, from the begin­ ning to the end. She had, in addition, written the chapter on 'Plant and Equipment' (pp. 633-673) in the institutions. Father Cooper (1881-1949), her mentor and colleague, personifies the intellectual milieu within which Regina Flannery discovered anthro­ pology and, particularly, the Algonquian-speaking peoples. Born and edu­ cated in Maryland, he completed his Ph.D. at the American College in Rome in 1902 and the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology in 1905, the year in which he was ordained a secular priest. While in Europe, he trav­ eled widely and developed a strong interest in archeology and in art. Flannery (1950:64) described Father Cooper as a "tremendous worker," stressing that "[His] ... self imposed schedule ... seemed to be one factor in his more than ordinary accomplishments in several different fields ..." She further noted: "Fortunately for his anthropological career ... Father Cooper chose to spend his vacations on camping trips in Can­ ada and became an expert canoeist; but, more important, he became inter­ ested in his Indian guides and their way of life" (1950:65). Thus, the foundation was laid for the systematic ethnological investigations. With his original interest in archaeology and his scientific curiosity about living Indian peoples, Cooper was drawn to the Smithsonian Insti­ tution, where he was encouraged by such scientists as Frederick W. Hodge, John Reed Swanton, and Ales Hrdlicka. According to Flannery his first serious publication in anthropology was the Analytical and criti­ cal bibliography of the tribes ofTierra del Fuego and adjacent territory (1917). As she put it, "The same detailed, thorough and painstaking searching of source materials is as evident in this publication as it is in his many contributions to the Handbook of South American Indians written three decades later" (Flannery 1950:65).2 In addition to his research in anthropology, he was instructor in religious education at Catholic Univer- REFLECTIONS ON REGINA FLANNERY'S CAREER 377 sity of America. In 1923, he was invited to teach anthropology in the Department of Sociology there, and in 1928 he was promoted to a full professorship in Anthropology (Flannery 1950:65; cf. also Sloyan 1997). During her years as a research assistant with the children's institu­ tions project, Flannery met many well-known anthropologists who visited Cooper, and audited courses in anthropology. The Rector at the time, James Hugh Ryan, encouraged her to take courses for credit, and by 1931 she had completed her course requirements for the M.A. (Flannery 1931). As a student, Flannery belonged to the first cohort of lay women admitted to graduate study at Catholic University. Although their admis­ sion had been considered at the time of the founding of the university in 1889, the motion had been postponed and instead, in 1897, the founders looked at the newly established Trinity College nearby as the institution which would extend higher education to women. The attendance of nuns at Catholic University began in 1911 but it was limited to the Summer School, in facilities which were separate from the main campus. Most were members of religious communities throughout the country and abroad. Not until 1929 were lay women admitted as graduate students, with the Academic Senate expressing the hope that at least "forty women students would attend the courses in the new academic year" (Cohen 1990:12). In 1931, Flannery applied to the summer training program in anthro­ pological field methods sponsored by the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fe, New Mexico, and for a scholarship "to enable properly quali­ fied graduate students to supplement, by practical work in the field, the classroom and laboratory instruction which they receive at the universi­ ties ... Recipients of scholarships (are) to take part in the current investi­ gations of experienced research men ..."3 Actually, in the summer of 1931 the Scholars in Ethnology worked under the direction of Ruth F. Benedict of Columbia University, with Harry Hoijer as consultant on 2. Flannery thought highly of Cooper's (1950:65) publications on South America: "Although he himself never managed to get in any first-hand field work on that continent, he was one of the authorities on South American ethnology, and his fourfold classification of Indian cultures there was adopted as a basis of organization for the Handbook" 3. Announcement of Scholarships for Training in Anthropological Field-Method by the Laboratory of Anthropology at Santa Fe (1931); (Mescalero Apachefile, Regina Flannery papers, Department of Anthropology, Catholic University of America). 378 LUCY M. COHEN Athapaskan languages. Edward Sapir was the Chairman of the Scholarship Committee,4 and her fellow trainees were Sol Tax, Morris E. Opler, Jules Henry, Paul Frank and John Gillin. The summer was spent among the Mescalero Apache, and Ella Sampson served as her interpreter. At the end of the field training, Ruth Benedict wrote to Franz Boas to express her satisfaction with the progress of her students: "The results would be creditable to any group of ethnologists, and I'm satisfied that the boys have really learned something in the process." Lumped with the "boys," Flannery found her ethnographic work, which included the tran­ scription of stories and accounts of myths, well appreciated by her mentor and her fellow students, particularly Morris E. Opler and Jules Henry.6 She prepared a 150 page report, 'Folklore of the Mescalero Apache,' which was drawn upon by Opler (1942:vii) in his work on Apache litera­ ture. Flannery's rapport with her Mescalero Apache respondents was con­ firmed by a letter to her from Ella Sampson, her interpreter, commenting on the good relations she had established with her two elderly women informants. One of the women had asked Ms. Sampson to tell Regina that they guessed that upon her return home, she would be "sitting down ... smoking ..." During her field work she always offered her elderly infor­ mants a "smoke," a characteristic by which she would be remembered throughout her life. Ella also invited Regina to come back again some day, assuring her that "the old lady will tell you some more stories" and asking her to "kindly send a copy of the story you took from the old lady."7 Flannery's first publication in anthropology, 'The position of women among the Mescalero Apache,' published in Primitive Man (1932), high- 4. Letter from Sapir to Flannery, Chicago, 2 April 1931 (Mescalero Apache file, Regina Flannery papers, Department of Anthropology, Catholic University of America). 5. Letter from Benedict to Boas, 24 August 1931 (Franz Boas papers, quoted in Modell 1983:179). 6. Letters from Opler to Flannery, Chicago, 27 October 1931, and from Flannery to Opler, Washington, 11 November 1931 (Mescalero Apache file, Regina Flannery papers, Department of Anthropology, Catholic University of America). 7. Letter from Sampson to Flannery, Mescalero, New Mexico, 28 September 1931 Mescalero Apache file, Regina Flannery papers, Department of Anthropology, Catholic University of America).
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