author
Erminnie A. (Erminnie Adele) Smith
1836–1886
A pioneering 19th-century scholar, she helped open the door for women in field ethnography while documenting Iroquois language, stories, and ceremonial life. Her work joined science and close cultural observation at a time when very few women were welcomed into either field.
1 Audiobook
Myths of the Iroquois. (1883 N 02 / 1880-1881 (pages 47-116))
by Erminnie A. (Erminnie Adele) Smith
About the author
Born in Marcellus, New York, in 1836, Erminnie Adele Platt Smith became known as a linguist, ethnologist, anthropologist, and geologist. Sources including Britannica and the Smithsonian describe her as an early specialist in ethnographic fieldwork, and she worked with the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology.
Her best-known research focused on the Iroquois, especially communities in New York and Canada. She recorded ceremonies, collected myths, and worked on the Seneca language, including a dictionary project. Among her published works was Myths of the Iroquois (1883), and later scholars have remembered her as one of the first women to do sustained field research of this kind.
Smith also broke barriers in scientific life. She was elected the first female member of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1877. She died in 1886, but her career still stands out for the way it combined careful observation, language study, and a determination to work in fields that were largely closed to women of her time.