Ellen S. Spinden
A young white woman with dark hair wearing a mortarboard cap and a white ruffled collar
Ellen S. Collier, later Spinden, from the 1919 yearbook of Radcliffe College
Born
Ellen Sewall Collier

(1897-12-11)December 11, 1897
Cohasset, Massachusetts
DiedMarch 27, 1985(1985-03-27) (aged 87)
Brooklyn, New York
OccupationArchaeologist
SpouseHerbert Spinden

Ellen Sewall Collier Spinden (December 11, 1897 – March 27, 1985) was an American archaeologist who studied Mayan culture in Mexico. She was married to anthropologist Herbert Spinden.

Early life and education

Ellen Sewall Collier was born in Cohasset, Massachusetts,[1] the daughter of George Washington Collier and Frances Parsons Osgood Collier.[2] Her father owned a flour mill, and was director of the Boston Grain & Flour Exchange.[3] She was named for her maternal grandmother, Ellen Devereux Sewall Osgood, and she inherited her grandmother's journal, which recorded the earlier Ellen's close friendship with Henry David Thoreau.[4]

Collier attended Cohasset High School. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1919, and a master's degree in 1929, both at Radcliffe College.[1][2]

Career

After college, Collier worked with Katherine Rotan Drinker in the Harvard School of Public Health, and did translation work for Alfred Tozzer at the Peabody Museum. She worked with her husband at archaeological sites in Mexico and Nicaragua, especially at El Tajin,[5] studying the Mayan civilization with funding from the Brooklyn Museum, the Peabody Museum, and the Buffalo Museum of Science.[6][7] She is credited as "the first scholar to write at length on the imagery of El Tajín."[8][9]

Spinden was one of the founding members of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), and served on the executive council of the American Anthropological Association from 1930 to 1933.[10] In 1936 she and Herbert Spinden lectured on pre-Conquest Mexico at the Eleventh Seminar in Mexico.[11]

Publications

  • "The Place of Tajin in Totonac Archaeology" (1933)[6]
  • "An Excursion to Mexico" (1934, with Herbert J. Spinden)[12]
  • "Beyond the Puk" (1935)[13]

Personal life

Ellen Collier married anthropologist Herbert J. Spinden in 1928.[14] They separated in 1938, and eventually divorced.[10] He remarried in 1948, to Ailes Gilmour, a Japanese-American modern dancer.[15] She died in 1985, in Brooklyn, New York, aged 87 years.[16] Her grave is in Cohasset Central Cemetery.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 Radcliffe College, Class of 1919 (1919 yearbook): 29.
  2. 1 2 "Cohasset". The Boston Globe. 1929-06-19. p. 4. Retrieved 2022-04-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ↑ "George W. Collier Dies in Cohasset". The Boston Globe. 1934-07-03. p. 3. Retrieved 2022-04-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ↑ Raysor, T. M. (1926). "The Love Story of Thoreau". Studies in Philology. 23 (4): 457–463. ISSN 0039-3738. JSTOR 4171963.
  5. ↑ Browman, David L. (2020-02-17). Cultural Negotiations: The Role of Women in the Founding of Americanist Archaeology. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-1-4962-1044-9.
  6. 1 2 Spinden, Ellen S. (1933). "The Place of Tajin in Totonac Archaeology". American Anthropologist. 35 (2): 225–270. doi:10.1525/aa.1933.35.2.02a00010. ISSN 0002-7294. JSTOR 662489.
  7. ↑ "Dr. Spinden Seeks Indian Civilization on Nicaragua Trip". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1936-03-10. p. 3. Retrieved 2022-04-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Koontz, Rex (2010-01-01). Lightning Gods and Feathered Serpents: The Public Sculpture of El Tajín. University of Texas Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-292-77988-4.
  9. ↑ Trigger, Bruce G.; Washburn, Wilcomb E.; Adams, Richard E. W.; MacLeod, Murdo J.; Salomon, Frank; Schwartz, Stuart B. (1996). The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Cambridge University Press. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-521-35165-2.
  10. 1 2 Browman, David (March 2010). "Founding 'Mothers' of the Society for American Archaeology". SAA Archaeological Record. 10: 31–33.
  11. ↑ "Eleventh Seminar in Mexico, July 9-29". Santa Fe New Mexican. June 16, 1936. p. 1. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  12. ↑ Spinden, Ellen S.; Spinden, Herbert J. (1934). "An Excursion to Mexico". The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly. 21 (4): 81–85. ISSN 2578-7632. JSTOR 26460535.
  13. ↑ Spinden, Ellen S. (June 1935). "Beyond the Puk". Three Americas: A Magazine About Latin America. 1: 7–10.
  14. ↑ Spinden, Herbert Joseph (1975-01-01). A Study of Maya Art, Its Subject Matter and Historical Development. Courier Corporation. pp. viii. ISBN 978-0-486-21235-7.
  15. ↑ "Memorial Service for Dr. Spinden" (PDF). Putnam County Courier. October 26, 1967. p. 3. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  16. ↑ "Ellen Spinden, 87; Specialist in Mayan Culture". The Boston Globe. 1985-03-30. p. 27. Retrieved 2022-04-27 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ "Census/Find a Grave". Cohasset Central Cemetery. Retrieved 2022-04-28.
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