A Woman’s Place Is in Academia:
Regina Flannery Herzfeld Was a CUA Pioneer

By Warren Duffie

The scene was a social event at the Smithsonian Institution in 1932. World-renowned anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka, one of the first to argue that Native Americans originated in Asia and crossed the Bering Strait, was holding court with a group of listeners.

He announced that he was participating in an expedition in Alaska and mentioned that funds were available for three students to accompany him. Regina Herzfeld (then Regina Flannery), a red-haired CUA graduate student and research assistant, asked if she could go. Hrdlicka looked at her and said in a thick Eastern European accent, “Young lady, a woman’s place is in the home.”

Regina Herzfeld in 1986.

According to a 1988 interview, Herzfeld thought the scholar’s remark quaint, and a year later she stood on the platform of an Ontario railroad station, on her way to the cold, rugged shores of the James and Hudson bays. At the behest of Rev. John Cooper, a professor of anthropology in CUA’s Department of Sociology, she was going to study the Cree and Montagnais tribes at Moose Factory, a post where Indians came to trade furs to the Hudson’s Bay Company.

That and subsequent trips to Moose Factory established Herzfeld as a recognized expert on the Indians of that region and one of the first women scholars in the field of anthropology.

Mention the name Herzfeld to some members of the CUA community and they’re likely to think of Karl Herzfeld, who helped establish CUA’s Vitreous State Laboratory and built the university’s small physics department into a strong research department that achieved national prominence. Herzfeld’s legacy can be seen in Hannan Hall’s Herzfeld Auditorium, where lectures on scholarly topics are held.

But Regina Flannery Herzfeld — who died on Nov. 26, 2004, a couple of weeks shy of her 100th birthday — was an accomplished scholar in her own right. She was the first lay woman to teach at CUA, an authority on Northeastern and Plains Indians, the author of more than 20 publications, and the chair of the Department of Anthropology for more than 15 years.

“This was a woman who was a pioneer in the field,” says Lucy M. Cohen, professor of anthropology. “Her good friends were famous anthropologists. Margaret Mead used to visit with her whenever she came to Washington, D.C.”

Herzfeld’s funeral was held Dec. 1. The CUA community will remember her at a memorial Mass Monday, Dec. 6, at 12:15 p.m. in Caldwell Chapel. Before Herzfeld’s death, administrators in the School of Arts and Sciences had been planning a birthday celebration for her.

According to the 1988 book Pioneering Women at the Catholic University of America, Herzfeld earned her bachelor’s degree from Washington, D.C.'s Trinity College and was hired as a research assistant by Father Cooper, helping him with his research on childcare institutions such as orphanages. At the time, CUA was one of a handful of American universities that offered classes in anthropology.

During her time with Father Cooper, Herzfeld met anthropological heavyweights such as A.V. Kidder, often referred to as the “father of modern archeology.” Listening to these scholars talk about their travels and the people groups they studied, Herzfeld decided that anthropology was “exotic and exciting” and she earned her CUA master’s degree and doctorate in anthropology in 1931 and 1938, respectively.

Blazing a Path in the Field
Soon after receiving her master’s degree, Herzfeld worked at the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico. There, she studied the traditional four-day rite for adolescent girls, which featured masked dancers in elaborate headdresses performing around a bonfire. This expedition resulted in her first published paper, “The Position of Women in Mescalero Apache Culture.”

In the spring of 1933, Herzfeld headed to the far north. The weekly train that pulled into Moosonee, Ontario, 12 miles south of James Bay, was so new that Indians often came from great distances to see it. Upon arriving in Moosonee, Herzfeld traveled five miles by canoe to Moose Factory, where she spent the summer and early fall.

Her research involved interviewing Cree and Montagnais women on the “old ways” — what life was like as far back as memory could reach. She spent much time with Ellen Smallboy, a Cree woman who had been born in 1852. Herzfeld returned to Moose Factory in 1935, 1937 and 1938 (on her honeymoon with Karl).

“The Montagnais are among the few remaining groups by whose life and beliefs we can study the vanished races,” she was quoted as saying in a 1938 Washington Star article. “They are an aboriginal tribe that has had little contact with civilization, and I felt that they represented a field of research that had been neglected.

“I feel just as safe in a Montagnais tepee as I do on F Street,” she continued. “Their culture knows no weapons of offense and they wouldn’t think of harming anyone who treats them right.”

Classroom Pioneer
Herzfeld’s achievements also extended to the halls of academe. During the 1933-1934 academic year, she became an assistant in anthropology and taught two classes each semester. In 1934 the Department of Anthropology was created and the following year, Herzfeld was promoted to instructor of anthropology.

(From left) Rev. John Cooper, Regina Herzfeld and Karl Herzfeld in 1938.

Herzfeld was promoted to associate professor in 1948 and to full professor in 1953. She served as chair of the anthropology department from 1953 to 1969. During her tenure as chair, enrollment increased and, for the first time, an undergraduate program was offered in anthropology.

Although Herzfeld retired in 1971 and became a professor emerita, she remained an active scholar. She published more than 10 articles after 1971 and attended many conferences on the tribes she studied. In 1985 she returned to Moose Factory and met the descendants of those Indians she had interviewed in the 1930s. Though her vision was impaired in later years, Herzfeld was still serving as a consultant to colleagues and working with a CUA doctoral student at the time of her death.

A Lasting Legacy
“Anyone who had the privilege of having Dr. Herzfeld as a professor or dissertation director found a real mentor,” Cohen says. “The students never forgot her. I know that any work that I’ve done, I’ve discussed it with her to get her opinion.”

Becoming a CUA doctoral student in the 1960s, Cohen says she was immediately impressed by how well prepared Herzfeld was for each class, the breadth of her knowledge and her willingness to help students understand the material.

“I used to enjoy hearing her speak about her travels and the people she encountered,” Cohen says. “Even in her final years, the Native Americans with whom she worked, as well as their descendants, kept in touch with her. Dr. Herzfeld helped develop the anthropology program at CUA and played an enormous part in anthropology’s development as a modern discipline.”
 

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