Matilda Coxe Stevenson was a trailblazing American anthropologist, ethnologist, geologist, and explorer who was active during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She holds the historic distinction of being the first woman ever employed as an anthropologist in the United States, as well as the first female anthropologist to study the Native American peoples of New Mexico. Throughout her career, she pioneered the integration of photography into ethnological research, capturing invaluable visual records of the cultures she studied. Hired by the Bureau of American Ethnology to conduct research on southwestern Indigenous populations, Stevenson published several monographs and an extensive, detailed text focusing on the Zuni people. Beyond her fieldwork, she was a dedicated advocate for women in the sciences and co-founded the Women's Anthropological Society in Washington, D.C., to support female researchers. Despite facing significant institutional and societal barriers as a female scientist of her era, her contributions earned recognition from her contemporary peers. To compete in a male-dominated professional landscape, she frequently defied traditional societal expectations, which led some of her contemporaries to characterize her as stubborn and aggressive, though her pioneering legacy remains highly influential.
