Louise Lamphere papers (Ms.2016.011)

Biographical / Historical

Louise Lamphere (born 1940) is a renowned anthropologist and feminist scholar, working at the University of New Mexico. With a B.A. from Stanford University, an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, Lamphere has been active in the field of American Anthropology, specifically Navajo cultures, and women's roles in the workplace and family. In 1968, Brown University hired Lamphere into the Anthropology department, where she served as the only woman and was famously denied tenure in 1974. Following that decision, Lamphere brought a class action suit against Brown University and subsequently won an out-of-court settlement that served as a model for future suits by others. "[T]he University settled the case before trial, entering in September 1977 into an historic consent decree designed 'to achieve on behalf of women full representativeness with respect to faculty employment at Brown.'" Lamphere spent most of her career between Brown University and the University of New Mexico, with several visiting fellowships at various universities and institutions, such as the University of California Berkeley, Princeton University, and the Russell Sage Foundation. During her career, Lamphere won several awards and has written over 120 publications, including books, articles, and article reviews. Today, she is a distinguished professor of Anthropology, Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico.