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Title
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Wheelwright, Mary Cabot (1878-1958)
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birthday
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1878-10-02
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Birthplace
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Boston, MA
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Death Date
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1958-07-29
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Occupation
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Anthropologist
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Museum director
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Biographical Text
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Mary Cabot Wheelwright was an anthropologist and founder of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. Wheelwright was born an only child to a wealthy, upperclass family of Boston, MA. She was brought up by ideas of the Transcendentalists and the Unitarian Church. Until the age of forty, Wheelwright devoted herself to projects such as a Boston settlement-house music school. She had a significant fortune as the family's sole heiress that would set her up for a comfortable life. After the passing of both her parents, Wheelwright moved to the American Southwest to experience a new way of life. She became actively involved in the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs, the Indian Arts Fund, and the the Spanish Colonial Arts Society in Santa Fe. In 1921, she met Hosteen Klah, a Navajo musician and healer. The two formed a bond in the desire to preserve Navajo religious practices. From there, Wheelwright began traveling the world, collecting information on Navajo ceremonials from just under sixty individual sources. In 1937, Wheelwright and Klah established the House of Navajo Religion in Santa Fe, CA. In 1939, the name was changed to the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, and then again in 1977 to its current title, the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. Wheelwright served as its director for the remainder of her lifetime.
Wheelwright passed on July 29, 1958, at the age of seventy-nine in her home in ME.
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Contributor
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O'Neill, Iris
Mary Cabot Wheelwright, Museum