ABSTRACT
The relationship between the senior scholar and the graduate student was widely known; they made no effort to conceal it. Parsons and Kroeber, who themselves enjoyed a close and affectionate friendship (Deacon 1997:157-163), were certainly tolerant and even supportive. When the Southwest Society funded their Navajo field trip, Kroeber asked Parsons: ‘And how much was it science and how much wish to give two people their fling, that led you to add
Gladys to Goddard’s trip?’ (ALK to ECP 18 October 1923 ECPP). Goddard himself referred to Parsons’s ‘nice spirit’ in funding the trip (PEG to ECP 13 August 1923 ECPP), a comment that may have looked back upon early years of their own friendship which, in his letters to her, appears to have been much closer than a mere professional association (e.g., three undated notes, one marked ‘[1917]’ by Reichard when she organized Parsons’s papers, another, based on internal evidence, written in June 1919; PEG to ECP ECPP).
