"Different by Degree": Ella Cara Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, and Franz Boas Contend with Race and Ethnicity

Abstract

What did or could African American folklorist and writer Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) and American Indian ethnographer and linguist Ella Cara Deloria (1888 -1971) have in common? According to their correspondences housed at the American Philosophical Society (APS) in Philadelphia, they have more in common than those who have been conditioned to think of race in dualistic terms and apart from class might assume. Both Hurston and Deloria spent a good part of the 1920S and 1930s marshalling their expertise for the father of modern anthropology, Franz Boas. Both women were stunned by what had passed for folklore about their respective communities and could hardly bear it. In a 24 May 1938 correspondence with Boas, Deloria explained that she had been reading a couple of manuscripts for a publishing house: is amazing what people write about Indians. I have criticized both [manuscripts] quite unfavorably; but I had to, they were so trashy; I should not like to be thought to pass on them. It became their mission, thus, to offer antidotal efforts through extensive, rigorous fieldwork. Both Hurston and Deloria were extremely dedicated to their intellectual and professional mentor, Boas. Hurston seemed more inclined to iconize him (signing a lo October 1929 letter, for instance, Much love and reverence), while Deloria occasionally expressed covertly her resentment of white expectations of her. Both women were resilient in the face of relentless racism, though they demonstrated their tenacity differently: Deloria, through eloquent candor, and Hurston, through fearless wit. Likewise, both suffered tremendous financial stress, though Deloria's was more often pronounced and varied because of her dire socioeconomic straits, which impinged on her familial obligations. Hurston's hardship, according to extant letters located at APS, primarily delayed her pursuit of a doctorate and-according to Lorraine Roses and Ruth Randolph's biographical and critical insights-resulted in part from mismanagement of funds.' Most noteworthy, incongruous, and, for me, disquieting is that both remarkable researchers and historians died not only impoverished but in relative