Fletcher, Alice Cunningham (1838-1923)

Cuban-born ethnologist and humanitarian. She worked for better treatment of the American Indians living in the West of the USA and became the first and best-informed researcher of American Indian music. Her research appears in both scholarly and popular works.

She was born in Havana, Cuba. Beginning with an interest in the archaeology of American Indians, from 1876 on she concentrated on improving conditions for living Native peoples. Her major scholarly work was The Omaha Tribe (1911), but her most popular work was Indian Story and Song from North America (1900).