Ladies of the Field: Early Women Archaeologists and Their Search for Adventure

by Amanda Adams

Boyd Hawes embodied archaeology’s turn away from treasure seeking and toward data gathering. With her finds stacking high, Boyd Hawes was all the more remarkable as an archaeologist because she did two things: first, published her discoveries in timely and thorough fashion, and second, became the first woman invited to lecture for the Archaeological Institute of America. This was major. It announced her stature as a true scientist in a field of men. Her talks were not in the engaging and popular style of Amelia Edwards; they were sharp and technical. Likewise, Boyd Hawes’s story of archaeology wasn’t told through a lens of emotion. It was more a tale of perseverance and character. The Philadelphia Public Ledger of March 5, 1902, reported on Boyd’s success at Gournia: A woman has shattered another tradition and successfully entered unaided a field hitherto occupied almost exclusively by men, namely archaeological exploration . . . The results of Miss Boyd’s work must be considered remarkable, not only because of their character, but because she achieved them alone. Other women have made names in the fields of archaeological research, but these have done so in company with their husbands, who shared glory with them. But Miss Boyd’s work is entirely her own.22