Alice Cunningham Fletcher

Alice Cunningham Fletcher was an American ethnologist, anthropologist, and social scientist who studied and documented American Indian culture.

Not much is known about Fletchers parents her father was a New York lawyer and her mother was from a prominent Boston family. Her parents moved to Havana, Cuba in vain hopes of easing her fathers illness with a better climate. Fletcher was born there in 1838. After her father died in 1839, the family moved to Brooklyn Heights, Fletcher was enrolled in the Brooklyn Female Academy, an exclusive school for the elite. Fletcher taught school and later became a public lecturer to support herself, arguing that anthropologists and archaeologists were best at uncovering ancient history of humans. She also advocated for the education of Native Americans so that they could gain accoutrements of civilization.

Source: Wikipedia