Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Yelm Kingman

Elizabeth Yelm in 1938 at Mesa Verde.

Courtesy of the Kingman family.

Quick Facts

Significance:

Archeologist

Place of Birth:

Layfayette, Indiana

Date of Birth:

1911

Date of Death:

2005

Mary Elizabeth "Betty" Yelm Kingman was one of the first women to make significant contributions to understanding the archeological past of Rocky Mountain National Park. Her next position was at Mesa Verde National Park, where she wore several hats. Betty published and delivered papers on archeology. After leaving NPS, Betty continued to participate in professional societies and worked as a science librarian until her retirement.

Betty received her BA in anthropology from the University of Denver in 1934. She attended field schools in Colorado. In her senior honors thesis, she analyzed Great Plains side scrapers to attempt to determine whether the users were right- or left-handed. She earned her MA in anthropology there in 1935, one of the first women to do so. Her thesis was an archeological survey at Rocky Mountain National Park, where she began working after receiving her BA.

Betty passed her National Park Service junior archeologist exam in the spring of 1934, just as she graduated from college, and next took a job at Rocky Mountain National Park. According to Betty's daughter, she applied again and again until she got a job at Mesa Verde National Park, where she was a ranger-naturalist and museum assistant from 1934-38. She also gave tours of the ruins. Betty published papers and delivered conference papers about the archeology of the area.

In 1940, Betty left NPS when her family moved from the area. She continued to be a member of the Society for American Archaeology. Until her retirement well into her 80s, Betty was the librarian at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, where she assisted in analyzing materials from Arroyo Hondo pueblo and summarized Edgar Hewett's items held at the library.

Yelm, Mary Elizabeth
1935 Archeological Survey of Rocky Mountain National Park—Eastern Foothill District. Master's thesis, University of Denver.
1935 "Skull Deformities of the Cliff Dweller." Mesa Verde Notes 6(1): 14-16.

Yelm, Mary Elizabeth and Ralph L. Beals
1934 Indians of the Park Region. Estes Park, National Park Service

Sources:
Browman, David L.
2013 Cultural Negotiations: The Role of Women in the Founding of Americanist Archaeology. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

Kingman-Eddy, Mixie 
2016 A “New Deal” Romance. The Living New Deal, Winter.