“Not Enough Anthropologists to Go Around”: Sister Inez Hilger's Applied Anthropology

ABSTRACT Sister Inez Hilger was a singular figure in twentieth‐century American anthropology, a habit‐wearing Benedictine nun who conducted fieldwork among Native North American tribes and Indigenous communities abroad. While outwardly conservative, S. Inez was resolutely modern in her commitment to bringing anthropological knowledge to bear on discussions of policy and practice outside the academy. In a sense, S. Inez had no choice but to focus on the application of anthropological knowledge to “social problems”: she never held an academic position in anthropology, but taught mainly in schools of nursing, where the onus was on her to demonstrate the relevance and value of her subjects—anthropology, sociology, and psychology—to the settings and people her future nurses were likely to encounter “in the field.” In this article, based on extensive archival research, I develop an account of S. Inez's groundbreaking efforts to apply anthropology in non‐academic settings, beginning with her earliest publications for nurses. I chart the growth of her political conscience following World War II and report on her participation in state and federal‐level discussions on “social problems” among American Indians, reconstructing her involvement in two significant conferences (in 1953 and 1964). I also consider evidence of her wider‐ranging political advocacy for Native peoples, including her role as an expert consultant for a US Senate subcommittee (in 1961). A consideration of S. Inez's publications and activities over the long term reveals that she moved from methodological individualism to a greater preoccupation with structural factors underlying the symptoms of social dysfunction among Native peoples.