Frances Cooke Macgregor papers
name: label: Creator
content: Macgregor, Frances Cooke, 1906-2001
label: Names
content: Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978
topic: label: Topic
content: Medical anthropology
label: Topic
content: Visual anthropology
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Received from Frances Cooke Macgregor in 1994 and 1998 and from Macgregor's relatives Ann and Lee Bain in 2020.
creator: label: Creator
content: Macgregor, Frances Cooke, 1906-2001
setName: label: See more items in
content: Frances Cooke Macgregor papers
bioghist: label: Biographical Note
content: Frances Cooke Macgregor was born Frances Maxwell Cooke in Portland, Oregon in 1906. She grew up in California, receiving her BA in economics from Berkeley in 1927. She married anthropologist Gordon Macgregor in 1933 and spent the next few years traveling with him to various Native American reservations for his work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1936 while traveling in Germany, Macgregor purchased a Leica camera and proceeded to take photographs of Hitler's birthday parade (finding out later that it was forbidden).

Back in the US, Macgregor used her Leica camera to document people and conditions on the reservations, which culminated in her book, Twentieth Century Indians, in 1941. Around this time Macgregor became interested in creating a "sociological document, a photographic document, of a small town." She chose Hingham, Massachusetts, where she was living, as the subject of the study. She sent her photographs to the publisher, who ended up connecting Macgregor with Eleanor Roosevelt, who had seen the photos and wanted to provide the text. The book, This Is America, was published in 1942.

In 1939 Macgregor helped to fund the making of the film Portugal Novo, produced by Jeanne Broadhurst. The film's purpose was to record life and activities in Portugal and the Azores for the thousands of Portuguese immigrants who had long been settled in the US.

In 1944, Macgregor separated from husband Gordon (they were later divorced) and her interests  turned away from photography to focus on social science. She went to Columbia, Missouri for a visit and ended up taking graduate courses in sociology and anthropology at the University. In 1946 she went to New York to study at Columbia University, and there met Dr. John Converse, a plastic surgeon who had been treating American and English air pilots who had suffered facial injuries during the war. Macgregor had worked as a medical photographer just before coming to New York, developing an interest in and concern for patients who had facial injuries or deformities and the sociological/psychological effects of these conditions. As a result of this, she was able to work with Converse's patients on a pioneering research project, leading to her MA thesis "The Sociological Aspects of Facial Deformities," in 1947 (University of Missouri). 

Macgregor also met Margaret Mead in 1946, and Mead soon involved her in research analyzing thousands of photographs of children from Bali made by Gregory Bateson. From this collaboration, the book Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood was published in 1951. In 1948, Macgregor traveled to South America – mainly Chile and Brazil – and conducted a photographic study of Chilean children. 

During and following these projects Macgregor continued to build on her master's research, coordinating the interdisciplinary research project "The Psychological and Sociological Aspects of Facial Deformities and Plastic Surgery" conducted under the departments of psychiatry and surgery at the New York College of Medicine.  In 1953, she was a founding member of the New York City Medical Social Science Group, an informal organization of anthropologists/sociologists and those in medicine who would meet for discussions on various topics. The group disbanded in 1962 as professional associations dealing with these topics were growing. From 1954-1968 Macgregor taught at the Cornell University-New York Hospital School of Nursing. In 1960 she published the textbook Social Science in Nursing: Applications for the Improvement of Patient Care.

Macgregor continued her research and work with people having facial differences throughout her career, working as a consultant, and becoming professor and research scientist in the Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery at the New York University Medical Center in 1968. In her later years, Macgregor became interested in issues of iatrogenic disease and endowed a fund to provide grants for research into it.

Macgregor died in Carmel, California in 2002.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 4 Linear feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1906-2002
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.1994-16
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: The collection came to the archives in several accessions in the 1990s and in 2020. Existing organization of the papers was maintained, with some additional arrangement by the archivist for clarity.

The abbreviation "FCM" is used throughout the finding aid to refer to Frances Cooke Macgregor.

Some material relating to This Is America, Macregor's book co-authored with Eleanor Roosevelt, was transferred to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.

Duplicate material was removed from the collection.
bibliography: label: Selected Bibliography
content: 1942.  -- Twentieth Century Indians -- . New York: G.P. Putnam and Sons.

1942.  -- This is America -- . (With Eleanor Roosevelt) New York, G.P. Putnam and Sons.

1951.  -- Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood -- . (With Margaret Mead) New York, G.P. Putnam and Sons.

1953.  -- Facial Deformities and Plastic Surgery -- . (With others) Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher.

1960.  -- Social Science in Nursing: Applications for the Improvement of Patient Care -- . New York: Russel Sage Foundation.

1974.  -- Transformation and Identity: The Face and Plastic Surgery -- . New York: Quadrangle Press.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The Frances Cooke Macgregor papers document Macgregor's interests in photography and medical anthropology and consists primarily of material relating to major projects she was involved with, but also includes some personal material. The collection includes correspondence, notes and meeting minutes, manuscripts and published works, photographs, a sound recording, and the film Portugal Novo.

Biographical material (series 1) consists of one folder of descriptions of Macgregor's work and life, written by Macgregor and others.

Photography project files (series 2) relate to Twentieth Century Indians, Portugal Novo, This Is America, and Macgregor's 1948 fieldwork in South America.

Macgregor's relationship with Margaret Mead (series 3) is reflected through materials relating to their publication Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood, as well as through correspondence, photographs, and newsclippings of Mead. Also included in the series are excerpts of talks given at the Institute for Intercultural Studies, and a manual on "Theory and Practice in the Study of Culture at a Distance by Interdisciplinary Groups" authored by Mead and Metreaux.

Magregor's medical anthropology research (series 4) is documented in files relating to her project "The Psychological and Sociological Aspects of Facial Disfigurement and Plastic Surgery," minutes from meetings of the Medical Social Science Group, and interdisciplinary group of colleagues that met for ten years, and through her published and unpublished writings (series 5).

The collection also contains some personal papers including correspondence with friends and family, photographs of Macgregor and others, and other personal material.

 
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum holds the Frances Cooke Macgregor Papers, 1941-1985.
separatedmaterial: label: Separated Materials
content: The film Portugal Novo was transferred to the Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA 1993.19.1).