Professor Regina Herzfeld

Masters and Doctorate in anthropology from Catholic University of America in Washington in 1931 and 1938. Studied North American indian tribes in United States and Canada. Author. Professor of Anthrolopology Catholic University 1953. Visited and studied Tibetan refugees in Switzerland. Regular visitor to Europe (photograph taken when visiting family in London) with her husband.

... Regina Flannery Herzfeld — who died on Nov. 26, 2004, a couple of weeks shy of her 100th birthday — was an accomplished scholar in her own right. She was the first lay woman to teach at CUA, an authority on Northeastern and Plains Indians, the author of more than 20 publications, and the chair of the Department of Anthropology for more than 15 years.

“This was a woman who was a pioneer in the field,” says Lucy M. Cohen, professor of anthropology. “Her good friends were famous anthropologists. Margaret Mead used to visit with her whenever she came to Washington, D.C.”

Herzfeld’s funeral was held Dec. 1. The CUA community will remember her at a memorial Mass Monday, Dec. 6, at 12:15 p.m. in Caldwell Chapel. Before Herzfeld’s death, administrators in the School of Arts and Sciences had been planning a birthday celebration for her.

According to the 1988 book Pioneering Women at the Catholic University of America, Herzfeld earned her bachelor’s degree from Washington, D.C.'s Trinity College and was hired as a research assistant by Father Cooper, helping him with his research on childcare institutions such as orphanages. At the time, CUA was one of a handful of American universities that offered classes in anthropology.