There’s Something About Annie:

Rejoinder to Deegan, Hill, and Wortmann’s Comment on MacLean1

Tim Hallett, Greg Jeffers, and Emily Bowman

Indiana University

Hallett, Tim, Greg Jeffers, and Emily Bowman. 2009. “There’s Something about Annie: Rejoinder to

Deegan, Hill, and Wortmann’s Comment on MacLean.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

38, 6: 666-676. http://jce.sagepub.com/content/38/6/666.refs

“. . . we pledge ourselves to resist every tendency to rancor and revenge, to promote

mutual understanding and goodwill. . .” (Addams 1960 [1922]: 256)

“. . . Jane Addams. . . and her colleagues. . . correctly argue that violent and hostile

language tends to call out a similar response, but commitment to a cooperative and

liberating sociology requires a higher standard of discourse. . .” (Deegan 2003: 303)

One hundred and ten years after Annie Marion MacLean published her first ethnographic

work in the pages of the American Journal of Sociology (MacLean 1899), we are debating her

legacy in the pages of Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. This is a good thing, especially if

it is done with a spirit of open-mindedness, and we hope that Professor MacLean would be

honored by the fresh attention being paid to her work. Our goal in this rejoinder is to advance

this debate in positive and productive ways. Toward this end we start by reemphasizing the

intended audience, goal, and argument of our original paper.2 Then we address three possible

readings of the critique by Deegan, Hill, and Wortmann (hereafter DHW), the last of which holds

the most promise for scholars interested in learning about how the research of neglected pioneers

speaks to contemporary concerns, and debates about the appropriateness of such recovery efforts.

1 We would like to thank Alyssa Powers, Emily Meanwell, and Tamara Hallett for their help with this rejoinder.

2 In writing this response, we invited Emily Bowman to become involved in order to provide a more detached view

of our original paper and the critique by Deegan, Hill, and Wortmann, and because Emily has experience doing

historical sociological research on Hull House and the progressive era. Emily’s efforts merit authorship on this

rejoinder, but when we refer to “our paper,” we are referring to Hallett and Jeffers (2008).

Annie Marion MacLean, 1909. Photo reproduced with permission from Adelphi

University Archives and Special Collections.

Audience, Goal, and Argument. One of writing’s first lessons is to know your audience,

and there is a reason we published our article in Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (and we

emphasize “contemporary” and “ethnography”). First, our article was born from an earlier study

that focused on the form and content of ethnographic research published in the first fifteen

volumes of AJS, 1895-1910 (Hallett and Fine 2000). This ethnographic pool included, but was

not limited to, some of the research by the female scholars DHW discuss in their response. As

contemporary ethnographers, Greg and I found MacLean’s work especially appealing, and we

sought to understand the nature of this appeal, to unpack it and articulate it in a way that would

help us better understand the features of ethnography, both then and now. In other words, we felt

a kinship with MacLean that we did not find with many of the other ethnographers of her day,

both female and male. We found ourselves asking, “Is MacLean a long-neglected mother of

contemporary ethnography?” (Here it is important to emphasize the intentional use of “a” and

not “the”—vital nuance DHW overlook). In answering this question, our goal was to celebrate

MacLean’s many contributions to ethnography, but more importantly, to demonstrate her

relevance for contemporary ethnographers such as ourselves. Based on our analysis of her work,

we argued that MacLean’s ethnographies give us leverage for thinking about the realist-

postmodernist debate in ethnography, the challenges of ethnography as a career and how it can

change over the life-course, and the dangers of our short scholarly recall—issues very much

alive today.

Thus, there are sound reasons for our statement that “our primary goal is not historical”

(Hallett and Jeffers 2008: 8). DHW would have taken a somewhat different approach, and part

of their criticism is that we have not written the kind of paper they would have written. However,

our goal was entirely appropriate both for our audience and for the content of MacLean’s

ethnographies. To be sure, there are dangers when ethnographers who are not experienced with

historical research engage in such research for non-historical purposes, and DHW do note a few

errors. However, we did not invent these mistakes. Rather, we repeated them. They exist in the

research record, a record that includes Deegan’s work. For example, Deegan herself stated that

MacLean went to Acadia College (1991: 281).

The key question is whether these corrections fundamentally change our argument about

the value of MacLean’s ethnographies and their contemporary relevance. Does it matter for our

argument that MacLean was an early member of ACA instead of a founding member? Does it

matter for our argument whether MacLean actually was present at the founding sessions for the

American Sociological Society? (The ASA website does list her as a founding member3). Does

it matter that MacLean did quantitative research in addition to qualitative research? (A point we

acknowledged in footnote number nine and pp. 5-7 of our article). Do any of the “facts” DHW

present diminish the quality of MacLean’s ethnographies or our argument about their

contemporary value? The answer to all these questions is “no,” and the veracity of DHW’s

critique rests on the assumption that the reader has ignored our argument in the same way DHW

have. This leads us to the first possible reading of DHW’s critique.

The First Reading. In this scenario, the hurried reader peruses the first few paragraphs of

DHW without having read our original article. Granted that Deegan is renowned for retracing

the history of sociology, and drawn to DHW’s feverish rhetoric, this reader could be prone to a

quick and unfortunate judgment: at best, Hallett and Jeffers are inept fools incapable of quality

research, at worst they are dastardly fiends, intent on distorting MacLean’s work. To protect

against this reading, we prod the reader with a question: What would be the strongest possible

counter argument against Hallett and Jeffers? Simply stated, it would be that MacLean was not

an important figure, that she was not an astute ethnographer, and that her work does not have

contemporary relevance. DHW avoid this argument, because embracing it would contradict

Deegan’s work on the importance of neglected female scholars. As such, DHW state, “Make no

mistake, we clearly understand MacLean to be an important sociologist.” Instead of making this

strong argument, then, they argue that MacLean was a part of the Hull House network of female

3 See http://www.asanet.org/cs/root/leftnav/centennial/history/founding_members.

scholars, and as such, MacLean’s work fits under the rubric of “feminist pragmatism.” DHW’s

indignant words aside, this argument is much less contentious relative to our own. Once the

reader has this epiphany, a new question follows: “What are DHW upset about?” This leads to

the next possible reading of DHW’s critique.

The Second Reading. In this scenario, the reader has carefully read both our article and

DHW’s critique. We believe that doing so might create some confusion in the mind of the

reader: “Hallett and Jeffers have irritated DHW, but what, really, is the source of that irritation?”

To answer this question, it is important to identify the sections of our article that DHW do not

condemn. DHW take no issue with the substantive middle of our paper, pp. 9-21, where we

present the features of MacLean’s ethnographies and discuss the contemporary traits of her work.

Nor do they quibble with the section where we draw lessons from her work for contemporary

ethnographers (pp. 25-30). Thus, they do not take issue with the sections that support our main

argument. How could they? These sections showcase MacLean’s own words and her relevance

for scholars working in the here-and-now.

Instead, DHW are upset with the sections where we provided a brief background history

(pp. 4-7), where we resituated MacLean in the context of her day (pp. 21-24), and footnotes

number 13 and 15.4 Primarily, DHW are upset that we did not do enough to situate MacLean in

the Hull House network, even though we stated that “MacLean visited Hull House, but she did

not live there (Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley 1998: 234)” (Hallett and Jeffers 2008: 22),

and despite the fact that MacLean spent large portions of her career away from Chicago (Hallett

and Jeffers 2008: Table 2 on p. 7). This criticism is rather confusing, given that elsewhere

Deegan herself (1991: 285) stated: “MacLean was not strongly tied to either the male or female

4 Footnote number 15 deals with comments from an anonymous reviewer, and DHW’s concern is properly placed

with that reviewer, not us. DHW completely misinterpret footnote 13, which addresses the unusual tone of

ethnocentrism in MacLean’s collaboration with Amy Tanner, and not MacLean’s quantitative work.

networks in sociology.” Likewise, Deegan (2002: 36) has noted that MacLean’s visits to Hull

House were limited to the years 1896-1900, a small portion of a career spanning some 30 years.

There is no question that MacLean knew the women of Hull House, but we were reticent to

equate association with influence without empirical justifications for doing so, an error that

Deegan has been criticized for making (Baker 1989: 1347; Platt 1990: 1323).5

DHW are also perturbed by “familistic terminology” that they deem “unhelpful,” even as

they use the metaphor of “sisters” in the next line, and even though Deegan (1991: 12) has

referred to “founding mothers.” They argue that the members of Hull House and Harriet

Martineau are important figures. We agree and we recognize the contributions of these women;

hence we argued that MacLean is “a” metaphorical mother and not “the” mother, and stated: “if

contemporary ethnography has long-neglected relatives who are worth remembering, Annie

Marion MacLean is one of them” (Hallett and Jeffers 2008: 30). DHW seem fearful that our

focus on MacLean would somehow marginalize the efforts of pioneering women such as Jane

Addams, Florence Kelley, Sophonisba Breckinridge, Mary McDowell, Ellen Gates Starr, Edith

and Grace Abbott, and others. This was never our goal, and we do not understand how

celebrating a part of this network (MacLean) could diminish this network. These women and the

gendered social environment they inhabited have been the subject of several scholarly works by

Deegan and Hill, and DHW have generously cited them for the reader. We did not think it was

necessary to repeat these findings.

5 For example, DHW ask: “Was MacLean specifically influenced by Martineau’s insightful and pioneering

methodological treaties, or by Martineau’s methods as then generally understood? We cannot say, but the existing

biographical link, via Edith Abbott, at least makes this hypothesis a well-considered possibility” (emphasis added).

How could we justify making this case when there is no direct evidence of a link, and when DHW admit that they

“cannot say?” Likewise, DHW contend that MacLean learned about community surveys from Hull-House Maps

and Papers. This is possible, but why would we ignore the fact that MacLean (1903) actually published with

DuBois and not the Hull House women?

Another component of our title is relevant in this regard: “neglected.” Thanks to efforts

by Hill, Deegan, and others, many of these pioneers—especially Martineau and Addams— are

no longer neglected, yet DHW’s critique of our article is much more about these other figures

than it actually is about MacLean. DHW are so intent on describing a network that may have

surrounded MacLean that they neglect to tell us anything new about the style or content of

MacLean’s actual work, how she did her work, or her major findings. They do not provide the

reader any of the specific, rich details of MacLean’s ethnographies (or her quantitative work),

nor do they show how a different analysis of this work would contradict our argument, or

support their case that MacLean was a “feminist pragmatist.” In fact, the name “Annie Marion

MacLean” could be stripped from their title because they are not concerned with engaging

MacLean’s work in its own right. This is true for all of their publications in the area, where

MacLean is discussed only in passing. For example, in the five articles and books where Deegan

refers to MacLean (Deegan 1978, 1988, 1991, 1996, 2002), MacLean is only mentioned on 21 of

1,076 total pages.

In sum, through this second reading, the reader comes to a fuller understanding of our

article and the components of DHW’s critique. The reader knows what DHW are upset about,

but the relevance and added value of DHW’s piece remains uncertain. This leads to the third

possible reading, the one we believe to be most productive, and one that addresses the promise

and peril of returning to old scholarship to reflect on contemporary concerns while advancing

new thought.

The Third Reading. DHW’s terse language in the first paragraph of their critique casts us

as enemies, and clearly they have taken offense at our article. However, what if the reader were

to tear-away the first page or so of DHW’s critique, and then read the remainder alongside our

article? What if, as Addams (1960 [1922]: 256) suggested, we were to put “rancor and revenge”

aside in order to “promote mutual understanding and goodwill”? Doing so would convey a very

different meaning, and would suggest that these pieces are complementary, and share a lot of

common ground.

Regarding substance, our article and DHW’s piece complement each other. As

ethnographers, we are well-suited to analyze and evaluate the form, content, and contemporary

relevance of MacLean’s many participant-observation studies. As historical sociologists, DHW

are positioned to elaborate on MacLean’s biography and to locate her among the other scholars

of her era. Although we have different skill-sets, our ethnographic and historical goals are not

competing, especially since DHW’s argument does not contradict or even force a revision of our

argument that MacLean was an important ethnographer whose work still has great value.

Together, the two sets of writing provide a better understanding of MacLean’s background, life,

and work than they do apart, and examining the contemporary relevance of MacLean’s

ethnographies advances the argument that early female scholars can no longer be ignored.

Our article and DHW’s comment are also similar in an important way: We are both

using contemporary lenses to reexamine old work as a means to identify our roots and move

forward. We have read MacLean’s work through the lens of contemporary ethnography in an

effort to advance this method. DHW propose to read MacLean’s work through the contemporary

lens of feminist pragmatism in an effort to advance this theory and correct the collective memory

of our discipline’s founding.6 What DHW call “feminist pragmatism” has been shaped as much

by contemporary debates about feminism and pragmatism as it has been by the work of Addams,

Breckinridge, Talbot, and the other early female scholars that Deegan rightly lauds. Likewise,

6 Though their argument is supported by positioning MacLean in a network and not on an actual analysis of

MacLean’s work.

DHW’s interpretation of MacLean and the scholars of the Hull House network have been

shaped, in part, by the present-day conceptualization of feminist pragmatism. MacLean never

used the term “feminist pragmatism” to describe her work, and while Deegan identifies the roots

of feminist pragmatism in Addams’ work, Addams did not use that term either. In her (1988)

book on Addams, Deegan interpreted Addams’ work through the dual (contemporary) lenses of

“critical pragmatism” and “cultural feminism,” which Deegan has described as her (Deegan’s)

terms (2000: 39 footnote number 1). Explicit efforts to bring contemporary feminism and

pragmatism together began to coalesce around the same time period (Mahowald 1986-87; Rorty

1991; Seigfried 1991, 1993). As a reflection of this development, Deegan has stated that she

began to use “feminist pragmatism” in her subsequent work to combine “my earlier terms

‘critical pragmatism’ and ‘cultural feminism’” (2000: 39, footnote number 1). Hence, when

Deegan introduces the term to analyze the work of earlier scholars, she uses scare quotes.

Let us be clear: we are not saying that interpreting the works of these early scholars

through the lens of feminist pragmatism is inappropriate. Rather, we are emphasizing that our

article on MacLean, DHW’s critique, and Deegan’s work are all recovery efforts, and in the

larger debate about the appropriateness of such efforts, we are actually on the same side. The

promise of these recovery efforts is that they provide a sense of identity for a community of

scholars, and they chart pathways for new theory, research, and practice. The peril is that such

efforts could distort the past. None of these readings—DHW’s, Deegan’s, or our own—are

purely historical, and while our readings are based on a past that has some irrevocability (Maines

et al. 1983: 163-164; Mead 1929: 236-237; Abbott 2001), we are also symbolically

reconstructing the past such that it has “meaning in and utility for the present” (Maines et al.

1983: 163; Mead 1932, 1929). In order to bring MacLean’s work to bear on a contemporary

“and so,” all of us—Hallett, Jeffers, Deegan, Hill, and Wortmann—are viewing the past, in part,

through present lenses. We are all reading MacLean in relation to our own present concerns,

concerns that do not exist in exactly the same manner today as they did in MacLean’s present.

While these recovery efforts carry risks of distortion, risks that must be minimized

through historical contextualization, reading with a contemporary lens does have a reward, and

in true pragmatist fashion, the added value of our respective interpretations must be based on

their practical utility for people today. We have argued that MacLean’s research has enduring

relevance for contemporary ethnographers. The reading of MacLean’s work that we have

provided has value for this audience. It is one possible reading. There are others, and reading

MacLean’s work through the lens of “feminist pragmatism” is another possibility. However, if

MacLean can “only” be classified as “feminist pragmatist,” how is it that her research could be

appealing to others, including ourselves? Pragmatism (like many strands of feminism) is very

skeptical about universalism, and we find it ironic that “feminist pragmatists” like DHW would

try to impose a singular “true” reading onto MacLean’s work, especially without reference to an

exhaustive examination of the details of that work.

That MacLean can be remembered today by different research communities for different

purposes highlights the possibility that MacLean could have as many identities in the present as

there are groups that seek to remember her. Efforts to recover the contributions of neglected

scholars should be celebrated when these efforts complement each other and serve to offer more

complete understandings of the person, her work, and contemporary concerns. Might not

MacLean be “a” mother of contemporary ethnography, in addition to “a” feminist pragmatist, in

addition to a number of other things that we hope other scholars might rediscover? The danger

for the advancement of knowledge would be to make one of MacLean’s identities the false

enemy of another. This, in our view, is where MacLean’s legacy and contemporary scholars

“deserve much better.”

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