Mary McCutcheon was interviewed by Eduardo Contreras on July 5, 1996. McCutcheon was born in 1947 in Chicago, Illinois, and studied anthropology in college, specializing in Micronesia. She came to work at the Smithsonian in the fall of 1978 and stayed until 1980 when she finished her dissertation. McCutcheon currently teaches anthropology at George Mason University and does research on a contract basis for the Smithsonian. This interview discusses the different jobs McCutcheon has held; how she came to work for the Smithsonian in 1978; her work on the collections inventory at the National Museum of Natural History, specifically with the SELGEM files and the database software; colleagues Saul Riesenberg, Vince Wilcox, Johanna Humphrey, Paul Taylor, and Adrienne Kaeppler; reminiscences about working at the Smithsonian; being interviewed by PM Magazine; and collecting a gecko species for Smithsonian herpetologists while doing anthropological fieldwork.

Object Details

See more items in: Smithsonian Memories Project, Festival of American Folklife Oral History Interviews; Smithsonian Memories Project, Festival of American Folklife Oral History Interviews / Interviews

Collection Citation: Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 9594, Smithsonian Memories Project, Festival of American Folklife Oral History Interviews