Elsie Clews Parsons (1875 – 1941) was an American anthropologist, sociologist, folklorist, and feminist who studied Native American tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. She helped found The New School. She was associate editor for The Journal of American Folklore (1918-1941), president of the American Folklore Society (1919-1920), president of the American Ethnological Society (1923-1925), and was elected the first female president of the American Anthropological Association in 1941.