The Women Foundation Members of the Linguistic Society of America

This paper examines the major professional interests and accomplishments of the 31 women Foundation Members of the Linguistic Society of America and identifies the characteristics shared by those who established a presence within the profession, distinguishing their careers from the careers of those who did not. The inclusion of these women linguists in the history of the field for the decades beginning in 1924 brings a new focus to several areas of scholarship, pursued by both men and women, distinct from the concerns of the synchronic structuralism that came to be taken, in retrospect, as defining American work for this period.