Anna-Maja Nylén

Anna-Maja Nylén (March 24, 1912 – February 27, 1976) was a Swedish ethnologist.

Birth and family Nylén was born on March 24, 1912, in Dalby parish in northern Värmland. Her parents were Johanna Theresia Nylén (birth name Hägglund), and Jakob Theodor Nylén. She had a sister, Karin Laura Nylén, and two brothers, Jan Klas Nylén and Matts Otto Nylén.

Career Nylén worked at the Nordic Museum beginning in the late 1930s. She was the first academically qualified female employee there. In 1947, she became the first woman at the Nordic Museum to receive a doctorate in folklife research, which she received from the Institute for Folklife Research. In 1961, she became the head of the Nordic Museum's Etnologiska undersökningen (ethnological investigation section). In 1965, she became head of a recently created costumes and textiles section at the Nordic Museum. She worked in that section until she retired from the museum in 1975.

In 1973, she became the first professionally-engaged woman elected to The Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture.

Death Nylén died in Lidingö on February 27, 1976.