Elizabeth H. Metcalf

Elizabeth Henshaw Metcalf (April 15, 1852 – 1925) was an American amateur anthropologist who conducted fieldwork among the Bagobo in the Philippines. After meeting and corresponding with Bagobo participants of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Elizabeth and her sister, Sarah Metcalf, amassed one of the best collections of Bagobo textile and clothing in the United States, including rare examples of dua talian cloth and three-panel skirts that show the overdyeing technique called sináke. Elizabeth and Sarah Metcalfs’ collection was donated to the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania and the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution.

Early life Elizabeth Henshaw Metcalf was born on April 15, 1852, to N. W. Metcalf and Caroline Henshaw , who were married on July 17, 1850. Elizabeth had one brother, Wallace Metcalf, and one sister, Sarah Sprague Metcalf, who was born on March 5, 1858.

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis American anthropological research in the Philippines began after the establishment of the Bureau of Non-Christian Tribes of the Islands as part of the Department of Interior in 1901. This Bureau brought the ethnological displays, including both people and objects, to St. Louis, Missouri for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. Punzalan notes that "official reports and representations of the Philippines in media and expositions such as the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904 depicted the former Spanish colony as backward, uncivilized, unfit for self-governance" and therefore justified the American adoption of the territory with the Treaty of Paris on February 6, 1899. The exhibits worked against ideas of a unified Philippine national identity

Elizabeth Henshaw Metcalf and her sister, Sarah, became interested in the Philippines and the Bagobo people after attending the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition, a world's fair held in St. Louis in 1904. Cherubim Quizon notes that Ermolina was likely one of the Metcalfs’ contacts from when they travelled to Mindanao in 1906. The "Teachers’ Camp" produced a newspaper, called the Teachers Assembly Herald, that featured the Metcalf sisters in 1908. During an anthropological conference organized by the assembly on Thursday, May 14, 1908, Elizabeth Metcalf discussed the "Gong-Music of the Mindanao" and Sarah Metcalf discussed "the Dress of the Bagobo." Elizabeth Metcalf's discussion focused on different types of Moro gongs, including the agung, inagungan, kulintang, or kulintangan and gandingan, describing which instruments were played exclusively by women or men and how the tone of a gong was tested.

Career In 1910, Elizabeth and Sarah Metcalf returned to the United States as a result of the mounting tensions of World War I. Because of Elizabeth Metcalf's work as an industrial arts teacher, the Metcalfs also documented the materials used in industrial education classes. American industrial teachers were responsible for introducing Native American basketry techniques into Philippine schools. Cherubim Quizon notes that "they became reluctant entrepreneurs, purveyors of ‘native handicrafts’" and worked to collect objects from the Igorot and Ifugao in Luzon.

Benedict struggled to support her collection activities on a schoolteacher salary, but the Metcalfs were able to continue their work in the Philippines with Elizabeth only working one year as a schoolteacher out of the four years that she and Sarah resided in Santa Cruz. Sarah was employed by the Lawyer's Cooperative Publishing Company in the late 1800s, and Elizabeth and Sarah maintained a family home in Worcester with indications of a dependable income up until about 1916, when the Metcalfs established their "Little Home Shop" in Manila. The Metcalfs were also in contact with government officials and maintained social contacts with other expatriates and military officers and their wives in the Davao district and Manila. Their uncle, George Metcalf, died on January 14, 1912. George Metcalf planned to leave almost all of his estate to his housekeeper Ella L. Lancaster