Elizabeth Kilgore Steen

Elizabeth Kilgore "Bessie" Steen (April 21, 1886 – July 12, 1938), was an American teacher, explorer, social anthropologist and author. She made three exploratory trips to Brazil and became known as the "first white woman to enter the remote Matto Grosso area in interior Brazil."

Biography Elizabeth was one of three children born in Jackson Township, Iowa to Samuel Britton Steen (1845–1905) and nurse Emma Cooper (1863–1927). At 14, the family moved to Knoxville, Iowa.

In 1905 she graduated from high school and began her teaching career at Old English Settlement, near Knoxville. Elizabeth went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts degree from Emanuel Missionary College (later Andrews University) in Berrien Springs, Michigan. In 1926 she finished a master's degree from Columbia University in New York City. In her quest to study art, she travelled to England, France, Germany and Austria.

With her keen interest in travel and art, she went to New Mexico to study American indigenous drawings, which sparked her lifelong devotion to anthropology. In 1929 Elizabeth was accepted into the anthropology department at the University of California as a PhD candidate, although it is unclear whether she completed her doctoral studies. She also received training from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Before Steen's departure in February 1930, newspapers described her as a teacher who was supposed to find "the lost tribe" in the Amazon, the Tapiraré people. According to one press report, "Miss Steen said she had to do most of the paddling herself." Some artifacts are also held in Sweden at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg.

Elizabeth Steen died in Loma Linda, California on July 12, 1938 at 52.

Author Steen wrote a children's book, Red Jungle Boy, Illustrated with her own three-color artwork, which was published in 1937 and included a foreword by anthropologist Franz Boas.