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Suzannah Beck Vaillant

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Suzannah Beck Vaillant
Born
Mary Suzannah Beck

March 20, 1908
Mexico City, Mexico
DiedFebruary 18, 1995
Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.
Other namesSuzannah Beck Hatt, Sue Hatt
Occupation(s)Archaeologist, translator, activist
Spouse(s)George Clapp Vaillant, Robert T. Hatt
Children3, including George Eman Vaillant

Mary Suzannah Beck Vaillant Hatt (March 20, 1908 – February 18, 1995) was an American archaeologist, translator, and activist, working on-site in central Mexico with her first husband, anthropologist George Clapp Vaillant, and traveling the world with her second husband, zoologist Robert T. Hatt.

Early life and education

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Beck was born in Mexico City, the daughter of American parents, Eman L. Beck and Mary Payne Beck.[1] Her father was a banker.[2] She attended the Spence School in New York City[3] and graduated from Vassar College in 1928. At Vassar, she was an editor of the campus newspaper.[4] She earned a master's degree in psychology from Columbia University. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.[5]

Career

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Vaillant worked at archaeological sites in Central Mexico with her first husband, George Clapp Vaillant, in the early 1930s.[6][7][8] With her second husband, zoologist Robert Torrens Hatt, she traveled in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, studying small mammals including mice, rats, squirrels, and shrews.[9] She worked on translating the poems of Stephen Vincent Benet into Spanish, and works by Eudocio Eavines into English.[3] She also revised and annotated one of her first husband's books, The Aztecs of Mexico, for an updated edition in the 1960s.

Hatt was active in politics, especially in protesting the Vietnam War[10] and supporting the campaigns of Eugene McCarthy. While she was living in Michigan in the 1950s, she was a member of the Urban League Guild.[11] In 1966, as a member of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, she was arrested in Detroit while protesting the relocation of a family for an urban renewal project.[12] In 1972 she ran for county commissioner in Grafton County, New Hampshire.[13] She was national secretary of the Committee for a Constitutional Presidency when it formed in 1974.[14][15] She also worked for Common Cause and Hospice.[16]

Personal life

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Beck married anthropologist George Clapp Vaillant in 1930.[17] They had three children born between 1932 and 1936, including psychiatrist George Eman Vaillant. The Vaillants lived in Peru during World War II.[18] Her first husband died by suicide in 1945.[8][19] She married her second husband, Robert T. Hatt, in Baghdad in 1953.[2] They lived in the former home of sculptor Carl Milles in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan,[11] and then in Washington, D.C., from 1967 to 1987. Robert Hatt died in 1989.[20] She died in 1995, at the age of 86, in Hanover, New Hampshire.[5] There are materials concerning her in the Cranbrook Archives in Michigan.[21]

Publications

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  • Excavations at Gualupita (1934, with George C. Vaillant)[7]
  • The Aztecs of Mexico: Origin, Rise, and Fall of the Aztec Nation (1962, revision of George Clapp Vaillant's 1942 work)

References

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  1. ^ "Eman Beck Estate Appraised at $482,478". Arizona Daily Star. 1960-09-22. p. 27. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ a b "Cranbrook Aide Marries in Iraq". The Grand Rapids Press. 1953-01-10. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-10-13.
  3. ^ a b "Cranbrook Educator Wed". The Muskegon Chronicle. 1953-01-10. p. 18. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "Masthead". Vassar Miscellany News. December 9, 1925. p. 2 – via Vassar Newspaper & Magazine Archive.
  5. ^ a b "Suzannah Beck Hatt". Valley News. 1995-02-22. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "George Clapp Vaillant" American Museum of Natural History.
  7. ^ a b Butler, Mary (1936). "Review of Excavations at Gualupita". American Antiquity. 1 (3): 246–247. doi:10.2307/275153. ISSN 0002-7316.
  8. ^ a b Kidder, A. V. (1945). "George Clapp Vaillant: 1901-1945". American Anthropologist. 47 (4): 589–602. ISSN 0002-7294.
  9. ^ "Suzannah Hatt". Cranbrook Kitchen Sink. Retrieved 2024-10-13.
  10. ^ "Citizens for Peace in Vietnam". Detroit Free Press. 1965-12-22. p. 11. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ a b "Milles' Former Home Open for League Tea". Detroit Free Press. 1962-05-20. p. 39. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "12 Clergymen Arrested at Move-In". Detroit Free Press. 1966-10-01. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Cleveland Seeks Sixth Term/Rod Paul". Concord Monitor. 1972-07-08. p. 14. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ Ripley, Anthony (1974-08-30). "McCarthy leading movement to put independent on presidential ballot". Star Tribune. p. 14. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ Boehm, Andy (1974-09-05). "McCarthy's Committee Looks Only at '76". The Capital Times. p. 40. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ^ "Suzannah Beck Hatt, former resident" Washington Post (February 21, 1995).
  17. ^ "Suzannah Beck Will Wed George Vaillant". The Franklin Evening Star. 1929-10-26. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-10-13 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ^ "Concord Oral History Program -- Henry Valliant". Concord Library. Retrieved 2024-10-13.
  19. ^ Caso, Alfonso; Noguera, Eduardo (January 1946). "George C. Vaillant 1". Ethnos. 11 (1–2): 1–15. doi:10.1080/00141844.1946.9980646. ISSN 0014-1844.
  20. ^ "Collection: Robert Torrens Hatt Papers". Cranbrook Archives Finding Aids. Retrieved 2024-10-13.
  21. ^ Robert Torrens Hatt Papers, Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.
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