L. Taylor Hansen
Encyclopedia
L. Taylor Hansen (November 30, 1897 – May 1976) was a science fiction
writer and anthropologist who used a male writing persona for the early part of her career. She is the author of eight short stories, nearly sixty nonfiction articles popularizing anthropology
and geology
, and three nonfiction books.
, one of the proponents of the continental drift
theory. An autobiographical sketch by Hansen begins with her memory of staying with her parents in an abandoned fort after the "Indian Wars." In 1919, she writes, she was initiated into an Ojibwe tribe after she suggested to the tribe that they not kill the agency doctor but instead protest his appointment to Washington administrators. She then enters into a lifelong project to study of native American legends.
Ms. Hansen has posed some mysteries for researchers. While she reports her father was Frank Bursley Taylor, she also reports in another fabulation that her father played football at West Point, an institution that Frank Bursley Taylor did not attend.
While several sources say she did not complete her degree, Hansen reports that she attended the University of California, Los Angeles
as an undergraduate and that she finished by 1929. Writing science fiction for Hansen was a way to pay the bills while she continued her education, and she says she earned a master's degree in Archaeology, Anthropology and Geology from Stanford University
.
Hansen did not shy away from the controversial issues surrounding anthropology as the last vestiges of scientific racism
fell away in the years before World War II
. A July 1942 article, for instance, asserts that contemporary "standards of color are far too superficial." She points out that the skull shape of the Mayans, which would have supported the craniometric proposition that races differ culturally because of their distinctive skull geometries, does not "affect their intelligence." While she reports on findings that are now not credible – such as the idea that the population of Africa is a recently evolved type – she is remarkable for suggesting that Africans are not primitive but more evolved than other human types.
Later, Hansen begins experimenting with pseudonyms. The article "America's Mysterious Race of Indian Giants" appeared in the December 1946 issue of Amazing, and while the writing style was "recognizable as that of columnist L. Taylor Hansen," is was credited to "Chief Sequoyah." A second story by Chief Sequoyah, "Spirit of the Serpent God," appeared in the June 1948 issue of Amazing. The story "The Fire-Trail," credited to a Navaho Oge-Make, appeared in the January 1948 issue of Amazing. She also credited a second story to Oge-Make, "Tribal Memories of the Flying Saucers," that appeared in another magazine Palmer edited, Fate, in the September 1949 issue.
As she completed her survey of Native American legends (and also her master's degree), Hansen published three nonfiction books. The first, Some Considerations of and Additions to the Taylor-Wegener Hypothesis of Continental Displacement (1946), details the elaboration of the continental drift theory proposed by her father and others. Her second book, He Walked the Americas (1963), is a frequently cited taxonomy of Native American legends that report of a light-skinned prophet. Her last book, The Ancient Atlantic (1969), surveys the culture and geography of the Atlantic Ocean
and touches on the legend of Atlantis
.
Hansen wrote the book He Walked the Americas in 1963. In the book drawing from Native American
legends
, folklore
and mythology
discussed that a "White Prophet" had visited many different parts of America
.Mormons
believe that the "White Prophet" was Jesus Christ.
's Amazing Stories Quarterly in the Winter 1929 issue. This story, while a Gernsback-era adventure, hinges upon scientific ideas in that a message is detected in a spectrograph by an amateur astronomer. That same year, her second story "The Undersea Tube," details an underground civilization that is uncovered while developing a pneumatic commuter train between New York and Liverpool.
As asserted by Erik Davin, of the women in the early science fiction magazines, only L. Taylor Hansen seems to have concealed her sex. The subterfuge was extensive. An illustration of a young man, purportedly Hansen, appeared with Hansen's fifth story, "The City on the Cloud." Hansen continued the subterfuge by asserting on the telephone to fan Forrest J. Ackerman that she was not the author of her stories but only handled them for her brother. Jane Donawerth suggests that Hansen's creation of a world-traveled, male brother was a "probably social crisis" in that she did not want to violate the convention of a male narrator in science fiction and so her persona allows her to "protect herself from social disapproval."
However, as reported by Davin, the facts of the encounter between Ackerman and Hansen are somewhat contradictory. A letter from Hansen was titled "L. Taylor Hansen Defends Himself" in the July 1943 issue of Amazing Stories, but Davin asserts this is because she was a private person and not because she was trying to maintain credibility. The editor, Raymond A. Palmer
, had "little trouble working with women" as evinced by the many women who were published in Amazing during the 1940s.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer and anthropologist who used a male writing persona for the early part of her career. She is the author of eight short stories, nearly sixty nonfiction articles popularizing anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
, and three nonfiction books.
Early life
Hansen was the daughter of Frank Bursley TaylorFrank Bursley Taylor
Frank Bursley Taylor was an American geologist, the son of a lawyer in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was a Harvard dropout who studied privately financed in large part by his wealthy father...
, one of the proponents of the continental drift
Continental drift
Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other. The hypothesis that continents 'drift' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596 and was fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912...
theory. An autobiographical sketch by Hansen begins with her memory of staying with her parents in an abandoned fort after the "Indian Wars." In 1919, she writes, she was initiated into an Ojibwe tribe after she suggested to the tribe that they not kill the agency doctor but instead protest his appointment to Washington administrators. She then enters into a lifelong project to study of native American legends.
Ms. Hansen has posed some mysteries for researchers. While she reports her father was Frank Bursley Taylor, she also reports in another fabulation that her father played football at West Point, an institution that Frank Bursley Taylor did not attend.
While several sources say she did not complete her degree, Hansen reports that she attended the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
as an undergraduate and that she finished by 1929. Writing science fiction for Hansen was a way to pay the bills while she continued her education, and she says she earned a master's degree in Archaeology, Anthropology and Geology from Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
.
Science
Starting with the September 1941 issue of Amazing, Hansen wrote "Scientific Mysteries," a regular column of non-fiction articles that continued until 1948. Combined with her other non-fiction articles, she wrote nearly sixty articles during this period, appearing from five to twelve times per year. Her first article picks up on the work of her father regarding the continental drift. She reviews criticisms of the theory and presents evidence that supports it, such as geologic continuities and homologous species that appear on different continents. She presents a field of researchers working together so that "the veils of mystery are being pushed back from the library which is the past." Hansen credits this series of articles as being the start of her investigation of how the different stories of the Americas might have some common origins.Hansen did not shy away from the controversial issues surrounding anthropology as the last vestiges of scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
fell away in the years before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. A July 1942 article, for instance, asserts that contemporary "standards of color are far too superficial." She points out that the skull shape of the Mayans, which would have supported the craniometric proposition that races differ culturally because of their distinctive skull geometries, does not "affect their intelligence." While she reports on findings that are now not credible – such as the idea that the population of Africa is a recently evolved type – she is remarkable for suggesting that Africans are not primitive but more evolved than other human types.
Later, Hansen begins experimenting with pseudonyms. The article "America's Mysterious Race of Indian Giants" appeared in the December 1946 issue of Amazing, and while the writing style was "recognizable as that of columnist L. Taylor Hansen," is was credited to "Chief Sequoyah." A second story by Chief Sequoyah, "Spirit of the Serpent God," appeared in the June 1948 issue of Amazing. The story "The Fire-Trail," credited to a Navaho Oge-Make, appeared in the January 1948 issue of Amazing. She also credited a second story to Oge-Make, "Tribal Memories of the Flying Saucers," that appeared in another magazine Palmer edited, Fate, in the September 1949 issue.
As she completed her survey of Native American legends (and also her master's degree), Hansen published three nonfiction books. The first, Some Considerations of and Additions to the Taylor-Wegener Hypothesis of Continental Displacement (1946), details the elaboration of the continental drift theory proposed by her father and others. Her second book, He Walked the Americas (1963), is a frequently cited taxonomy of Native American legends that report of a light-skinned prophet. Her last book, The Ancient Atlantic (1969), surveys the culture and geography of the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and touches on the legend of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
.
Hansen wrote the book He Walked the Americas in 1963. In the book drawing from Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
legends
Legends
Legends are historical narratives, symbolic representations of folk belief.Legends may also refer to:-Music:*Legend , a 1984 album*Legends , a 1998 album...
, folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
and mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
discussed that a "White Prophet" had visited many different parts of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
believe that the "White Prophet" was Jesus Christ.
Science Fiction
Hansen's science fiction career was brief, but she is notable for being an early woman in the genre who concealed her sex. Her first story, "What the Sodium Lines Revealed," appeared in Hugo GernsbackHugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback , born Hugo Gernsbacher, was a Luxembourgian American inventor, writer, editor, and magazine publisher, best remembered for publications that included the first science fiction magazine. His contributions to the genre as publisher were so significant that, along with H. G...
's Amazing Stories Quarterly in the Winter 1929 issue. This story, while a Gernsback-era adventure, hinges upon scientific ideas in that a message is detected in a spectrograph by an amateur astronomer. That same year, her second story "The Undersea Tube," details an underground civilization that is uncovered while developing a pneumatic commuter train between New York and Liverpool.
As asserted by Erik Davin, of the women in the early science fiction magazines, only L. Taylor Hansen seems to have concealed her sex. The subterfuge was extensive. An illustration of a young man, purportedly Hansen, appeared with Hansen's fifth story, "The City on the Cloud." Hansen continued the subterfuge by asserting on the telephone to fan Forrest J. Ackerman that she was not the author of her stories but only handled them for her brother. Jane Donawerth suggests that Hansen's creation of a world-traveled, male brother was a "probably social crisis" in that she did not want to violate the convention of a male narrator in science fiction and so her persona allows her to "protect herself from social disapproval."
However, as reported by Davin, the facts of the encounter between Ackerman and Hansen are somewhat contradictory. A letter from Hansen was titled "L. Taylor Hansen Defends Himself" in the July 1943 issue of Amazing Stories, but Davin asserts this is because she was a private person and not because she was trying to maintain credibility. The editor, Raymond A. Palmer
Raymond A. Palmer
Raymond Arthur Palmer was the influential editor of Amazing Stories from 1938 through 1949, when he left publisher Ziff-Davis to publish and edit Fate Magazine, and eventually many other magazines and books through his own publishing houses, including Amherst Press and Palmer Publications...
, had "little trouble working with women" as evinced by the many women who were published in Amazing during the 1940s.
External links
- "The Undersea Tube" at Project Gutenberg.