A hippie at heart, Archaeologist Margaret Hangan reflects on her career with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service and a life well-lived as she nears retirement and looks towards her next chapter with anticipation.

Hangan, a California native, was born in San Bernardino to mixed-race parents who married in the early 1950s and both earned degrees in sociology. Her father, Clade Hangan, was an educator and professional folk musician, and her mother, Emily Orr, was a social worker who later became a masseuse.

Hangan’s parents were very active in the civil rights movement, fighting for   Black rights and equal rights for all during the 1970s. Her mother was heavily involved in the women's movement, which instilled a sense of self-reliance and confidence in Hangan at an early age. These qualities proved essential as she navigated life’s ups and downs while pursuing her career.

Hangan’s family lived in San Bernardino County until her father accepted a position teaching Black History at The Claremont Colleges in Claremont, California, a small progressive community. Hangan attended high school there and spent most of her time working in area restaurants, essentially growing up in what she refers to as, “a liberal upper-middle-class college community.”

A future in anthropology

After graduating from high school and working as a waitress and fry cook for a few years, Hangan decided to go to community college. She took a class in anthropology and loved it. “Luckily, the community college offered an archaeology class too, which I took, and that was it, I knew what I wanted to do,” said Hangan. “Soon, I transferred out of community college to Pitzer College, got my four-year degree in anthropology, and never turned back.”

Two days after earning her Bachelor of Arts in anthropology, she left for northern Nevada for her first big archaeological project working for a private firm on a proposed gold mine. The project site consisted of a large camp with 80 archaeologists who were working and living about an hour from the nearest phone in the middle of the desert in Nevada. “I didn't know anyone when I showed up, but it was a true, old-style expedition type project.” said Hangan.

Luckily, Hangan was used to camping. “I grew up camping as a kid, so that part wasn't new to me. But it was my first real archaeology experience out in the middle of Nevada, and you really have to get tough fast!” said Hangan.

There was very little diversity in the field of archaeology in the late 1980s.  According to Hangan, some very well-known academic archaeologists would not take women to the field at the time. Hangan’s career included negative encounters as a Black woman. “No question about it, it could be uncomfortable,” said Hangan. “But I also felt that I had just as much right to be in this profession as anybody else and that I was capable of being just as successful as anyone coming into this field of work.”

Starting public service

Given the scarcity of African Americans in archaeology during the early 1990s Hangan was hesitant to apply to an opportunity to land a steady job with the government. “I didn't want to be hired for what I was; I wanted to be hired for what I could do! So, I avoided federal jobs for the first part of my archaeology career until the economy tanked in the mid-'90s and there was no more work.” Overall, Hangan recalls, everybody was very accepting of her and in many ways, very glad to see her pursue this field of work.

Eventually, Hangan earned her master’s degree at California State University, Bakersfield. Hangan explained, “It was cheap, and they had a couple of really good archaeologists on staff, so that’s why I went there.” Hangan continues, “I showed up, had no money, but I figured out how to go after student loans and survived.”

While attending Bakersfield, Hangan learned about a student internship program with the Bureau of Land Management known as the Student Career Experience Program (SCEP). She was finishing up her master’s coursework and looking for a job when she applied for the SCEP program. “Probably the best decision I ever made,” Hangan recalls. “I went to work for the Bureau of Land Management in Ridgecrest, California, while completing my coursework for my master’s at a historic site associated with the construction of an aqueduct for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.”

A career with the Forest Service

Hangan landed her first Forest Service job on the Cleveland National Forest in 2004 as the forest archaeologist. After three years, she accepted a position at the Kaibab National Forest and served as the forest archaeologist for 15 years. There, a good portion of her work dealt with fuels reduction projects, and she had the good fortune to be there just as the Four Forest Restoration Initiative launched in 2009. This ongoing landscape-scale initiative is designed to restore fire-adapted ponderosa pine ecosystems on the Kaibab, Coconino, Apache-Sitgreaves and Tonto National Forests in northern Arizona.

In 2022, she accepted her current position on the Tonto National Forest as the large projects archaeologist, the only position of its kind within the Forest Service. “This position made sense, the heritage program on the Tonto is one of the busiest in the nation. We've got a lot going on, including really large mining projects,” said Hangan. “There are multiple moving parts, lots of politics, lots of consultation that needs to happen, and lots of partner engagement that is usually handled by the forest archaeologist.” In addition, Hangan oversees all of the Tonto’s priority prescribed burn project contracts to reduce fuels within its high-risk landscapes.

Hangan is also very active in the Tonto’s Civil Rights committee and has observed a substantial increase in women archaeologists and more women in general pursuing careers in natural resources. She’s also beginning to see more people of color get into the field of archaeology, along with the establishment of the Society for American Black Archaeologists only a few years ago. Currently, within the Forest Service, there are very few Black archaeologists. “There are some efforts being made to try to bridge this gap to bring Black people into the field. Hopefully, more will come, but for now, there's still a real need,” said Hangan.

New adventures in the new year

Now on the verge of retirement, a new year means a new adventure, and Hangan has no plans to quit working. She is refocusing the next chapter of her life on researching Black history in the West and specifically in Arizona. Already a respected speaker, she has given recurring Black history presentations at various universities and historical organizations. She is also working with Arizona State University on their Black history archives. “We are building a coalition to start developing ideas for highlighting Black history in Arizona as well as identifying historic locations that need to be preserved in the state because we are rapidly losing these sites to development,” said Hangan.

Hangan also serves as chair of the Naco Heritage Alliance, a Buffalo Soldier historic encampment in the town of Naco, situated along the US-Mexico border outside of Bisbee, Arizona. The organization received a significant amount of grant funding from the Mellon Foundation and the state of Arizona and is in the process of restoring the facilities, making it both a historic museum and community space.

“These are the kinds of things that I'm hoping to dedicate my life to,” said Hangan. “Many times, I’ve been able to incorporate this research as part of my Forest Service work, but now I want to focus on it full time.”

We wish Margaret Hangan the very best as she enters retirement and thank her for her support of preserving Black History in the West, working with state partners and NGOs to preserve and manage their collections, and participating in archaeology and STEM career recruitment events that make young African Americans aware and interested in archeology and other science based careers.

To learn more about Hangan’s father Clabe Hangan, and to listen to his music visit the Clabe Hangan Collection: Inland Empire Folk Music in the 1960s and 1970s.