Aleš Hrdlička: A New Finding Aid and an Exhibit Appearance for a Controversial Figure in the History of Anthropology

Photo: Aleš Hrdlička (1869-1943), curator of physical anthropology at the 

United States National Museum, now known as the National Museum of

Natural History. National Anthropological Archives Image MNH-31513.

From Archivist Katherine Christensen:

Aleš Hrdlička was an anthropologist who left a complicated legacy. His work in physical anthropology was groundbreaking, but his history is fraught with accusations of misogyny and a belief that his work contributed to major racist ideologies of the 20^th century. His supporters argue that Hrdlička’s work should be read in the context of his time, while his detractors argue that his views regarding immigrants, people of color, and women were problematic even within his cultural and temporal context. Both sides of the debate are so firm in their stances that this archivist dare not venture her humble opinion. Instead, I encourage you to form your own.

His papers are open for research at the National Anthropological Archives and the finding aid for those papers, the original creation of which was funded by the Repatriation Office, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), is now available digitally on SOVA through recent funding from the FY2019 Collections Information (CIS) pool.

Photo: Anthropometric Measurements of

Franz Boas. National Anthropological 

Archives, Aleš Hrdlička papers.

From Curator Diana Marsh:

Some of Hrdlička’s work is on display in the new exhibition, Documenting Diversity: How Anthropologists Record Human Life, which will be on view at the National Museum of Natural History when it reopens. In the exhibition, my co-curator, Joshua A. Bell, and I featured aspects of Hrdlička’s work through displaying his project and resulting book, The Old Americans, in which Hrdlička studied and compared anthropometric differences—height, skull diameter, etc.—of those descended from colonial American settlers and 20^th century immigrants. From the archives, documents for the project included in the exhibit are anthropometric sheets he made of prominent members of the National Academy of Sciences including anthropologists Franz Boas, Henry Fairfield Osborn, and Jesse Walter Fewkes, and famed eugenicist Charles Benedict Davenport. This allowed us to show what anthropometry methods look like without further objectifying Indigenous, marginalized, or displaced peoples.

The exhibit was collaboratively produced by the National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives, the Smithsonian Libraries, and Smithsonian Exhibits. It is located in the Evans Gallery on the Ground Floor of the NMNH and will be on view for 16 months.

Katherine Christensen and Diana Marsh