New Virtual Finding Aids for Three Smithsonian Institution Anthropology Collections

By Katherine Christensen

In addition to collections which were maintained and donated by individual scientists, the National Anthropological Archives (NAA) holds collections created and maintained by anthropology departments and divisions within the Smithsonian Institution and for projects conducted by those departments. This post covers three of those collections, whose finding aids have recently been made available through the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives (SOVA).

The Department of Anthropology records

Staff of the Department of Anthropology, United States National Museum, 1904, standing in front of the Arts and Industries Building. Standing from left to right: Edwin H. Hawley, G. C. Maynard, Alěs Hrdlička, Thomas W. Sweeney, Walter Hough, H. W. Hendley, Richard A. Allen, E. P. Upham, Paul Beckwith, Immanuel M. Casanowicz, and J. Palmer. Seated from left to right: Miss Malone and Miss Louisa A. Rosenbusch. SIA-NAA-42012-000002 Smithsonian Institution Archives.

There have been a number of incarnations of the Department of Anthropology through the years as the Smithsonian Institution and its component museums restructured. These include the Section of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, the Division of Anthropology of the United States National Museum, the Office of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History, and the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History. This collection holds papers and photographs generated by the department and its members in each of these forms.

Staff of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), 1931. Seated (L. to R.): T. Dale Stewart, Frank M. Setzler, Neil M. Judd, Walter Hough, Aleš Hrdlička, Herbert W. Krieger, Henry B. Collins. Standing (L. to R.): Charles Terry, William H. Short, Richard A. Allen, George D. McCoy, William H. Egberts, Richard G. Paine, W. H. Bray, Leta B. Loos, and Helen E. Heckler. SIA-MNH-18107A, Smithsonian Institution Archives.

The department was originally focused primarily on collections care and fieldwork as a means of growing the collections, while research was conducted by the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE). In the 1950s the department shifted to a greater emphasis on research, leading to a merge with the BAE in 1965 in order to eliminate redundancy.¹ The Department of Anthropology collection holds some archival materials related to the BAE, such as documents from the River Basin Surveys, but the majority of the BAE’s materials are housed within the Bureau of American Ethnology records.

Staff of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), October 29, 1959. Top row (left to right): Saul Reisenberg, Cliff Evans, Robert A. Elder, George Metcalf(?), Joseph Andrews, and unidentified man; second row (left to right): Neil Judd, Eugene Knez, Robert G. Jenkins, G. Robert Lewis, George Phebus (?), and Gus Van Beek (?) ; third row (left to right): Gordon Gibson, T. Dale Stewart, unidentified man, unidentified man, and Waldo Wedel; and bottom row (left to right): Willie Mae Pelham, Jeraldine M. Whitmore, unidentified woman, unidentified woman, Mildred Wedel (?), and Betty Meggers. Smithsonian Institution Archives.

The collection primarily contains institutional records, rather than records of the research conducted by the department’s members. The papers of many members of the department through its long history have been transferred to the NAA, so there are numerous other collections² which contain materials relating to the activities of the department. There are additional departmental materials in the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

Staff of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), 2007. Top row (left to right): Chris Dudar, Bill Billeck, Doug Ubelaker, Mike Frank, Randal Scott, Eric Hollinger, Christopher Parker, Bruno Froilich, Sarah Zabriskie, and Dave Hunt; second row (left to right):  Kim Neutzling, Gail Solomon, Carrie Beauchamp, Bob Laughlin, Mary Jo Arnoldi, Lynn Snyder, Paulina Ledergerber-Crespo, Ron Bishop, Jim Krakker, Rob Leopold, and Dave Rosenthal; third row (left to right): Bruce Bernstein, Cheri Botic, Bill Crocker, Nancy Shorey, Pam Wintle, Stephanie Christensen, Jai Alterman, Jim Blackman, and Don Ortner; fourth row (left to right): Georgia O’Reilly, Bill Fitzhugh, Cindy Wilczak, Noel Broadbent, Paul Michael Taylor, Vyrtis Thomas, unidentified woman, Lorain Wang, Daisy Njoku, Christie Leece, Roy (Chip) Clark, and Mark White; fifth row (left to right): Don Tenoso, Ruth Selig, unidentified woman, Cesare Marino, P. Ann Kaupp, Carmen Eyzaguirre, unidentified man, and Jim Haug; sixth row (left to right):  Kari Bruwelhide, Paula Cardwell, Betty Meggers, Bill Merrill, and Stephen Loring; seventh row (left to right): Jane Walsh, Barbara Watanabe, Laurie Burgess, Ruth Saunders, Candace Greene, and Risa Arbolino; eighth row (left to right): Doug Owsley, Jake Homiak, Dennis Stanford, Letitia Rorie, Rick Potts, Jennifer Clark, and Carole Lee Kin; and ninth row (left to right): Erica Jones, Dan Rogers, Deloris Walker, Peggy Jodry, Zee Payne, JoAllyn Archambault, Joanna Scherer, and Felicia Pickering.

The Center for the Study of Man records

The Center for the Study of Man (CSM) was created in 1968 to apply anthropological knowledge to problems facing all mankind. In pursuit of this goal, the CSM organized meetings of established anthropologists with specific programs and brought researchers together into special task forces. The center additionally headed a number of programs, including an Urgent Anthropology Program (which granted funds to facilitate field work in and accumulate data on cultures that were rapidly changing under the pressure of modernization), an American Indian Program (which sought both to create the Handbook of North American Indians and to undertake action anthropology projects in conjunction with various Native American groups), the Research Institute on Immigration and Ethnic Studies (RIIES), and the National Anthropological Film Center (now the Human Studies Film Archive). The center also sought to create a Museum of Man, which would host exhibits devoted to anthropology and ecology. However, due to internal disagreements over the aims of this museum, the project was never approved. Beginning in 1976, the CSM was slowly phased out due to difficulties with funding and with melding the research goals of individual staff members with those of the center as a whole.

Center for the Study of Man meeting, May 19, 1970. From left to right: William C. Sturtevant, Robert M. Laughlin, Sol Tax, Sam Stanley, Mysore N. Srinivas, Douglas W. Schwartz, T. Dale Stewart, Fredrik Barth, Wilcomb E. Washburn, Laila Shukry El Hamamsy, George W. Stocking Jr., Surajit C. Sinha, Gordon D. Gibson, and Henry B. Collins. Center for the Study of Man records, Sam Stanley papers, Box 141.

The records of the CSM document several international CSM-sponsored conferences, including a planning meeting in Cairo in 1972, several pre-session conferences (on cannabis, alcohol, population, and the transmission of culture) at the Ninth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in 1973, and a 1974 meeting at Bucharest on the cultural implications of population change. They also include records concerning an attempt to issue a series of monographs and the organization of special task forces concerned with questions of human fertility and the environment. Additionally, there is material pertaining to the action anthropology projects with Native Americans, focusing on economic development and including material relating to the coordination of studies of specific tribes carried out with funds from the Economic Development Administration and economic development consulting for the American Indian Policy Review Commission.

The Tulamniu CWA Project records

Beginning first cross trench north village midden mound. Tulamniu C.W.A. Project records, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

As part of his recovery plan for the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt created a variety of agencies whose goal was to provide work to the unemployed. Under the auspices of one of these, the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Smithsonian Institution sponsored a number of archaeological excavations around the United States. One of these, during the winter of 1933-1934, excavated four sites searching for the historic Tulamni Yokuts village of Tulamniu in Kern County, California.

Beginning survey baseline first trench. Tulamniu C.W.A. Project records, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

The project was headed by William Duncan Strong (whose papers were previously profiled on this blog) and recovered thousands of artifacts and, in keeping with the practices of the time period, many Native American burials. These artifacts and remains were shipped to the United States National Museum for study after the excavations were complete. The Smithsonian Institution began repatriations to U.S. tribes in 1982 and, in 2013, collections from the project were repatriated jointly to the Tule River Indian Tribe and the Santa Rosa Rancheria of Tachi Yokuts Indians; they were reburied at the Tule River Indian Reservation.³

Closeup of first trench in north village midden mound. Tulamniu C.W.A. Project records, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

The collection primarily contains correspondence, the field notes of the archaeologists, catalogs, maps, and charts.

 

Katherine Christensen
Contract Archivist
National Anthropological Archives
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¹ For more information, see https://naturalhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/media/file/history-anthropology-si_0.pdf

² Some notable collections include the Betty J. Meggers and Clifford Evans papers, the Aleš Hrdlička papers, the Priscilla Reining papers, the Ralph S. and Rose L. Solecki papers, the Thomas Dale Stewart papers, the Matthew Williams Stirling and Marion Stirling Pugh papers, and the William C. Sturtevant papers.

³ See Repatriation Office Case Report Summaries California Region for more information. Accessed November 2, 2020. https://naturalhistory.si.edu/sites/default/files/media/file/case-reports-california-region-rev2-2020.pdf

New Virtual Finding Aids for Two Linguistic Anthropology Collections

Linguistic Anthropology is the study of the effects of communication—in all its diversity and forms—on society and whether differences in language and its usage relate to differences in the way the world is perceived and understood.¹ The two anthropologists discussed in this blogpost whose materials are at the National Anthropological Archive studied different aspects of communication. Garrick Mallery focused on sign language and pictorial representations, while William A. Smalley focused on the written language.

Garrick Mallery (1831-1894)

Pen & ink drawings of Native American sign language prepared for use in the BAE 1st Annual Report (1879-1880), MS 2372 Garrick Mallery Collection on Sign Language and Pictography, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Garrick Mallery pioneered the study of sign language and pictographs. He developed an interest in Native American sign language and pictography while serving in the Union Army during the Civil War and was one of the first ethnologists to join the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1879. Under the BAE’s auspices, he collected and examined sign language vocabulary from Native American groups throughout the U.S. and Canada. He additionally related the Native American sign language he documented to examples from the wider world, both of hearing individuals and the deaf.

Plate of Neapolitan gestures prepared for use in the BAE 1st Annual Report (1879-1880), MS 2372 Garrick Mallery Collection on Sign Language and Pictography, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Mallery completed several publications on the topic of Native American sign language throughout the 1880s, notably Introduction to the Study of Sign language Among the North American Indians (1880), A Collection of Gesture- Signs and Signals of the North American Indians (1880), and "Sign-language among North American Indians Compared with that Among other People and Deaf-mutes," which appeared in the BAE 1st Annual Report (1881). Many of these publications (some annotated by collaborators) are included in MS 2372 Garrick Mallery Collection on Sign Language and Pictography.

Although he is most widely known for his work with sign language, he also performed extensive research into Native American pictography, with a particular interest in Dakota and Lakota winter counts and petroglyphs (examples of winter counts and copies of petroglyphs are included within the collection).

Battiste Good’s Winter Count (page 19), MS 2372 Garrick Mallery Collection on Sign Language and Pictography, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

William Smalley (1923-1997)

Like Chris Gjording, whom I discussed in my last blog entry, Smalley coupled anthropology with Christian ministry. The child of missionaries, he was born in Jerusalem in 1923. He developed an interest in anthropology while an undergraduate at Houghton College because he felt that was relevant to missionary work. He attended the Missionary Training Institute (1945-1946), the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) at the University of Oklahoma (1946-1947) for training in linguistics for Bible translation, and Columbia University’s graduate program in anthropology with a concentration in linguistics. Smalley worked on language analysis problems in the southern region of Vietnam when he was sent there by the Christian and Missionary Alliance in 1950. After Vietnam, he was sent to Luang Prabang, Laos, in 1951. While in Laos, Smalley developed the Hmong Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA) with Reverend G. Linwood Barney and Father Yves Bertrais. He and his wife returned to the United States when civil war broke out in Laos in 1954. His dissertation focused on his work on the Khmu’ language and he received his doctorate from Columbia in 1956. His dissertation was later published, in abbreviated form, in 1961 as Outline of Khmu' Structure.

Sayaboury Script. The William A. Smalley papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

His work with the Hmong language continued after he became a professor of linguistics at Bethel University in 1978 and found the large Hmong community in the Twin Cities. He studied the adaptation of the Hmong to life in America with the University of Minnesota Southeast Asia Refugee Studies Program, publishing "Adaptive Language Strategies of the Hmong: From Asian Mountains to American Ghettos" (1985) and "Stages of Hmong Cultural Adaptation" (1986). Smalley also continued his study of the Hmong written language, as new scripts had been developed since his participation in the creation of RPA (such as Sayaboury Script, pictured above). He was particularly interested in the Pahwah script, which had been created by Shong Lue Yang in Laos. In addition to studying the script, he studied its creator, and published two books on the subject: Mother of Writing: The Origin and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script (1990) and The Life of Shong Lue Yang: Hmong "Mother of Writing" (1990), both of which he co-authored with Chia Koua Vang and Gnia Yee Yang.

Smalley also studied the languages and dialects of Thailand. He lived in Thailand from 1962 to 1967 and from 1969 to 1972 while working as a translation consultant for the American Bible Society and as a translations coordinator and consultant for the United Bible Societies. He later returned to Thailand as a Fulbright research fellow in 1985 and 1986. He published Linguistic Diversity and National Unity: Language Ecology in Thailand (1994); "Thailand's Hierarchy of Multilingualism" (1988); and "Language and Power: Evolution of Thailand's Multilingualism" (1996) as a result of his work there.

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¹ “Linguistic anthropology,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed September 2, 2020, https://www.britannica.com/science/anthropology/Linguistic-anthropology.

Katherine Christensen

Contract Archivist, National Anthropological Archives

A New Virtual Finding Aid for Ethel Cutler Freeman Collection

Portrait of Ethel Cutler Freeman. The Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Ethel Cutler Freeman (1886-1972) was a remarkable woman who defied expectations to become a celebrated anthropologist. She was born in 1886 in Morristown, New Jersey. After studying abroad in England at Mademoiselle Marie Souvestre’s Academy for Girls, Freeman returned to the United States and married New York stockbroker Leon S. Freeman in 1909. Over the course of the next 25 years, she gave birth to three children (two daughters and a son) and lived the life of a socialite and well-to-do wife and mother. However, she was determined to move beyond the expected activities for a woman of her social class, and in 1934, decided to look to education to clear a “brain full of cobwebs.”¹ Freeman’s papers reveal that dedication for growth; for example, there are several notes that she wrote to herself on themes like “How to Give a Good Lecture” evidenced by a folder labeled “Analysis of my writing by myself.”

“What is wrong with my writing,” a list of critiques by Freeman about her writing. The Ethel

Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Freeman decided to venture out and grow her interests beyond ordinary daily social activities and, on the advice of her friend Marcellus Hartley Dodge, attended Columbia University, taking courses in psychology and sociology. She became interested in Native American cultures, specifically that of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, due to the proximity of her family’s home in Naples, Florida, to the Big Cypress Reservation. She met Dr. Clark Wissler, then curator of the Indian Division of the American Museum of Natural History, who was supportive of Freeman’s pursuit of anthropology but discouraged her from attempting a study of Seminole communities, as they were not typically open to outsiders. 

Ethel Cutler Freeman with councilman and medicine man Josie Billie and Frank Cypress outside of Freeman’s chiki on her arrival at the Big Cypress Reservation in 1941. The Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. 

Despite Dr. Wissler’s comments (and his own experience of not being able to work with Seminole communities), Freeman was able to make around thirty stays with the Seminole Tribe of Florida at the Big Cypress Reservation starting in February of 1940. She brought one of her daughters, Condict, and son, Leon Jr., with her on many of her trips. Although Freeman acted with the permission of the Seminole of Florida and developed close relationships with many members of the tribe, it is important to note that she was not acting in collaboration with or at the invitation of the community, as she would today.

Ethel Cutler Freeman demonstrating the use of her 16mm Ciné Kodak camera for children on the Big Cypress Reservation. The Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Over the course of the 1940s, Freeman added to her fieldwork in Florida with trips to Mexico and New Mexico, working with the Mascogo, Tohono Oʼodham, Kickapoo, Navajo, and Hopi peoples. The Mascogo community was of particular interest to Freeman as they are a Seminole group descended from escaped African slaves who joined with the Seminole peoples.² During this period, she also established herself as an expert in Seminole culture and, in 1947, was appointed as the American Civil Liberties Union’s representative on the National Coordinating Committee for Indian Affairs. She additionally took on a role as a consultant for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and, in 1948, was appointed to the Hoover Commission for Reorganization of Government as their representative. These accomplishments were remarkable for the time, as there were very few female anthropologists.

Scene from  Seminole Indians, ca. 1950  (HSFA# 1986.11.9) Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Freeman published articles and gave talks and lectures on the Seminole at events ranging from international conferences to garden club meetings. In doing so, she used her privilege and education to advocate for awareness, recognition, and acknowledgement of the Seminole people. The finding aid for Freeman’s papers has recently been published on SOVA through the funding of the FY2019 Collections Information (CIS) pool.

Katherine Christensen (Contract Archivist) and Kaitlin Srader (Intern)

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¹Freeman to Marcellus Hartley Dodge. The Ethel Cutler Freeman papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

²For more information on the Mascogo, see Katarina Wittich, “The Mascogo,” Lest We Forget, Hampton University, accessed June 23, 2020, http://lestweforget.hamptonu.edu/page.cfm?uuid=9FEC2EE5-0FC3-78EB-8DB3B143545DDC94.

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day from the Smithsonian Transcription Center!

The voices, stories, and cultures of Native peoples - past and present - are found throughout the Smithsonian. For Indigenous Peoples Day (today) we're highlighting some resources for locating some of these materials within the Transcription Center (TC), and how TC projects are helping enhance collection access, and connect disparate information, for American Indian communities.

Since 2013, 129 projects have been launched in the Transcription Center, created by, or related to, Native Americans and Indigenous peoples. Staff at the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center (NMAI), the National Anthropological Archives (NAA), Smithsonian Libraries, and others, have worked to identify materials in their holdings needing transcription and ensure that chosen collections are not culturally sensitive before being launched in TC [1]. Linguistic vocabularies, correspondence, ethnographic field notes, historical materials from landmark legal cases concerning Native rights, the administrative records of the Heye Foundation (the National Museum of the American Indian's predecessor organization), and documentation for object collection histories, among others, have all been included. Transcription of these materials makes the text within each page text-searchable and readable, meaning increased access and discoverability for researchers around the world--including Native community members.

Beyond the Transcription Center
itself, are other online resources for locating Native American archival, museum, and library collections from within the Smithsonian. In 2018, the Transcription Center team collaborated with staff from the NMAI, the National Museum of Natural History's Anthropology Department (including the NAA), Smithsonian Libraries, and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition to aggregate Smithsonian-held materials related to the history of Native American boarding and day schools. Together, we created a "Gallery" page on the Smithsonian's online database, Collections Search Center, where researchers can explore related content by topic, geographic region, school name, and more. Included in this list of collections on this page, are archival collections from the NMAI and the NAA created by or about Native boarding and day school students, which were transcribed as part of a collaboration in the Transcription Center for Native American Heritage Month in 2018. Letters from a young Grace Thorpe, drawings and writings from students at the Pine Ridge Day School, and booklets from Carlisle are all included.  This "Gallery" page is part of a larger "Gallery" within Collections Search Center on Smithsonian archival, library, and museum collections related to Native American and Indigenous History, including materials organized by Smithsonian unit, language, tribe, and more.

These projects and resources are one way that staff around the Smithsonian are working together with Native communities and outside researchers to improve collection use and ensure the communities represented in museum holdings are not only able to access their history, but are welcomed as equal partners in transforming how the history of Native peoples is told and studied. Last week, archivists from the NAA and NMAI hosted a workshop (along with colleagues from the National Archives and the Library of Congress) at the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums annual conference on researching Native American archival materials. Included in presentations from the NAA was information on the Transcription Center projects and Gallery pages mentioned above, along with details on how Native communities and Tribal archivists can collaborate further with Smithsonian staff on TC projects transcribing sound recordings and other Native language materials.

This Indigenous Peoples Day, join in our efforts to ensure a more complete and inclusive historical narrative of Native Americans and Indigenous peoples by helping to transcribe ongoing Transcription Center projects--including business ledgers from collector and dealer William Ockleford Oldman, documenting the sale and purchase of Native objects (many of which are held in NMAI); as well as a sound recording from the NAA of Anthropologist Helen Rountree, an expert on Virginia Indians.

-Caitlin Haynes, Smithsonian Transcription Center Coordinator

Sources:
[1] Culturally sensitive content, as defined by the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials is: "tangible and intangible property and knowledge which pertains to the distinct values, beliefs, and ways of living for a culture. It often includes property and knowledge that is not intended to be shared outside the community of origin of specific groups within a community." http://www2.nau.edu/libnap-p/index.html.

Image 1 (right): Grace Thorpe, Sac and Fox, NMAI.AC.085.  Transcription Project.                            

Image 2 (left): MS 369: Vocabulary of the Tchugatz of Prince William Sound,  Alaska, NAA. Transcription Project