This subseries includes photographs that Frank Speck took in 1918 among the Mattaponi community near the Mattaponi River, Virginia. The majority of the negatives are portraits taken by Speck of members of the Langston, Major and Adams families. Many of the photographs were used by Speck to illustrate the Mattaponi section in his 1928 publication "Chapters on the Ethnology of the Powhatan Tribes of Virginia" in the MAI's Indian Notes and Monographs. A large number of the photographs in this series include portraits of men, women and children who were not identified by Speck at the time and still need further research. In addition to the portraits, there are also landscape views of the Mattaponi River.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Frank Speck photograph collection, Photo Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Edmund Snow Carpenter (1922-2011) was an archaeologist and visual anthropologist who worked extensively with the indigenous peoples of the Canadian Arctic as well as Papua New Guinea. With his colleague and close collaborator Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), he laid the groundwork for modern media theory. Carpenter is also known for his work as an ethnographic filmmaker and as a collector of Paleo-Eskimo art. The Papers of Edmund Carpenter, circa 1938-2011, document the research interests and projects undertaken by Carpenter in the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnographic filmmaking, media theory, archaeology, and indigenous art.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Edmund Carpenter, 1940-2011, document the research interests and projects undertaken by Carpenter in the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnographic filmmaking, media theory, archaeology, and indigenous art. Specific research projects and interests documented are: his 1950s fieldwork among the Aivilik Inuit in the Canadian Arctic as well as his studies into Inuit concepts of space, time, and geography; his partnership and collaboration with media theorist Marshall McLuhan and his ethnographic studies of Papua New Guinean tribal communities; his early-career archaeological digs at Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) burial mounds in Sugar Run, Pennsylvania, as well as later archaeological interest in Arctic peoples, Siberia, and the Norwegian artifact dubbed the "Norse Penny"; his reflections on the disciplines of anthropology and media studies; his editing and completion of the work of art historian Carl Schuster at the Museum der Kulturen (Museum of Ethnology) in Basel, Switzerland; his editing of The Story of Comock the Eskimo, as told to Robert Flaherty; and his museum exhibitions compiled on the topics of surrealist and tribal art. The collection also documents Carpenter's correspondence with fellow scholars, ethnographers, filmmakers, and colleagues; his published writings; and elements of his personal life, such as obituaries and personal photographs.
Materials in this collection include artifact and burial records; correspondence; drawings and illustrations; essays; interviews and oral histories; inventories and catalogues; manuscripts and drafts, and fragments of drafts; maps; memoranda and meeting minutes; notes, notebooks, and data analysis; obituaries and memorials; photographic prints, slides, and negatives, including personal photographs and portraits; proposals and plans for museum exhibits; reports; resumes and bibliographies; reviews; and sound recordings on CD-Rs and audio cassettes. Additional materials include books and book chapters; journal copies and journal excerpts; magazine, newspaper, and article clippings and excerpts; museum and gallery catalogues, brochures, and guides; pamphlets; and reprints. A portion of the material collected here consist of consolidated research into specific topics, gathered from archival repositories, museums, correspondence, and published works. This material consists of research reprints and archival reference photocopies and photographic prints from various repositories.
Items worthy of special mention in this collection include: annotated draft chapters from Marshall McLuhan's seminal work on media theory, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (Series 2); a 1957 letter from e. e. cummings to Carpenter, written in verse (Series 3); an undated thank-you note addressed to "Sadie" from Helen Keller (Series 3); and a transcript of an interview of Carpenter by his former student, Harald Prins (Series 2).
Audiovisual material in this collection is currently undergoing processing.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into the following 7 series:
Series 1. Fieldwork and drafts, 1940-2011 (bulk 1940-1959)
Series 2. Research and project files, 1940-2011
Series 3. Correspondence, circa 1938-2011
Series 4. Publications and lectures, circa 1942-circa 2006
Series 5. Personal, 1942-2011
Series 6. Film and visual material (in-process)
Series 7. Writings by others, 1960-2009, undated
Biographical Note:
Edmund Snow Carpenter (1922-2011) was an archaeologist and visual anthropologist who worked extensively with the indigenous peoples of the Canadian Arctic and Papua New Guinea. With his colleague and close collaborator Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), he laid the groundwork for modern media theory. Carpenter is also known for his work as an ethnographic filmmaker and as a collector of Paleo-Eskimo art.
Born in 1922 in Rochester, New York, Edmund (nicknamed "Ted") Carpenter served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II before receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1950 under Frank Speck for work on Iroquoian prehistoric archaeology. Carpenter began teaching at the University of Toronto in 1948 while simultaneously working as a programmer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). In the 1950s, he undertook fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic among the Aivilik (an Inuit Igloolik subgroup). This fieldwork resulted in several publications in the field of cultural anthropology, including Time/Space Concepts of the Aivilik (1955), Anerca (1959), and Eskimo (1959, republished as Eskimo Realities in 1973).
Also in the 1950s, Carpenter began a working relationship with media theorist Marshall McLuhan. Together, they received a Ford Foundation grant (1953-1955) for an interdisciplinary media research project into the impact of mass communications and mass media on culture change. Carpenter and McLuhan's partnership resulted in the Seminar on Culture and Communication (1953-1959) and the journal series Explorations. In 1957, Carpenter was the founding chair in the interdisciplinary program "Anthropology and Art" at San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge). There, he collaborated with Bess Lomax Hawes and other colleagues in the production of several ethnographic films, including Georgia Sea Island Singers about Gullah (or Geechee) songs and dances. During this period, Carpenter worked with McLuhan on the latter's seminal book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). The article published as "Fashion is Language" in Harper's Bazaar under McLuhan's name (1968) was actually written by Carpenter. It was later published in book form under Carpenter's name, with the title They Became What They Beheld (1970).
In 1969, Carpenter took a research professorship at the University of Papua and New Guinea sponsored by the government of Australia. Alongside photographer Adelaide De Menil (whom he would later marry), he applied many of the ideas about media literacy and culture change to indigenous communities of Papua New Guinea. These activities led to developments in the field of media ecology, as well as the publication of Carpenter's best-known work, Oh, What a Blow the Phantom Gave Me! (1976).
Carpenter taught intermittently at various universities throughout his career, including Fordham University, the University of California-Santa Cruz, Adelphi University, Harvard University's Center for Visual Anthropology, the New School for Social Research, and New York University. He spent eight years associated with the Museum of Ethnology in Basel, Switzerland (1973-1981), editing art historian Carl Schuster's research.
In addition to his teaching and research, Carpenter, with his wife Adelaide De Menil, collected tribal art, eventually amassing the largest private collection of Paleo-Eskimo art in the United States. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Carpenter curated various exhibitions on art and visual culture, including the Menil Collection's Witness to a Surrealist Vision and the Musée du Quai Branly's Upside Down (later reconstructed at the Menil Collection). In later years, Carpenter resumed his archaeological interest in Arctic peoples, researching and collaborating on the Zhokhov Island Mesolithic site in the Russian Arctic with Russian scientists from the Institute for the History of Material Culture and archaeologists from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.
Carpenter died on July 1, 2011 at his home in New York.
Grimes, William. "Edmund Carpenter, Archaeologist and Anthropologist, Dies at 88." The New York Times. 2011 July 7. https://www.nytimes.com
Prins, Harald E. L. and John Bishop. "Edmund Carpenter: Explorations in Media and Anthropology." Visual Anthropology Review 17:2 (Fall-Winter 2001-2002): 110-140.
Chronology
1922 September 2 -- Born in Rochester, New York
circa 1940-1941 -- Archaeological field work, Sugar Run mounds, Pennsylvania
1942-1946 -- Served in the United States Marine Corps
1948-1957 -- Anthropology Department, University of Toronto
circa 1950 -- Began work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
1950 -- Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania (Anthropology)
1950s -- Fieldwork among the Aivilik Inuit
1953-1959 -- Ran the Seminar on Culture and Communication with Marshall McLuhan
1957-1967 -- "Anthropology and Art" program at San Fernando Valley State College (California State University, Northridge)
1967-1968 -- Schwitzer Chair, Fordham University (with Marshall McLuhan)
1968-1969 -- Carnegie Chair in Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz
1969-1970 -- Research Professor, University of Papua and New Guinea
1973-1981 -- Associated with the Museum of Ethnology in Basel, Switzerland for Carl Schuster papers project
circa 1989-2005 -- Collaboration regarding Zhokov Island archaeological site
2011 July 1 -- Died in East Hampton, New York
Separated Materials:
Film and video recordings are retained by the Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA) as the Edmund Carpenter-Adelaide de Menil Collection (HSFA 2004-04). Once processing is complete, they will be described in the following finding aid in Series 6.
Provenance:
The Edmund Snow Carpenter papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives in 2017 by Adelaide de Menil on behalf of the Rock Foundation.
Restrictions:
The Edmund Snow Carpenter papers are open for research.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Digital media in the collection is restricted for preservation reasons.
Access to the Edmund Snow Carpenter papers requires an appointment.
The original glass plate is available for inspection if necessary in the Archives Center. A limited number of fragile glass negatives and positives in the collection can be viewed directly in the Archives Center by prior appointment.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
The original glass plate is available for inspection if necessary in the Archives Center. A limited number of fragile glass negatives and positives in the collection can be viewed directly in the Archives Center by prior appointment.
Collection Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Concerning Duncanʹs manuscript, "The Analysis of the Cherokee Language," written 1876-82, the result of many yearsʹ work by Duncan, a Cherokee, and his wife. Pillingʹs entry in Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 6, 1888, page 59 is based on this letter.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 463
Place:
Charles City, Iowa
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Citation:
Manuscript 463, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Copied into Schedule of John Wesley Powell's Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages outline of 180 terms in handwriting of George Gibbs; with "Sinecu" and "Isleta" [del Sur] terms added in pencil in handwriting of James Mooney [1897].
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 454
Local Note:
Sinecu and Isleta notes are marked, "D7-97" and "D-15," as are corresponding notes in Mooney's notebook, Catalog Number 1953, where these figures apparently refer to the dates December 7 and 15, 1897. See 19th Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology for year 1897-98, page xvi, referring to Mooney's trip to this area in December, 1897. --MCB, 1/67.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
December, 1888
Scope and Contents:
Contents:
MS 502-a Linguistic and ethnological material on the Karankawa tribe, "taken down from the recollection of Mrs Alice W. Oliver, at Lynn Massachusetts, in November, 1888." Approximately 71 pages in notebook. ("Karankawa" printed on edge of binding.
MS 502-b A report on the information, 4 pages, accompanied by letter of transmittal to the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 502-a-b
General:
Previously titled "Texts."
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Citation:
Manuscript 502-a-b, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Includes discussion, 2 pages. Vocabulary in hand of George Gibbs, with notations and additions by Anderson, 12 pages. Listed by Pilling, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 15, page 2.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 404
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Citation:
Manuscript 404, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Also grammatical notes on separate sheets, [letter of transmittal, August 10, 1882; and broadside for lecture by D. W. C. Duncan (a Cherokee).
These sample pages, which utilize the Cherokee syllabary, were extracted from the larger work, "Analysis of the Cherokee Language," by D. W. C. Duncan and Helen R. Duncan, his wife. The "Analysis" was sent to the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1886 (Duncan to Baird, February 15, 1886, 6 pages; Duncan to Powell, February 23, 1886, 2 pages and March 9, 1886, 7 pages). It was examined by J. O. Dorsey (Dorsey to Powell, March 19, 1886 (2 pages), and returned (Powell to Duncan, March 20, 1886, 2 pages).
The letters referred to above are in the correspondence files of the Bureau of American Ethnology. A copy of Dorseyʹs memo to Powell is filed herewith. Also with the Duncan file, apparently added later and possibly unrelated, are a photostat (1 sheet) of 2 pages of the Cherokee Book of Luke, and a transcription (1 page) of Chapter 1, verse 28 in John Napolean Brinton Hewittʹs writing.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 397
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Citation:
Manuscript 397, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Consists of the research notes of Dr. Phoebe Ottenberg Miller, relating to her field work among the Igbo in Afikpo, Nigeria, circa 1952-1960.
Biographical / Historical:
Dr. Phoebe Ottenberg received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Northwestern University. She received an Area Research Fellowship from the Social Science Council in support of her work among the Afikpo Igbo in Nigeria. Ottenberg was also co-editor of the book Cultures and Societies of Africa (1960).
This collection contains Robert C. Mainfort, Jr. and Mary L. Kwas' research files for their article "The Bat Creek Stone Revisited: A Fraud Exposed." The files include a copy of their article, correspondence, notes from archival and bibliographic research, and reference sources.
Biographical / Historical:
The Bat Creek stone is a small inscribed rock that was reportedly excavated from an undisturbed burial mound at Bat Creek in Loudon County, Tennessee, by John W. Emmert, a Smithsonian field assistant for the Bureau of American Ethnology Mound Survey. Cyrus Thomas, director of the Mound Survey, claimed the marks resembled Cherokee syllabary in his publication, "Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology" (1894). In 1970, Cyrus Gordon, a Semitic languages scholar, identified the marks as Paleo-Hebrew. The tablet has since been cited (most notably by J. Huston McCulloch) as evidence of Precolumbian contacts between the Old World and New World. Robert C. Mainfort, Jr. and Mary L. Kwas refuted this claim in their 2004 article in American Antiquity 69(4), "The Bat Creek Stone Revisited: A Fraud Exposed." According to Mainfort and Kwas, evidence suggests that the inscription is a forgery, likely perpetrated by John W. Emmert.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2014-03
Other Archival Materials:
The Bat Creek stone (Accession A134902-0) and a cast (Accession A134902A-0) are held by the Department of Anthropology Collections, National Museum of Natural History. The records of the Mound Survey, MS 2400, are at the National Anthropological Archives.
Personal property inventory of Pelatiah Leet (died 1806), and accounts against his widow, Mary Leet, for board, clothing, and medicine, etc., 1806-1810. Inscribed, "The Widow Mary Leet of Guilford...Account Against Mary Leet ye 2d as Her Gaurdean & Provider, For Board Cloathing Medicines & Necessaries..." (Orig. cat. no. 393,293.) Plus separate page from manuscript inventory (original cat. no. 393,294). See also collection #28.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Miss Madeleine Wilkinson, 1955. November 10.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Full title page reads, "Words and Geographic Names from the Cherokee Language, Eastern or Mountain Cherokee dialect obtained through N. Jarrett Smith, chief, of Quallatown, North Carolina by Albert S. Gatschet, Bureau of Ethnology, February, 1886."
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 387
Local Note:
Autograph Document
Place:
Quallatown North Carolina
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Citation:
Manuscript 387, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Indians of North America -- California Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Date:
1888
Scope and Contents:
With notes, 2 pages, and marginalia by A.L. Kroeber and note by A.S. Gatschet.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 382
Local Note:
Reference: Henshaw, "A new linguistic family in California," American Anthropologist, old series, III, 1890, pages 45-49. Kroeber, "The languages of the coast of California south of San Francisco," U. of California. Pubs. in Archeology and Ethnology, II, Number 2 (1904), 28-80.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Citation:
Manuscript 382, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
