The Frank Gouldsmith Speck photograph collection includes portraits of individuals and families, as well as scenic shots and landscape views made between 1909 and 1937. Speck was an anthropologist and ethnographer, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and worked on behalf of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation collecting ethnographic materials across the Eastern United States and Canada. His collection of photographs includes materials from native communities ranging from Newfoundland to Ontario in Canada and from Maine to South Carolina in the United States.
Scope and Contents:
The Frank Gouldsmith Speck photograph collection includes negatives and a small amount of prints made by Speck throughout the course of his career as an anthropologist and ethnographer. The majority of the photographs in this collection were made while Speck conducted field trips on behalf of the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation between 1924 and 1932, though there are photographs from before and after this time. This collection has been arranged into Series by geographical location and then into subseries by culture group or community. Series 1: Newfoundland and Labrador: Innu, Mushuaunnuat, 1916-1935; Series 2: Quebec: Innu, Mistassini Cree, Lorette Huron, Wawenock, Mohawk, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, 1910-1937; Series 3: New Brunswick and Nova Scotia: Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, 1909-1917; Series 4: Ontario: Six Nations/Grand River (Naticoke, Mohawk, Cayuga, Mahican, Tutelo), Oneida Nation, 1914-1937; Series 5: Maine and New Hampshire: Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, 1910-1924; Series 6: Massachussets and Rhode Island: Wampanoag, Nauset, 1914-1931; Series 7: Connecticut: Mohegan, Niantic, Schaghticoke, Pequot, 1912-1931; Series 8: Delaware: Nanticoke and Rappahanock, 1911-1925; Series 9: Virginia and Maryland: Rappahanock, Chickahominy, Pamunkey, Mattaponi, Nansemond, Potomac, Accomac, Powhatan, 1915-1924; Series 10: North Carolina and South Carolina: Catawba, Eastern Band of Cherokee, 1915-1930.
Many of Frank Speck's photographs are individual and family portraits of community members, many identified, posed outdoors in front of homes and community buildings. There are also landscape views as well as photographs taken during community events. There are a small amount of photographs that have now been restricted due to cultural sensitivity though for the most part Speck did not photograph culturally sensitive activities.
Arrangement:
The collection is intellectually arranged in 10 Series by geographic region and within each series by culture group. The negatives are physically arranged by catalog number.
Biographical / Historical:
Frank Gouldsmith Speck was born on November 8, 1881 in Brooklyn, New York. He studied under the prominent linguist John Dyneley Prince and anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University, receiving his BA in 1904 and MA in 1905. He received his Ph.D. in 1908 from the University of Pennsylvania. His doctoral dissertation on the ethnography of the Yuchi became a basis for an article which later appeared in the Handbook of American Indians. That same year Speck became an assistant in the University of Pennsylvania Museum and an instructor in anthropology at the University. He was made assistant professor in 1911, and professor and chairperson of the department in 1925, a position which he held until his death in 1950. Speck was the founder of the Philadelphia Anthropological Society, and was vice-president of the American Anthropological Association from 1945-46. Speck's research concentration was on the Algonkian speaking peoples. Speck studied every aspect of a culture: language, ethnobiology, technology, decorative art, myths, religion, ceremonialism, social organization, and music. Collecting material culture was also an integral part of Speck's fieldwork. His collections can be found in museums around the world, one of which is the National Museum of the American Indian. He is the author of numerous books and articles. Frank G. Speck died February 6, 1950. (A. Irving Hallowell, American Anthropologist, Vol. 53, No. 1, 1951)
Related Materials:
The Frank G. Speck Papers can be found at the American Philosophical Society (Mss.Ms.Coll.126) along with additional photographic materials by Speck.
Frank Speck published extensively in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation publications; "Indian Notes" and "Indian Notes and Monographs." These publications are avialable through the Smithsonian Institution Libraries or online on the Internet Archive.
Separated Materials:
A small amount of notes from Speck's field work can be found in the Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation records (NMAI.AC.001) in Box 273, Folder 18 through Box 274 Folder 2.
Close to 4000 ethnographic and archeological items were collected by Speck for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (MAI) and are now in the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) collection. For more information about these objects contact the NMAI Collections Department.
Provenance:
The majority of the negatives were gifted to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (MAI) by Frank Speck in 1927. The group of Nanticoke photographs were purchased by the MAI in 1915 and smaller amounts of photographs were gifted and purchased by the MAI between 1923 and 1942.
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).
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.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Frank Speck photograph collection, Photo Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Photographs documenting Iroquois people made circa 1897-circa 1937 on and near the Six Nations Reserve by J.N.B. Hewitt, linguist with the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology.
Scope and Contents note:
Hewitt's photos primarily depict Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Oneida, and Tutelo peoples. There are also a few images of Iroquois houses and other structures, Hewitt's mask collection, and Onondaga Chief John Buck and family, Seneca Chief John Arthur Gibson and family, Cayuga Chief James Jamieson and family, and Cayuga-Seneca Chief Simeon Gibson. Most of the photographs were taken during several trips between 1897 and 1937, on and near the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario (Oshweken, Deseronto, and Brantsford), and New York (Niagara Falls, Nedrow, and Syracuse).
Arrangement note:
For Photo Lot 155 Hewitt's original arrangement and numbering has been maintained. The order of the photographs does not follow the chronology that they were taken; for instance there are often several photographs of an individual that were clearly made in different years. The original negatives also represent a variety of film and camera types.
The arrangement and numbering for MS 4596, established at an unknown time, was maintained.
Biographical note:
J.N.B. (John Napoleon Brinton) Hewitt (December 6, 1859-October 14, 1937) was a linguist and ethnographer who specialized in Iroquoian and other Native American languages. Born on the Tuscarora Reservation near Lewiston, New York, his mother was of Tuscarora, French, Oneida, and Scottish descent. His father's heritage was English and Scottish, but he was raised in a Tuscarora family. Hewitt spoke English growing up, but when he left the reservation to attend schools in Wilson and Lockport, he learned to speak the Tuscarora language from other students. Hewitt grew up planning to become a physician, like his father. However, the course of Hewitt's interests changed when, in 1880, he was hired by Erminnie A. Smith of the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethnology (now the Bureau of American Ethnology) as an assistant ethnologist tasked with collecting myths among the Iroquoian tribes of New York. He continued this work from 1880-1884, and then was briefly employed by the Jersey City Railways Co. (1884-1885) and Adams Express Co. (1885-1886). Upon Smith's death in 1886, Hewitt returned to the BAE to continue her work, remaining employed there until his death.
Over the course of his career, Hewitt became the leading authority on the organization of the Iroquois League and the ceremonials, customs, and usages of the tribes composing it. He acquired an intimate knowledge of the languages of the League, including a speaking knowledge of Mohawk and Onondaga, and also became acquainted with several Algonquian dialects. On February 28, 1914, in recognition of his services in preserving for posterity a knowledge of the history and ethnology of the Iroquoian people of New York state, he was awarded the Cornplanter medal for Iroquois Research.
Additionally, he was a founder of the American Anthropological Association and an active member of the Anthropological Society of Washington and the American Museum of Natural History, serving as both treasurer (1912-1926) and president (1932-1934) of the latter. Hewitt also contributed over one hundred articles for the Handbook of American Indians (Bulletin 30) and published the two volume Iroquoian Cosmology (1903 and 1928).
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Citation:
Photo Lot 155, J.N.B. Hewitt photographs of Iroquois people on the Six Nations Reservation, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
