Photographs documenting Ainu people and villages and Japanese boats, paintings, artifacts, structures, burial mound, tombs, and scenery. They also include some images of people and a village in Korea. Many of the mounted prints have been annotated for publication, some for the 1890 Annual Report of the National Museum.
Biographical/Historical note:
Romyn Hitchcock (1851-1923), was a Smithsonian curator, scientist and author with degrees in chemistry from Cornell University and Columbia University. He spent four years curating for the Smithsonian's National Museum. In 1887, Hitchcock was put in charge of photographic work for the United States Eclipse Expedition to Japan and appointed professor of English at the Koto Chu Gakko, the Japanese government school in Osaka. His studies in Japan led to a number of articles in the Smithsonian Annual Reports in 1890 and 1891. In the early 1890s, he became a commissioner to China for the World Columbian Exposition and later served as an official of the exposition.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 77-38
Location of Other Archival Materials:
R.M. Bartleman photographs of Venezuela, previously filed in 77-38, have been relocated to National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 156.
Photographs in the Hitchcock Collection, previously filed in Photo Lot 97 and Photo Lot 8, have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 77-38. These photographs were also made by Romyn Hitchcock and form part of this collection.
Hitchcock donated artifacts from Japan, China, and Sri Lanka to the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, in accessions 022393, 022392, 055059, 021640, 021675, 022518, 021963, 022633, 025499, 014786, 021689, and 023462.
The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University Library holds Romyn Hitchcock's papers.
See others in:
Romyn Hitchcock photographs of Ainu people, Japan, and Korea, circa 1885-1895
