The papers of Owen M. Lynch (1931-2013) contain his research and fieldwork on marginalized castes in India, and in particular highlight his work among the Dalits, or Untouchables, in Agra. The collection consists of field notes, surveys, interviews, maps, drawings, manuscript notes and drafts, language materials, subject files, day planners, correspondence, university papers, conference symposium and panel materials, photographs, sound recordings, video recordings, and electronic records.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Owen M. Lynch document his research and field work in India, and in particular highlight his work among the Dalits in Agra. The collection consists of field notes, surveys, interviews, maps, drawings, manuscript notes and drafts, language materials, subject files, day planners, correspondence, university papers, conference symposium and panel materials, photographs, sound recordings, video recordings, and electronic records. The Munda Languages Project was Lynch's first fieldwork experience in India and focused on the Nihali and Nahali languages. His subsequent research focused on the Dalits in Agra, the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, the Chaube Brahmans in Mathura, and the Radhavallabhi sect in Brindaban. This research is represented well in his field notes, photographs, and sound recordings.
Lynch also kept extensive subject files on numerous Indian issues which contain significant material on the Dalits, Indian economics and politics, and related researchers. There is a small amount of Lynch's university papers from both his time as a student and as a professor. His student material includes reading notes, his student papers, and dissertation proposal. His university papers are chiefly course and lecture notes. The bulk of the photographs are from Lynch's fieldwork, primarily from Agra and Mumbai. Included are photos of slums in Agra and Mumbai, shoemakers in Agra, weddings, ceremonies, conferences, and parades. There are also prints used in his first book The Politics of Untouchability. The presentation slides are thematically arranged sets of photographs, presumably used for course lectures or conference presentations. The majority of the sound recordings are from fieldwork in Agra in 1994-1995, and include lectures, interviews, conference recordings, and songs.
Arrangement:
The Owen M. Lynch papers are arranged into 13 series:
2. Research, 1956-2006
3. Subject Files, 1953-2012
4. University, 1951-2010
5. Writings, 1963-2005
6. Writings By Others, circa 1950-2003
7. Correspondence, 1947-2010 and undated
8. Professional Activities, 1977-2004
9. Biographical, 1945-2007
10. Ephemera, circa 1990-circa 2000
11. Photographs, circa 1940s-circa 2009 and undated
12. Sound Recordings, 1962-2006
13. Video Recordings, circa 2000-circa 2011
14. Electronic Records, circa 1980-2011
Biographical Note:
Chronology
1931 -- Born on January 4 in Flushing, New York
1956 -- B.A., Fordham University
1962-1964 -- Fieldwork: Munda Languages Project, Madhya Pradesh, India
1964-1964 -- Fieldwork: Dalits in Agra, India
1966 -- Ph.D. in anthropology, Columbia University
1966-1969 -- Assistant Professor, State University of New York at Binghamton
1966-1986 -- Seminar Associate, Columbia University Seminars
1969-1973 -- Associate Professor, State University of New York at Binghamton
1970-1971 -- Fieldwork: Squatters in Mumbai, India
1974-2003 -- Charles F. Noyes Professor Emeritus of Urban Anthropology, New York University
1978-1984 -- Senior Research Associate, Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University
1980-1982 -- Fieldwork: Pilgrimage and Chaube Brahmans in Mathura, India
1988-1989 -- Fieldwork: Radhavallabhi Sect in Brindaban, India
1994-1995 -- Fieldwork: Dalits in Agra, India
2013 -- Died on April 26 in Boston, Massachusetts
Owen M. Lynch was an anthropologist and scholar with New York University who was noted for his pioneering work with the Dalits, or Untouchables, in India. He was born in 1931 in Flushing, New York. He earned his bachelor's degree from Fordham University (1956) and his Ph.D in anthropology from Columbia University (1966). He began his teaching career in 1966 as an assistant professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He became the Charles F. Noyes Professor Emeritus of Urban Anthropology at New York University in 1974 where he remained until his retirement in 2003.
His first fieldwork experience was with the Munda Languages Project in Madhya Pradesh, India, in 1962. His involvement with the project centered around work with the Nihali and Nahali languages. In 1963, he began fieldwork among the Dalits in Agra. He worked with the Jatavs, many of whom were shoemakers. This fieldwork would evolve into his dissertation, and form the basis for his first book The Politics of Untouchablility, published in 1969. He continued to study the Dalits and other marginalized peoples in India, including the Dharavi slums in Mumbai, Chaube Brahmans in Mathura, and the Radhavallabhi sect in Brindaban. He wrote extensively about the impact of Dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar, as well as the intersections of Buddhism, politics, and economics within India and the Dalit community.
Lynch was active in numerous anthropological associations. Among other professional appointments, he served on the editorial boards of South Asian Social Scientist (1984-1987), the Association of Asian Studies (1973-1977), and the International Journal of Hindu Studies (1997-2013); he was chair of the South Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies (1985-1988) and president of the Society for Urban, National and Transnational Anthropology (1996-1998). He was also involved with groups such as the Volunteers in Service to India's Oppressed and Neglected (VISION), and was an active participant on conference panels and symposiums. He retired from teaching in 2003, and died in 2013.
Source consulted:
Friedlander, Eva
2014 Owen M. Lynch (1931-2013). American Anthropologist. 116(4): 898-900.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Owen Lynch's niece, Maureen Murphy, in 2013.
Restrictions:
Some material related to scholarship applications, job applications, and doctoral applications and defenses are restricted and not available for access. Restriction dates are noted in the container listing.
Access to the Owen M. Lynch papers requires an appointment.
Most of Ruth Landes's papers relate directly or indirectly to Landes's American Indian research, her work in Brazil, and her study of bilingualism. There is also a considerable amount of material that relates to her experiences (sometimes fictionalized) at Fisk University. There is only small amount of material related to her other interests. Her collection also has material of and relating to the Brazilian folklorist and journalist Edison Carneiro. There is also noteworthy material concerning Herbert Baldus, Ruth Benedict, Elmer C. Imes, Charles S. Johnson, and Robert E. Park. There is a large amount of printed and processed materials in the collection, mainly in the form of newspaper clippings and a collection of scholarly papers.
Scope and Contents:
This collection is mainly comprised of the professional papers of Ruth Schlossberg Landes. Included are correspondence, journals, published and unpublished manuscripts of writings, research materials including field notes and reading notes, photographs, drawings, scholarly papers and publications by other scholars, and clippings from newspapers and periodicals.
Landes's field research on Candomblé in Brazil is well-represented in this collection, consisting of her field journals, writings, and photographs. Also present are Maggie Wilson's stories that were the basis for Landes's The Ojibwa Woman. Unfortunately, Landes was unable to locate her journals for her early research with the Ojibwa/Chippewa, Potawatomi, and Dakota. There are, however, field photographs of the Ojibwa/Chippewa and Potawatomi in the collection. There is also a great deal of her research on groups, especially minorities, in multilingual states with particular focus on the French of Quebec, Basques of Spain and the United States, Boers and Blacks of South Africa, the several socio-linguistic groups of Switzerland, and Acadians (Cajuns) of Louisiana. In the collection are several drafts of her unpublished manuscript on bilingualism, "Tongues that Defy the State." There is also a small amount of material about Black Jews of New York and considerable material about Landes's experience among African Americans when she taught briefly at Fisk University, including her unpublished manuscript "Now, at Athens," containing fictional and autobiographical accounts of her time at Fisk.
Reflections of other facets of Landes's professional activities are also included. Some materials concern her teaching activities, and there is also documentation of her work with the Fair Employment Practices Commission (a federal government agency during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt) and a similar private organization which immediately succeeded the FEPA; Gunnar Myrdal's research into the plight of African Americans ("The Negro in America"); the Research in Contemporary Cultures project at Columbia University; and the American Jewish Congress.
Among Landes's correspondents are Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Ralph Bunche, Herbert Baldus, Edison Carneiro, Sally Chilver, Frances Densmore, Sol Tax, Elmer S. Imes, Charles S. Johnson, Robert E. Park, and Hendrik W. van der Merwe.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into 6 series: (1) Correspondence, 1931-1991; (2) Research Materials, circa 1930s-1990; (3) Writings, circa 1930s-1990; (4) Teaching Materials, 1935-1975, undated; (5) Biographical and Personal Files, 1928-1988; (6) Graphic Materials, 1933-1978, undated
Biographical Note:
Ruth Schlossberg Landes was born on October 8, 1908 in New York City. Her father was Joseph Schlossberg, an activist in the Yiddish labor socialist community and one of the founders of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. She studied sociology at New York University (B.A. 1928) and social work at the New York School of Social Work, Columbia University (M.S.W. 1929). While in graduate school, Landes studied Black Jews in Harlem for her master's thesis, a topic that developed her interests in anthropology.
After graduating in 1929, she worked as a social worker in Harlem and married Victor Landes, a medical student and son of family friends. Their marriage ended after two years when she enrolled in the doctoral program in anthropology at Columbia against her husband's wishes. She kept his surname due to the stigma of being a divorced woman.
At Columbia, Landes studied under Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, her main advisor. Under the guidance of Benedict, Landes moved away from further study of African Americans to focus on Native American communities. Upon Benedict's suggestion, Landes studied the social organization of the Ojibwa in Manitou Rapids in Ontario from 1932 to 1936 for her Ph.D. fieldwork. Her dissertation, Ojibwa Sociology, was published in 1937. Landes also contributed "The Ojibwa of Canada" in Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples (1937), a volume edited by Margaret Mead. In 1938, Landes published Ojibwa Women (1938), a book written in collaboration with Maggie Wilson, an Ojibwa interpreter and informant.
In addition to studying the Ojibwa in Ontario, Landes also conducted fieldwork with the Chippewa of Red Lake, Minnesota in 1933, working closely with shaman or midé Will Rogers. Her book, Ojibwa Religion and the Midéwiwin (1968) was based largely on her research with Rogers and Maggie Wilson. In 1935 and 1936, she undertook fieldwork with the Santee Dakota in Minnesota and the Potawatomi in Kansas. Like Ojibwa Religion and the Midéwiwin, her books on the Santee Dakota and Potawatomi were not published until several years later—The Mystic Lake Sioux: Sociology of the Mdewakantonwan Sioux was published in 1968 while The Prairie Potawatomi was published in 1970. In between her field research in the 1930s and the publication of The Prairie Potawatomi, Landes returned to Kansas to study the Potawatomi in the 1950s and 1960s.
Landes's plan to continue her studies with the Potawatomi in 1937 changed when Benedict invited her to join a team of researchers from Columbia University in Brazil. Landes was to conduct research on Afro-Brazilians in Bahia, Brazil, while Walter Lipkind, Buell Quain, and Charles Wagley studied indigenous people in the Amazons. To prepare for her research, Landes was at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1937 and 1938 to consult with Robert Park and Donald Pierson and to use the university's library collections of African and African American materials. During that time, Landes also held a teaching position at Fisk and lived in the non-segregated women's residence on campus. Landes later wrote "Now, at Athens," an unpublished memoir containing fictional and true accounts of her experiences at Fisk.
From 1938 to 1939, Landes conducted fieldwork on the role of Afro-Brazilian women and homosexuals in the Candomblé religion in Bahia, Brazil. Unable to move freely by herself in Brazil as a single woman, Landes was accompanied by Edison Carneiro, a Bahian journalist and folklorist. With Carneiro as her companion, Landes was allowed access to rituals and people that would have been closed off to her otherwise. Due to her association with Carneiro, a member of the Brazilian Communist Party, Landes was suspected of being a communist and was forced to leave Bahia early. Publications from her research in Brazil include "A Cult Matriarchate and Male Homosexuality" (1940) and City of Women (1947). She returned to Brazil in 1966 to study the effects of urban development in Rio de Janeiro. In 1967, a Portuguese translation of City of Women was published, a project that Carneiro had commissioned as the first director of the Ministry of Education and Culture's Special National Agency for the Protection of Folklore.
Landes returned to New York in 1939, working briefly as a researcher for Gunnar Myrdal's study of African Americans. Unable to obtain a permanent position at a university, she worked in several other short term positions throughout most of her career. During World War II, Landes was a research director for the Office of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs (1941) and consultant for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee on African American and Mexican American cases (1941-44). In 1945, Landes directed a program created by Pearl S. Buck and a group of interdenominational clergy to analyze pending New York anti-discrimination legislation. She moved to California the following year to work for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Welfare Council on a study of race and youth gangs. After her contract ended, she moved back to New York and was hired as a contract researcher for the American Jewish Congress (1948-50). She also participated in Columbia University's Research in Contemporary Cultures (1949-51), studying Jewish families. She coauthored with Mark Zborowski, "Hypothesis concerning the Eastern European Jewish Family." From 1951 to 1952, Landes spent a year in London, funded by a Fulbright fellowship to study colored colonial immigrants and race relations in Great Britain.
After her fellowship ended, Landes returned to the United States and held short term appointments at several universities. She taught at the William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution in New York (1953-54), the New School for Social Research in New York (1953-55), University of Kansas (1957, 1964), University of Southern California (1957-62), Columbia University (1963), Los Angeles State College (1963), and Tulane University (1964). At Claremont Graduate School, Landes helped to develop and direct the Claremont Anthropology and Education Program (1959-62).
It was not until 1965 that Landes obtained a permanent faculty position at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario; she was recruited for the position by Richard Slobodin. Due to Ontario's age retirement law, Landes was forced to retire in 1973 at the age of 65. She continued to teach part-time until 1977, when she became professor emerita.
Landes passed away at the age of 82 on February 11, 1991.
Sources Consulted
Cole, Sally. 2003. Ruth Landes: A Life in Anthropology. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Chronology
1908 October 8 -- Born Ruth Schlossberg in New York City
1928 -- B.A. in sociology, New York University
1929 -- M.S.W., New York School of Social Work, Columbia University
1929-1931 -- Social worker in Harlem Married to Victor Landes
1929-1934 -- Studied Black Jews in Harlem
1931 -- Began graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University
1932-1936 -- Studied the Ojibwa in Ontario and Minnesota (in field periodically)
1933-1940 -- Research Fellow, Columbia University
1935 Summer-Fall -- Studied the Santee Sioux (Dakota) in Minnesota
1935-1936 -- Studied the Potawatomi in Kansas
1935 -- Ph.D., Columbia University
1937 -- Instructor, Brooklyn College
1937-1938 -- Instructor, Fisk University
1938-1939 -- Studied Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil, especially at Bahia
1939 -- Researcher on Gunnar Myrdal's study, "The Negro in America"
1941 -- Research Director, Office of Inter American Affairs, Washington, D.C.
1941-1945 -- Representative for Negro and Mexican American Affairs, Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), President Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration
1944 -- Interim Director, Committee Against Racial Discrimination, New York
1946-1947 -- Researcher, study of Mexican American youth, gangs, and families, Los Angeles Metropolitan Council
1948-1951 -- Researcher, American Jewish Congress, New York
1949-1951 -- Research consultant, study on Jewish families in New York for Research in Contemporary Cultures Project, Columbia University
1951-1952 -- Fulbright Scholar, to study colored colonial immigration into Great Britain
1953-1954 -- Lecturer, William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution, New York
1953-1955 -- Lecturer, New School for Social Research, New York
1956-1957 -- Married to Ignacio Lutero Lopez
1957 Summer -- Visiting Professor, University of Kansas
1957-1958 -- Visiting Professor, University of Southern California
1957-1965 -- Consultant, California agencies (Department of Social Work, Bureau of Mental Hygiene, Department of Education, Public Health Department) and San Francisco Police Department
1958-1959 -- Director, Geriatrics Program, Los Angeles City Health Department
1959-1962 -- Visiting Professor and Director of Anthropology and Education Program, Claremont Graduate School
1962 -- Extension Lecturer, University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Berkeley
1963 -- Extension Lecturer, Columbia University Extension Lecturer, Los Angeles State College
1963-1965 -- Consultant, International Business Machines (IBM)
1964 January-June -- Visiting Professor, Tulane University
1964 Summer -- Field work with Potawatomi in Kansas Professor, University of Kansas
1965-1975 -- Professor at McMaster University
1966 -- Studied urban development in Rio de Janeiro
1968-1975 -- Studied bilingualism and biculturalism in Spain, Switzerland, South Africa, United States, and Canada (in Spain and the United States concentrated on Basques)
1975 -- Became part-time faculty member at McMaster University
1977 -- Professor Emerita, McMaster University
1978 -- Award of Merit from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
1991 February 11 -- Died in Hamilton, Ontario
1991 -- Establishment of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund at Research Institute for the Study of Man (RISM)
Related Materials:
Correspondence from Ruth Landes can be found in the William Duncan Strong Papers, the Leonard Bloomfield Papers, and MS 7369. The Ruth Bunzel Papers contains a copy of a grant application by Landes.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Ruth Landes in 1991.
Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
-"Gestures linked to environment by racial study," New York Times, 1934 (month and day unknown) (Concerns David Efon's study of gestures as a student at Columbia University)
-Sh'maa: journal of Jewish responsibility, 1980 October 17, November 28, and December 10 (printed)
-Leonard Plotnicov, "First and second generation American Jewish families: sources of conflicts and tensions," reprint from Kroeber Anthropological Society papers, issue no. 38 (1968), pp 11-25 (dittograph)
- __________, "An American Jewish vacation: pattern the accommodation of conjugal tensions," reprint from Kroeber Anthropological Society papers, no. 39 (1968), pp. 54-62 (mimeograph)
-__________ and Myrna Silverman, "Jewish ethnic signalling: social bonding in contemporary American society," reprint from Ethnology, v. 17, no. 4 (1978), pp. 407-423 (printed)
-Nathan Hurvitz, "Sources of motivation and achievement of American Jews," reprint from Jewish Social Studies, v. 23, no. 4 (1961), pp. 217-234 (printed)
-Israel, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Defenceless: three complaints by the government of Israel respecting grave violations of the 1949 Geneva prisoners-of-war convention (printed)
-Council of Black and White Rabbis (Philadelphia), "Black Jews: Who are they? What do they believe? Where are they today?" Multilith. Jewish spectator, v. 22, no. 4 (1957) (printed)
-Vine Deloria, "Myth and the origin of religion," Pensee, v. 4, no. 4 (1974), pp. 45-50 (printed)
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
The Esther Schiff Goldfrank papers, 1920-1980, document her professional life in anthropology. Much of the field material and reading notes relate to Goldfrank's work on the Pueblos, Navahos, Blood, and Teton Dakota. There is also considerable material of colleagues. Some of this seems to have been given to her directly. Other material, particularly that of Ruth Benedict's Blackfoot project, was acquired by Margaret Mead and then sent to Goldfrank. Included are field notes or manuscript articles concerning the Blackfoot Indians by Benedict, Harry D. Biele, Marjorie Lismer, Jane Richardson, and George D. Spindler. Most of the photographs in the collection concern Goldfrank's early travels with Franz Boas or Harvey Biele's work with the Bloods. Copies of illustrations used in her autobiography are also included.
Scope and Contents:
These papers document the professional life of anthropologist Esther Schiff Goldfrank (b. 1896) through correspondence, arranged both alphabetically and chronologically; correspondence specifically referencing the Isleta paintings; manuscripts by Goldfrank; field, reading and typescript notes; material from other anthropologists; miscellaneous printed material such as articles, reports, papers and invitations; transparencies of artwork from Isleta paintings; facsimiles of the Joe B. Lente letters; and, photographs, mostly concerning Goldfrank's early travels with Franz Boas and Harvey Biele's work with the Bloods. The collection dates from 1920 through 1980.
Among correspondents whose letters are included in the papers, are David F. ABERLE, John ADAIR, M. F. ASHLEY-MONTAGUE, Victor BARNOUW, Ruth F. BENEDICT, Franz BOAS, Charles E. BORDEN, Henry B. COLLINS, Carlton S. COON, George DEVEREUX, Rene d'HARNONCOURT, Edward P. DOZIER, Fred R. EGGAN, Ward H. GOODENOUGH, Alfred I. HALLOWELL, June HANKS, Byron HARVEY III, Florence M. HAWLEY, E. Adamson HOEBEL, Alfred V. KIDDER, Solon T. KIMBALL, Clyde KLUCKHOLN, R. Weston LABARRE, Oliver LAFARGE, Dorothea C. LEIGHTON, Oscar LEWIS, Edward M. LOEB, John P. LUCERO, Margaret MEAD, Robert MURPHY, Morris OPLER, Elsie Clews PARSONS, Herbert PARSONS, Jane RICHARDSON, M. Estellie SMITH, Frank G. SPECK, Leslie SPIER, Morris SWADESH, Sol TAX, Mischa TITIEV, Caroline TRUJILLO, Leslie A. WHITE, Nathalie F. S. WOODBURY, and Richard B. WOODBURY.
The bulk of the material concerns Goldfrank's work on the genesis and publication of the Isleta paintings and her research on and fieldwork with the Pueblo, Navaho, Blood and Teton Dakota. Additionally, there are field notes and manuscript articles by Ruth F. Benedict, Harry D. Biele, Marjorie Lismer, Jane Richardson, and George D. Spindler.
There is also a good deal of autobiographical material and information about her interaction with other anthropologists (Franz Boas and Ruth F. Benedict among others) in the various drafts of Goldfrank's privately published autobiography, "Notes on an Undirected Life" (1978).
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into the following series: (1) Correspondence arranged by correspondent or subject; (2) Correspondence arranged in chronological order, 1922-1950; (3) Correspondence arranged in chronological order, 1951-1980; (4) Manuscripts by Goldfrank; (5) Isleta paintings, 1949-1976, undated; (6) Blackfoot and Blood Indians; (7) Navajo and Pueblo Indians; (8) Teton Dakota (Sioux) Indians; (9) Miscellany; (10) Photographs.
Biographical Note:
Esther Schiff Goldfrank took an undergraduate course under Franz Boas when she was a student at Barnard College. This led to her becoming his secretary between 1919 and 1922 and, at the same time, taking graduate courses in anthropology at Columbia University. With the financial and intellectual assistance of Elsie Clews Parsons, she also traveled with Boas and his wife in the Southwest and carried out anthropological field work at Laguna and Cochiti Pueblos between 1920 and 1922. Out of this work came her Social and Ceremonial Organization of Chochiti, Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, number 23, 1927.
Although she married Walter Goldfrank in 1922 and became a homemaker, her interest in Pueblo life continued. In 1924, she carried out field work at Isleta for the Southwest Society under arrangements made by Parsons.
After her husband's death in 1935, Goldfrank worked for Caroline Zachry's Study of Adolescents for the Commission on Secondary School Curriculum of the Progressive Education Association and, later, became a nondegree graduate student in anthropology, again at Columbia University, In 1939, she took part in a program of field studies of four Blackfoot tribes that was directed Ruth Fulton Benedict. The purpose of the program was to determine differences in the effects of American and Canadian policies on similar cultures.
Goldfrank's work was among the Blood Indians of Canada, and she reported it in her Changing Configurations in the Social Organization of a Blackfoot Tribe during the Reserve Period, J. J. Austin, 1945.
In 1940, Goldfrank married Karl A. Wittfogel and, in 1943, became staff anthropologist for the Chinese History Project, which her husband directed. Shortly after her marriage, she undertook work on historical aspects of Teton Dakota culture through library studies. Her interest in Pueblo cultures continued, however, and she contributed two major publications concerning them. In 1962, under her editorship, Elsie Clews Parsons' Isleta Paintings was published as Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 181. In 1967, her own The Artist of "Isleta Paintings" in Pueblo Society was issued as Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, volume 3.
Under the influence of her husband, she also became interested in the implications for southwestern cultures of the need to control water.
Goldfrank was active with several anthropological organizations but especially with the American Ethnological Society. She served as its secretary-treasurer in 1945-1947 and its president in 1948. In the latter position, she was particularly concerned with the constitution of the society and, especially, its anomolous relationship with the American Anthropological Association. She was also the society's editor from 1952 to 1956.
Chronology
1896 -- Born
1918 -- Bachelor of Arts, Barnard College
1919-1922 -- Took graduate courses in anthropology at Columbia University Became secretary to Franz Boas Conducted field work with Franz Boas among the Indians at Laguna and Cochiti
1922 -- Married Walter S. Goldfrank
1924 -- Pursued field work at Isleta for the Southwest Society
1927 -- Published Monograph, "The Social and Ceremonial Organization of Cochiti," Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, number 23, 1927
1935 -- Death of Walter S. Goldfrank
1939 -- Took part in a study of four Blackfoot tribes directed by Ruth F. Benedict
1940 -- Married Karl A. Wittfogel
1943 -- Became staff anthropologist for Wittfogel's Chinese HistoryProject
1944 -- Published Monograph, "Changing Configurations in the Social Organization of a Blackfoot Tribe During the Reserve Period," J. J. Austin, 1945
1945-1947 -- Served as Secretary-Treasurer of the American Ethnological Society
1948 -- Served as President of the American Ethnological Society
1952-1956 -- Publication of "Isleta Paintings,"Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 181, with Introduction and Commentary by Elsie ClewsParsons and edited by Esther S. Goldfrank Served as editor for the American Ethnological Society
1967 -- Goldfrank's "Artist of 'Isleta Paintings' in Pueblo Society" was issued as Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, volume 3
1978 -- Publication of the Memoirs of Esther S. Goldfrank, entitled, "Notes on an Undirected Life," New York, Queens College, 1978
1988 -- Death of Karl A. Wittfogel
1997 April 23 -- Died
Provenance:
The papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Esther Schiff Goldfrank in 1982. A small addition was made in 1984.
Restrictions:
The Esther Schiff Goldfrank papers are open for research.
Rights:
Restrictions on the use of the material specify that living informants are not to be mentioned in publications; no material is to be used to defame any individual; and, transparencies of the Isleta Paintings and copies of Joe B. Lente's letters cannot be reproduced (copies should be obtained from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia).
Genre/Form:
Photographs
Manuscripts
Letters (correspondence)
Citation:
Esther Schiff Goldfrank papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Publications, photographs, articles, audio and video recordings, and teaching materials relating to the rise of Macrobiotics in the United States, as popularized by Michio and Aveline Kushi. The bulk of the material was produced for the Kushi Foundation, Kushi Institute, and East West Foundation.
Scope and Contents:
This collection documents the work of Michio and Aveline Kushi as writers and teachers in popularizing macrobiotics in the United States. It consists largely of publications and recordings produced by three organizations created by the Kushis: the East West Foundation, the Kushi Foundation, and the Kushi Institute. The collection also includes publications and recordings created by others involved in macrobiotics and related areas. The materials in this collection span the years 1960 through 2006, but the bulk of the material is from the 1970s and 1980s.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into seven series.
Series 1: East West Foundation, 1966-1991; undated
Subseries 1.1: Publications, 1966-1991
Subseries 1.2: Foundation Information, 1974-1988; undated
Series 2: Kushi Foundation, 1968-1999; undated
Subseries 2.1: Background Information, 1987-1989
Subseries 2.2: Forms and Publications, 1968-1995; undated
Subseries 2.3: One Peaceful World Campaign Information, 1973-1999
Subseries 2.4: One Peaceful World Press Publications, 1991-1999
Subseries 6.3: Macrobiotic Organizations and Publications, 1969-2006; undated
Subseries 6.4, Miscellaneous Materials, undated
Series 7: Photographs, 1964-1971, 1994; undated
Biographical / Historical:
Macrobiotics is both a comprehensive vegetarian diet and a spiritual world view based on ancient Asian beliefs and practices. Founded by Sagen Ishizuka, macrobiotics began as a reaction to the introduction of western foods into Japan in the late nineteenth century. Ishizuka attempted to restate traditional Japanese beliefs in modern scientific terms in A Chemical Theory of Long Life, published in 1897, and A Method for Nourishing Life, published in 1898.
Ishizuka believed that the key to good health was the relationship between potassium and sodium. Health is maintained when these two elements are in good balance. If there is not a good balance, then one will become ill. Ishizuka believed the best way to maintain this balance was through a cereal based diet.
Ishizuka, along with his disciples, founded the Food Cure Society in 1908 to advance his ideas. After his death in 1910, society members, including Manabu Nishihata, a physician and social activist, carried on the work.
Yukikazu Sakurazawa, also known as George Ohsawa, joined the Food Cure Society in 1919. In 1923, after the destruction of his company in an earthquake, Ohsawa joined the staff of the society full time to disseminate its ideas. Mr. Ohsawa wrote many books for the society including a biography of Ishizuka. Ohsawa's most important contribution to the philosophy of macrobiotics was the incorporation of the concepts of Yin and Yang into macrobiotics.
In the 1930s Ohsawa traveled as a representative of the society across Europe to spread the philosophy of macrobiotics. After disagreements with the leadership of the society, Ohsawa left the organization in 1939 to start his own group.
Following his release from prison during World War II for his peace efforts, Ohsawa established macrobiotic teaching centers in Yokohama and Tokyo. It was at this point that Ohsawa met Michio Kushi.
Michio Kushi was born in Kokawa, Wakayama-Ken, Japan, on May 17, 1926. While a student at Tokyo University, he became involved with the World Federalist Movement (WFM), an American organization working for world peace. It was through the WFM that Kushi met George Ohsawa. Kushi studied under Ohsawa for one year and then moved to New York City in 1949 to study political science at Columbia University.
While living in New York, Kushi came to believe that by returning to a traditional diet of whole, natural foods, humanity would regain its physical and mental balance and become more peaceful. It was at this time that Kushi began to teach the macrobiotic way of life.
Aveline Kushi was born Tomoko Yokoyama in 1923 in Yokota, Japan. Before coming to the United States for higher education in 1951, she was a member of the World Government Association, run by George Ohsawa. She married Michio Kushi in 1954 and was an active partner in their macrobiotic efforts. She wrote cookbooks and an autobiography. Aveline Kushi died in 2001.
Michio Kushi's work in New York grew steadily until 1965 when a pregnant woman died due to her decision to go on an austere form of the diet. After the death of this woman many medical authorities came out against macrobiotics. The close proximity in time of this incident and the death of George Ohsawa greatly damaged the movement. After these incidents Kushi decided to start over in Boston.
After the move to Boston, Kushi emerged as a prominent teacher and started to develop his own interpretation of macrobiotics. Kushi founded the East West Foundation and began to publish the magazine, The Order of the Universe. In 1970, East West Journal, intended for the general public, began publication. The scope of East West Journal was not limited to macrobiotics. It covered a variety of New Age topics and became the center of one of the first New Age networks. East West Journal provided contacts for people interested in eastern philosophies.
In 1975 Kushi began summer residence courses for serious students of macrobiotics and in 1977 he founded the Kushi Institute, now located in Becket, Massachusetts, in the Berkshire Mountains. The mission of the Kushi Institute is to train people in the ways of macrobiotics. The Institute offers a variety of classes around the themes of "health, healing, and well being." In the 1980s the Kushi Institute expanded its programs by creating the Kushi Foundation Prison Project and conducting research in the fight against AIDS. In 1986 the Kushi Foundation started the One Peaceful World campaign. This campaign's mission was to remind the public that peace begins with the individual, family, and community.
Sources: "Aveline Kushi 78, Leader in Health Food Movement," Associated Press, July 6, 2001
http://www.imss.macrobiotic.net/avelinekushi.html (consulted October 1, 2008)
"Aveline Kushi, 78, Advocate of Macrobiotic Diet for Health," New York Times, July 23, 2001
Separated Materials:
In addition to the archival materials, the Division of Science, Medicine, and Society (now Division of Medicine and Science) acquired sixty-six artifacts. See accession numbers 1997.3165 and 1999.3026.
Provenance:
The collection was donated to the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History by Michio and Aveline Kushi in August, 1997.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use. The Patient Files and Consultation audio tapes in Series 3 are restricted for seventy-five years (to 2066).
Physical Access: Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Technical Access: Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.9" x 4.5".)
Container:
Box 18, Folder 5
Type:
Archival materials
Biographies
Diaries
Place:
Yonkers (N.Y.) -- 1900-1910
Date:
1910 February 1-1910 May 31
Scope and Contents:
Inscription on flyleaf: "Journal from February 1, 1910 to May 31, 1910."
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.0" x 3.5".)
Container:
Box 19, Folder 3
Type:
Archival materials
Biographies
Diaries
Place:
Yonkers (N.Y.) -- 1900-1910
Date:
1914 March 12-1914 August 16
Scope and Contents:
Inscription on flyleaf: "I / Journal of / Dr. L.H. Baekeland / Yonkers, NY [sic] / March 12, 1914 / to August 16, 1914." The diary details Baekeland's daily activities. He writes often of his visits and discussions, and the subjects of correspondence he has written and received. It sheds light on the use and distance of travel by automobile in the early twentieth century. In the notes, Baekeland explains increasing time spent in the laboratory in 1914.
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.0" x 3.5")
Container:
Box 19, Folder 7
Type:
Archival materials
Diaries
Date:
1917 December 8-1918 June 18
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.0" x 3.5")
Container:
Box 20, Folder 2
Type:
Archival materials
Diaries
Date:
1919 October 1-1920 February 26
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.0" x 3.5")
Container:
Box 20, Folder 6
Type:
Archival materials
Diaries
Date:
1923 April 13-1923 November 14
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.0" x 3.5")
Container:
Box 21, Folder 9
Type:
Archival materials
Diaries
Date:
1935 January 1- 1935 December 31
1935 June 1- 1935 December 31
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.0" x 3.5")
Container:
Box 22, Folder 1
Type:
Archival materials
Diaries
Date:
1937 March 28-1938 September 11
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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.
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Collection Creator:
Baekeland, L. H. (Leo Hendrik), 1863-1944 Search this
Extent:
1 Item (6.0" x 3.5")
Container:
Box 22, Folder 2
Type:
Archival materials
Diaries
Date:
1940 January 1-1941 February 3
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
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 papers of Henry Varnum Poor measure 12.9 linear feet and date from 1873-2001, with the bulk from the period 1904-1970. Correspondence, writings, artwork, printed material and photographs document Poor's work as a painter, muralist, ceramic artist and potter, architect, designer, writer, war artist, educator and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Also found is extensive information about the design and construction of Crow House, his home in New City, New York, commissions for other architectural projects, and his personal life.
Scope and Content Note:
The papers of Henry Varnum Poor measure 12.9 linear feet and date from 1873-2001, with the bulk from the period 1904-1970. Correspondence, writings, artwork, printed material and photographs document Poor's work as a painter, muralist, ceramic artist and potter, architect, designer, writer, war artist, educator and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Also found is extensive information about the design and construction of Crow House, his home in New City, New York, commissions for other architectural projects, and his personal life.
Henry Varnum Poor's correspondence documents his personal, family, and professional life. Correspondents include family and friends, among them George Biddle, Charles Burchfield, John Ciardi, Marion V. Dorn (who became his second wife), Philip Evergood, Lewis Mumford, John Steinbeck, David Smith, and Mrs. John Work (Alice) Garrett. Among other correspondents are galleries, museums, schools, organizations, fans, former students, and acquaintances from his military service and travels. Family correspondence consists of Henry's letters to his parents, letters to his parents written by his wife, and letters among other family members.
Among the writings by Henry Varnum Poor are manuscripts of his two published books, An Artist Sees Alaska and A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality. as well as the text of "Painting is Being Talked to Death," published in the first issue of Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions, April 1953, and manuscripts of other articles. There are also film scripts, two journals, notes and notebooks, lists, speeches, and writings by others, including M. R. ("Muktuk") Marston's account of Poor rescuing an Eskimo, and Bessie Breuer Poor's recollections of The Montross Gallery.
Subject files include those on the Advisory Committee on Art, American Designers' Gallery, Inc., William Benton, Harold Dickson, Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions Sales, and War Posters. There are numerous administrative files for the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.
Artwork by Henry Varnum Poor consists mainly of loose drawings and sketches and 45 sketchbooks of studies for paintings, murals, and pottery. There is work done in France, 1918-1919, and while working as a war correspondent in Alaska in 1943. There are commissioned illustrations and some intended for his monograph, A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality. Also found are a small number of watercolors and prints. Work by other artists consist of Anne Poor's drawings of her father's hands used for the Lincoln figure in The Land Grant Frescoes and interior views of Crow House by Ernest Watson.
Documentation of Poor's architectural projects consists of drawings and prints relating to houses designed and built for Jules Billing, MacDonald Deming, John Houseman, Burgess Meredith, Isabel Padro, and Elizabeth S. Sargent. Also found is similar material for the new studio Poor built in 1957 on the grounds of Crow House.
Miscellaneous records include family memorabilia and two motion picture films, Painting a True Fresco, and The Land Grant Murals at Pennsylvania State College.
Printed material includes articles about or mentioning Poor, some of his pottery reference books, family history, a catalog of kilns, and the program of a 1949 Pennsylvania State College theater production titled Poor Mr. Varnum. Exhibition catalogs and announcements survive for some of Poor's shows; catalogs of other artists' shows include one for Theodore Czebotar containing an introductory statement by Henry Varnum Poor. Also found is a copy of The Army at War: A Graphic Record by American Artists, for which Poor served as an advisor. There are reproductions of illustrations for An Artist Sees Alaska and Ethan Frome, and two Associated American Artists greeting cards reproducing work by Poor.
Photographs are of Henry Varnum Poor's architectural work, artwork, people, places, and miscellaneous subjects. This series also contains negatives, slides, and transparencies. Images of architectural work include exterior and interior views of many projects; Poor's home, Crow House, predominates. Photographs of artwork by Poor are of drawings, fresco and ceramic tile murals, paintings, pottery and ceramic art. People appearing in photographs include Henry Varnum Poor, family members, friends, clients, juries, students, and various groups. Among the individuals portrayed are Milton Caniff, Marcel Duchamp, Wharton Esherick, M. R. ("Muktuk") Marston, and Burgess Meredith. Among the family members are Bessie Breuer Poor, Marion Dorn Poor, Anne Poor, Eva Poor, Josephine Graham Poor, Josephine Lydia Poor, Peter Poor, and unidentified relatives. Photographs of places include many illustrating village life in Alaska that were taken by Poor during World War II. Other places recorded are French and California landscapes, and family homes in Kansas. Miscellaneous subjects are exhibition installation views, scenes of Kentucky farms, and a photograph of Poor's notes on glazes.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 9 series:
Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1919-1987 (0.2 linear feet; Box 1, OV 18)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1873-1985 (1.5 linear feet; Boxes 1-2)
Series 3: Writings and Notes, circa 1944-1974 (0.6 linear feet; Boxes 2-3)
Series 4: Subject Files, 1928-1975 (0.8 linear feet; Box 3, OV 23)
Series 5: Artwork, circa 1890s-circa 1961 (3.5 linear feet; Boxes 4-6, 9-10, OV 19-22)
Series 6: Architectural Projects, circa 1940-1966 (0.7 linear feet; Box 6, OV 24-26, RD 14-17)
Series 7: Miscellaneous Records, 1882-1967 (Boxes 6, 11, FC 30-31; 0.5 linear ft.)
Series 8: Printed Material, 1881-2001 (1.2 linear feet; Boxes 6-7, 11, OV 27-29)
Series 9: Photographs, 1893-1984 (2.3 linear feet; Boxes 7-8, 12-13)
Biographical Note:
Henry Varnum Poor (1888-1970), best known as a potter, ceramic artist, and a co-founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, was also an architect, painter, muralist, designer, educator, and writer who lived and worked in New City, New York.
A native of Chapman, Kansas, Henry Varnum Poor moved with his family to Kansas City when his grain merchant father became a member of the Kansas Board of Trade. From a young age he showed artistic talent and spent as much time as possible - including school hours - drawing. When a school supervisor suggested that Henry leave school to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, the family disagreed. Instead, he enrolled in the Kansas City Manual Training High School where he delighted in learning skills such as carpentry, forge work, and mechanical drawing. In 1905, he moved with his older brother and sister to Palo Alto, California and completed high school there. Because Poor was expected to join the family business, he enrolled at Stanford University as an economics major, but much to his father's disappointment and displeasure, soon left the economics department and became an art major.
Immediately after graduation in 1910, Poor and his major professor at Stanford, Arthur B. Clark, took a summer bicycling tour to look at art in London, France, Italy, and Holland. As Poor had saved enough money to remain in London after the summer was over, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art and also studied under Walter Sickert at the London County Council Night School. After seeing an exhibition of Post-Impressionism at the Grafton Galleries in London, Poor was so impressed that he went to Paris and enrolled in the Académie Julian. While in Paris, Poor met Clifford Addams, a former apprentice of Whistler; soon he was working in Addams' studio learning Whistler's palette and techniques.
In the fall of 1911, Poor returned to Stanford University's art department on a one-year teaching assignment. During that academic year, his first one-man show was held at the university's Old Studio gallery. He married Lena Wiltz and moved back to Kansas to manage the family farm and prepare for another exhibition. Their daughter, Josephine Lydia Poor, was born the following year. Poor returned to Stanford in September 1913 as assistant professor of graphic arts, remaining until the department closed three years later. During this period, Poor began to exhibit more frequently in group shows in other areas of the country, and had his first solo exhibition at a commercial gallery (Helgesen Gallery, San Francisco). In 1916, Poor joined the faculty of the San Francisco Art Association. He and his wife separated in 1917 and were divorced the following year. Poor began sharing his San Francisco studio with Marion Dorn.
During World War I, Poor was drafted into the U. S. Army, and in 1918 went to France with the 115th Regiment of Engineers. He spent his spare time drawing; soon officers were commissioning portraits, and Poor was appointed the regimental artist. He also served as an interpreter for his company. Discharged from the Army in early 1919, Poor spent the spring painting in Paris. He then returned to San Francisco and married Marion Dorn.
Once Poor realized that earning a living as a painter would be extremely difficult in California, he and his new wife moved to New York in the autumn of 1919. They were looking for a place to live when influential book and art dealer Mary Mowbray-Clarke of the Sunwise Turn Bookshop in Manhattan suggested New City in Rockland County, New York as good place for artists. In January of 1920, the Poors purchased property on South Mountain Road in New City. The skills he acquired at the Kansas City Manual Training High School were of immediate use as Poor designed and constructed "Crow House" with the assistance of a local teenager. Influenced by the farmhouses he had seen in France, it was made of local sandstone and featured steep gables, rough plaster, chestnut beams and floors, and incorporated many hand-crafted details. Poor designed and built most of their furniture, too. Before the end of the year, he and Marion were able to move into the house, though it remained a work in progress for many years. Additions were constructed. Over time, gardens were designed and planted, and outbuildings - a kiln and pottery, work room, garage, and new studio - appeared on the property.
In 1925, two years after his divorce from Marion Dorn, Poor married Bessie Freedman Breuer (1893-1975), an editor, short story writer, and novelist. Soon after, he adopted her young daughter, Anne (1918-2002), an artist who served as his assistant on many important mural commissions. Their son, Peter (b. 1926) became a television producer. Crow House remained in the family until its sale in 2006. In order to prevent its demolition, Crow House was then purchased by the neighboring town of Ramapo, New York in 2007.
Between 1935 and 1966 Poor designed and oversaw construction of a number of houses, several of them situated not far from Crow House on South Mountain Road. Poor's designs, noted for their simplicity, featured modern materials and incorporated his ceramic tiles. Among his important commissions were houses for Maxwell Anderson, Jules Billig, Milton Caniff, MacDonald Deming, and John Houseman.
Poor's first exhibition of paintings in New York City was at Kevorkian Galleries in 1920, and sales were so disappointing that he turned his attention to ceramics. His first pottery show, held at Bel Maison Gallery in Wanamaker's department store in 1921, was very successful. He quickly developed a wide reputation, participated in shows throughout the country, and won awards. He was a founder of the short-lived American Designers' Gallery, and the tile bathroom he showed at the group's first exposition was critically acclaimed. Poor was represented by Montross Gallery as both a painter and potter. When Montross Gallery closed upon its owner's death in 1932, Poor moved to the Frank K. M. Rehn Gallery.
Even though Poor's pottery and ceramic work was in the forefront, he continued to paint. His work was acquired by a number of museums, and the Limited Editions Club commissioned him to illustrate their republications of Ethan Frome, The Scarlet Letter, and The Call of the Wild.
Poor's first work in true fresco was shown in a 1932 mural exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Between 1935 and 1949 he was commissioned to produce several murals in fresco for Section of Fine Arts projects at the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior, The Land Grant Frescoes at Pennsylvania State College, and a mural for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Ceramic tile mural commissions included: the Klingenstein Pavilion, Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City; Travelers Insurance Co., Boston; the Fresno Post Office, California; and Hillson Memorial Gallery, Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Mass.
As a member of the War Artists' Unit, Poor was a "war correspondent" with the rank of major in World War II, and for several months in 1943 was stationed in Alaska. An Artist Sees Alaska, drawing on Poor's observations and experiences, was published in 1945. A Book of Pottery: From Mud to Immortality, his second book, was published in 1958. It remains a standard text on the subject. While on the faculty of Columbia University in the 1950s, Poor and other artists opposed to the growing influence of Abstract Expressionism formed the Reality Group with Poor the head of its editorial committee. Their magazine, Reality: A Journal of Artists' Opinions, first appeared in 1953 featuring "Painting is Being Talked to Death" by Poor as its lead article. Two more issues were published in 1954 and 1955.
Along with Willard Cummings, Sidney Simon, and Charles Cuttler, in 1946 Henry Varnum Poor helped to establish the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine. He served as its first president. Poor and his daughter, Anne, were active members of the Board of Trustees and were instructors for many years. The summer of 1961 was Henry Varnum Poor's last as a full-time teacher, though he continued to spend summers at Skowhegan.
Henry Varnum Poor exhibited widely and received many awards, among them prizes at the Carnegie Institute, Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Architectural League of New York. Poor was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts by President Roosevelt in 1941 and served a five year term. He was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1943. The National Academy of Design named him an Associate Artist in 1954 and an Academician in 1963. He became a trustee of the American Craftsman's Council in 1956. The work of Henry Vernum Poor is represented in the permanent collections of many American museums including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Addison Gallery of American Art, and Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts.
Henry Varnum Poor died at home in New City, New York, December 8, 1970.
Related Material:
An oral history interview with Henry Varnum Poor was conducted by Harlan Phillips for the Archives of American Art in 1964.
Provenance:
Gift of Henry Varnum Poor's son, Peter V. Poor, in 2007. A smaller portion was loaned to the Archives in 1973 by Anne Poor for microfilming and returned to the lender; this material was included in the 2007 gift.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information. Use of audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
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