These papers reflect the professional lives of Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923), an ethnologist with the Peabody Museum of Harvard and collaborator with the Bureau of American Ethnology, and Francis La Flesche (1856-1923), an anthropologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology. Due to the close professional and personal relationship of Fletcher and La Flesche, their papers have been arranged jointly. The papers cover the period from 1874 to 1939. Included in the collection is correspondence, personal diaries, lectures, field notes and other ethnographic papers, drafts, musical transcriptions, publications by various authors, maps and photographs.
Scope and Contents:
These papers reflect the professional lives of Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923), an ethnologist with the Peabody Museum of Harvard University and collaborator with the Bureau of American Ethnology, and Francis La Flesche (1856-1923), an anthropologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology. Due to the close professional and personal relationship of Fletcher and La Flesche, their papers have been arranged jointly. The papers cover the period from 1874 to 1939. Included in the collection is correspondence, personal diaries, lectures, field notes and other ethnographic papers, drafts, musical transcriptions, publications by various authors, maps and photographs.
The papers have been divided into three general categories: the papers of Alice Cunningham Fletcher, the papers of Francis La Flesche, and the ethnographic research of Fletcher and La Flesche. The first two categories represent personal and professional materials of Fletcher and La Flesche. The third section holds the majority of the ethnographic material in the collection.
Of primary concern are Fletcher and La Flesche's ethnological investigations conducted among the Plains Indians, particularly the Omaha and Osage. Fletcher's Pawnee field research and her allotment work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs among the Omaha, Nez Perce, and Winnebago are represented in the collection. A substantial portion of the ethnographic material reflects Fletcher and La Flesche's studies of Native American music. Much of the correspondence in the papers of Fletcher and La Flesche is rich with information about the situation of Omaha peoples in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Also included in the collection are documents related to Fletcher's work with the Archaeological Institute of America and the School for American Archaeology. Additionally, substantial amounts of Fletcher's early anthropological and historical research are found among her correspondence, lectures, anthropological notes, and early field diaries. La Flesche's literary efforts are also generously represented.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into the following 3 series: 1) Alice Cunningham Fletcher papers, 1873-1925; 2) Francis La Flesche papers, 1881-1930; 3) Papers relating to the anthropological research of Alice Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, 1877-1939.
Series 1: Alice Cunningham Fletcher papers is divided into the following 10 subseries: 1.1) Incoming correspondence, 1874-1923 (bulk 1882-1923); 1.2) Outgoing correspondence, 1873-1921; 1.3) Correspondence on specific subjects, 1881-1925; 1.4) Correspondence between Fletcher and La Flesche, 1895-1922; 1.5) Publications, 1882-1920; 1.6) Organizational records, 1904-1921; 1.7) General anthropological notes, undated; 1.8) Lectures, circa 1878-1910; 1.9) Diaries, 1881-1922; 1.10) Biography and memorabilia, 1878-1925.
Series 2: Francis La Flesche papers is divided into the following 6 subseries: 2.11) General correspondence, 1890-1929; 2.12) Correspondence on specific subjects, 1881-1930; 2.13) Publications, 1900-1927; 2.14) Literary efforts, undated; 2.15) Personal diaries, 1883-1924; 2.16) Biography and memorabilia, 1886-1930.
Series 3: Papers relating to the anthropological research of Alice Fletcher and Francis La Flesche is divided into the following 12 subseries: 3.17) Alaska, 1886-1887; 3.18) Earth lodges, 1882, 1898-1899; 3.19) Music, 1888-1918; 3.20) Nez Perce, 1889-1909; 3.21) Omaha, 1882-1922; 3.22) Osage, 1896-1939; 3.23) Pawnee, 1897-1910; 3.24) Pipes, undated; 3.25) Sioux, 1877-1896; 3.26) Other tribes, 1882-1922; 3.27) Publications collected, 1884-1905, undated; 3.28) Photographs, undated.
Biographical / Historical:
Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838-1923) was an ethnologist with the Peabody Museum of Harvard and collaborator with the Bureau of American Ethnology. Francis La Flesche (1856-1923) was an anthropologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Chronology of the Life of Alice Cunningham Fletcher
1838 March 15 -- Born in Havana, Cuba
1873-1876 -- Secretary, American Association for Advancement of Women
1879 -- Informal student of anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University
1881 -- Field trip to Omaha and Rosebud Agencies
1882 -- Assistant in ethnology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University
1882 -- Helped secure land in severalty to Omaha Indians
1882-1883 -- Begins collaboration with Francis La Flesche on the Peabody Museum's collection of Omaha and Sioux artifacts
1883-1884 -- Special Agent, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Omaha Agency
1886 -- Bureau of Education investigation of Alaskan native education
1887-1888 -- Special Disbursing Agent, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Winnebago Agency
1889-1892 -- Special Agent for allotment, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Nez Perce Agency
1890-1899 -- President, Women's Anthropological Society of America
1891-1923 -- Mary Copley Thaw Fellow, Peabody Museum, Harvard University
1892-1893 -- Department of Interior consultant, World's Columbian Exposition
1896 -- Vice-President, Section H, American Association for the Advancement of Science
1897 -- Collaborator, Bureau of American Ethnology
1899-1916 -- Editorial board, American Anthropologist
1900 -- Published Indian Story and Song from North America
1901-1902 -- Advisory committee, Anthropology Department, University of California at Berkeley
1903 -- President, Anthropological Society of Washington
1904 -- Published The Hako: A Pawnee Ceremony with James Murie
1908-1913 -- Chair, Managing Committee of School of American Archaeology
1911 -- Honorary Vice-President, Section H, British Association for Advancement of Science
1911 -- Published The Omaha Tribe with Francis La Flesche
1913 -- Chair Emeritus, Managing Committee of School of American Archaeology
1915 -- Published Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs Arranged from American Indian Ceremonials and Sports
1923 April 6 -- Died in Washington, D.C.
Chronology of the Life of Francis La Flesche
1857 December 25 -- Born on Omaha Reservation near Macy, Nebraska
1879 -- Lecture tour, Ponca chief Standing Bear
1881 -- Interpreter, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
1881-1910 -- Clerk, Bureau of Indian Affairs
1891 -- Informally adopted as Fletcher's son
1892 -- LL.B., National University Law School
1893 -- LL.M., National University Law School
1900 -- Published The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School
1906-1908 -- Marriage to Rosa Bourassa
1910-1929 -- Ethnologist, Bureau of American Ethnology
1911 -- Published The Omaha Tribe with Alice Fletcher
1921 -- Published The Osage Tribe, Part One
1922 -- Member, National Academy of Sciences
1922-1923 -- President, Anthropological Society of Washington
1925 -- Published The Osage Tribe, Part Two
1926 -- Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Nebraska
1928 -- Published The Osage Tribe, Part Three
1932 -- Published Dictionary of the Osage Language
1932 September 5 -- Died in Thurston County, Nebraska
1939 -- Posthumous publication of War Ceremony and Peace Ceremony of the Osage Indians
Related Materials:
Additional material related to the professional work of Fletcher and La Flesche in the National Anthropological Archives may be found among the correspondence of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) and the records of the Anthropological Society of Washington.
Sound recordings made by Fletcher and La Flesche can be found at the Library of Congress. The National Archives Records Administration hold the Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), including those relating to allotments in severalty for the Nez Perce by Alice Fletcher. The Nebraska Historical Society has diaries, letters and clippings regarding the La Flesche family, including correspondence of Francis La Flesche and Fletcher. The Radcliffe College Archives holds a manuscript account of Alice Fletcher's four summers with the Nez Perce (1889-1892). Correspondence between Fletcher and F. W. Putnam is also located at the Peabody Museum Archives of Harvard University.
Separated Materials:
Ethnographic photographs from the collection have been catalogued by tribe in Photo Lot 24.
Glass plate negatives from the collection have been catalogued by tribe in the BAE glass negatives collection (Negative Numbers 4439-4515).
Provenance:
The papers of Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Francis La Flesche have been received from an undocumented number of sources. Portions of Fletcher's ethnographic papers were donated to the archives by Mrs. G. David Pearlman in memory of her husband in 1959.
Restrictions:
The Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Francis La Flesche papers are open for research.
Access to the Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Francis La Flesche papers requires an appointment.
In Smithsonian printed vocabulary outline of 134 words.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 165
Local Note:
Listed without author in Pilling, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 14, 1892, page 49. Dall given as author in Roehrig's remarks accompanying copy of this vocabulary, Bureau of American Ethnology Number 148.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Citation:
Manuscript 165, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Catalogue raisonné de coquilles et autres curiosités naturelles : on a joint à la tête du catalogue quelques observations générales sur les coquilles : avec une liste des principaux cabinets qui s'en trouvent, tant dans la France que dans la Holande, une autre liste des auteurs les plus rares qui ont traité de cette matière, & une table alphabetique des noms arbitraires, tant François que francisés, attribués aux coquilles par les curieux
Title:
Catalogue raisonné de coquilles, insectes, plantes marines, et autres curiosités naturelles
Index testaceologicus an illustrated catalogue of British and foreign shells : containing about 2800 figures accurately coloured after nature by W. Wood
Novitates Conchologicae Series prima Mollusca marina Beschreibung und Abbildung neuer oder wenig gekannter Meeres-Conchylien herausgegeben von Dr. Wilh. Dunker ; mit 45 colorirten Tafeln
Title:
Beschreibung und Abbildung neuer oder wenig gekannter Meeres-Conchylien
Conchology, or, The natural history of shells containing a new arrangement of the genera and species, illustrated by coloured engravings executed from the natural specimens, and including the latest discoveries by George Perry
Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America to which is prefixed, a summary of the voyages made by the Russians on the frozen sea, in search of a north east passage : serving as an explanation of a map of the Russian discoveries, published by the Academy of Sciences at Petersburgh translated from the High Dutch of S. Muller, of the Royal Academy of Petersburgh ; with the addition of three new maps; 1. A copy of part of the Japanese map of the world. 2. A copy of De Lisle's and Buache's fictitious map. And 3. A large map of Canada, extending to the Pacific Ocean, containing the new discoveries made by the Russians and French ; by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to His Majesty
Mission scientifique au Mexique et dans l'Amérique Centrale ouvrage publié par ordre de S.M. l'Empereur et par les soins du Ministre de l'instruction publique
Author:
Mission scientifique au Mexique et dans l'Amérique Centrale Search this
This accession consists of a catalog of marine invertebrates collected by William Healey Dall (1845-1927), a naturalist, malacologist, and explorer. This catalog documents
specimens collected in Alaska and the Pacific Ocean.
Catalogue of the Marine Invertebrates Collected by W. H. Dall in Alaska and Other Places in the Pacific Ocean, during the Years 1866, 1867, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1880
32.36 cu. ft. (5 record storage boxes) (51 document boxes) (1 half document box) (4 5x8 boxes) (3 oversize folders)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Scientific illustrations
Photographs
Maps
Diaries
Field notes
Scrapbooks
Date:
circa 1839-1858, 1862-1927
Introduction:
This finding aid was digitized with funds generously provided by the Smithsonian Institution Women’s Committee.
Descriptive Entry:
This collection contains papers documenting the scientific and personal life of Dall, especially the Western Union Telegraph Expedition to Alaska (1865-1868). Included
are daily diaries, 1865-1927; Western Union Telegraph Expedition material containing diaries, scrapbooks, field notes, financial accounts, specimen collection notebooks and
incoming and outgoing correspondence regarding Alaskan towns, topography, mineral resources, biology and zoology of Alaska, customs of the Russian-Americans and Alaskan Indian
natives, along with sketches of the latter, their housing, clothing and utensils; description of the intrigue among the members of the Western Union Telegraph Expedition;
Robert Kennicott's field notes; Dall correspondence regarding Kennicott's leadership of the expedition; Dall and others regarding Kennicott's death; diaries, correspondence,
financial accounts, specimen collection notebooks and field notes regarding Dall's explorations to Alaska (1871-1876, 1879-1880) under the United States Coast Survey, and
his explorations to the Pacific coast and Florida under the United States Geological Survey; reports to Secretary of State, Thomas Francis Bayard, regarding the Alaska-Canada
Boundary Question, 1885, 1888; reports for the United States Coast Survey, United States Geological Survey, Division of Cenozoic Paleontology, and United States National Museum,
Division of Mollusks, regarding their progress under Dall's leadership; incoming and outgoing correspondence between Dall and his colleagues, administrators of scientific
and educational organizations, editors, publishers, family members, friends, private collectors of mollusca, and scientific and social societies regarding membership and membership
meetings, identification of fossil collections, publications and manuscripts, personal and family problems, student theses, appointment to the United States Geological Survey,
honorary degrees, politics, economics, social conditions in Washington, D.C., and Dall's personal views regarding his own professional competency and social status; awards;
photographs of Dall, his friends, and members of his expeditions; publications on mollusca, catalogues of mollusk lists, mollusk plates on Dall's Contributions to the Tertiary
Fauna of Florida, and his unpublished work on Hawaiian Island mollusca; Dall's manuscript biography of Spencer Fullerton Baird; Dall's publications and newspaper articles;
poetry written by his father; and material on the genealogy of Dall and his family.
Historical Note:
Dean of Alaskan explorations and one of the last of the disappearing class of "systematic naturalists," which included Agassiz, Baird, and Audubon, William H. Dall
(1845-1927) was born in Boston to Charles Henry Appleton Dall, a Unitarian minister, and Caroline Wells (Healey), a feminist and publicist. Educated in the public school system,
Dall did not go on to attend Harvard after graduating from the Boston Latin School. Instead, he pursued his interests in zoology and medicine by studying under the guidance
of Agassiz, Augustus A. Gould, and Jeffries Wyman. Dall's special interest in mollusca came about quite accidentally as a result of his reading Gould's Report on the Invertebrata
of Massachusetts. Dall soon left for Chicago to earn his livelihood, and there he met Robert Kennicott and William Stimpson, both members of the Chicago Academy of Sciences,
where Dall attended evenings to continue his scientific studies.
When Kennicott was given command of the Western Union Telegraph Expedition to Alaska in 1865, whose mission was to find a means of establishing a communications system
with Europe by way of Alaska, the Bering Straits, and Asia, Dall, aged twenty, was invited along as a member of the group's scientific party. Upon Kennicott's death in 1866,
Dall was placed in charge of the Scientific Corps. When the expedition was abruptly terminated by the successful laying of the Atlantic cable, Dall volunteered to stay on
an extra year in order to complete the scientific project. In 1871, Dall was appointed to the United States Coast Survey (USCS), under whose auspices he continued his studies
on Alaska and the northern Pacific Coast. Dall left the USCS in 1884 to accept the rank of paleontologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a position which
he held until 1925.
Having forwarded fossil specimens he had collected as a youth to the Smithsonian Institution, and with the collections of the Alaskan expedition being sent there also,
Dall, upon his arrival in Washington, D.C., in 1868, voluntarily began to assemble and describe the collections of mollusca and other organisms stored by the United States
National Museum (USNM) while working on his publication regarding Alaska. In 1880, Dall was officially appointed honorary curator at the USNM, Division of Mollusks, a position
he held until his death and without remuneration, as he could not be paid for both his work with the USGS and the USNM.
Dall was a prolific writer. Between his earliest writings on the Alaskan expedition in 1865 as a correspondent for the Alta California until his death in 1927, Dall
published more than five-hundred scientific short papers. Among his larger works, Dall's Contributions to the Tertiary Fauna of Florida, 6 volumes (1890-1903), is still
considered the most important American publication on cenozoic molluscan paleontology. Dall's other writings include Alaska and its Resources (1870) and his biography,
Spencer Fullerton Baird (1915). Among his honorary degrees and awards, Dall was awarded the Gold Medal by the Wagner Free Institute of Science, Philadelphia (1899),
for his work on paleontology; the Honorary Doctor of Science degree, University of Pennsylvania (1904); and the Honorary Doctor of Laws degree, George Washington University
(1915).
This series consists of correspondence received from and occasionally written to publishers, administrators of scientific organizations, colleagues, lawyers, scientific
societies, and private collectors of mollusca concerning receipts for gifts of publications, requests for monographs and journal articles, organizational dues, scientific
and social society meetings, appointments to scientific societies, provisions needed for expeditions, monthly reports for the United States National Museum, Division of Mollusks,
and the United States Geological Survey, United States Coast Survey material, Alaskan politics and the treatment of Alaskan natives by agents of fur companies, translation
of Russian names and vocabulary, nomenclature and requests for identification of mollusk collections, purchase of mollusk collections, lists of collections shipped out and
mollusk collections needed by the United States National Museum, Western Union Telegraph Expedition reports, surveys, field notes, maps, politics, and family and personal
matters.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7073, William Healey Dall Papers
