Rowena Stewart, former Director of the African American Museum in Philadelphia, The Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, the African American Historical and Cultural Museum, and the Motown Historical Museum and the American Jazz Museum, discusses the influence the Anacostia Community Museum had in introducing African American heritage in a museum setting, in serving the Anacostia neighborhood, and in supporting other emerging African American cultural institutions in the 1960s and 1970s. She discusses meeting John Kinard, and the guidance he provided in presenting history through exhibitions and educational programs. She shares her memories of the early days of the Anacostia Museum, the effects of its move from the Carver Theater to the current location, and its ongoing influence.
The interview was conducted by Gail S. Lowe on May 11, 1992. There is background static throughout the recording, but the interview can be heard clearly.
Provenance:
Conducted as part of the ACM 25th Anniversary Oral History Project, which includes approximately 100 interviews of residents and influential people of the Anacostia area of Washington, DC.
Restrictions:
Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
Includes text and drawings, 2 sketch maps, 21 native drawings, 3 pages musical scores.
Contents: 1 [Introduction], page 1; and Ethnohistory and History, 22 pages. 2. Traditions and Myths..., pages 1-89. 3. Songs..., pages 52-56. 4. Games..., pages 45-51. 5. The Quileute Children's Pastime, pages [1]-4. 6. Native coloring Material..., pages 43-44. [text and drawings] 7. ...Methods of Hunting and Trapping [text and drawings] [10] 8. Native Medicines, 1 page. 9. ...Dances..., pages 57-65. 10. Shamanistic Performances, pages [1]-10. 11. Shakerism, pages [1]-18. 12. The Potlatch, pages [1]-8. 13. Marriage Ceremonies, pages [1]-2. 14. Birth Ceremonies, 1 page. 15. Puberty Customs, 1 page. 16. Mortuary Customs, pages [1]-4. page. 17. Miscellaneous Notes, pages [1]-15, [16]. 18. The Retarding Influence of the Chinook Jargon, 1 page. The Thunder Bird. (Copied from a grave slab at Quileute) [Illustration] 1 page. 212 pages total. Quileute Indian Village and Vicinity [sketch map, 20" x 28"] 1 page. James Island or Ah-Kah-Lot. [sketch map, 20" x 28"] 1 page. [Drawings by native artists; all or part by students at the Indian School, Lapush, Washington.] 21 pages. Music to Songs used at the Quileute Shaker Meetings, pages 6, 7, 11. 238 pages total.
Contents: John Howard Payne's account of the Green Corn Dance of the Cherokee ?, from the Continental Monthly, Volume I, 1862, reprinted in the Journal of the Oklahoma Historical Society with notes by Dr J. R. Swanton. Father Augustin Davila Padilla's account of the De Luna expedition. Spanish census of the Indians in some villages of Indian refugees in Florida. The Indians of Chicora, from Latin edition of Peter Martyr's "De Orbe Novo." A section of Mark Catesby's "Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands" bearing on Indians. A "Relation a La Louisiane" by an unidentified French author, in the Ayer Collection of Americana at the Newberry Library, Chicago. The Choctaw section and some minor portions have been printed in Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association and elsewhere. George Stiggins' Creek History from the Manuscript in the Draper Collection in the Library of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Ca. 100 sheets. Title: "A Historical narration of the Genealogy traditiona and downfall of the Ispocoga or Creek tribe written by one of the tribe." "Photocopies of parts of the Memorias of Juan A. de Morfi, the original of which is in the Library of Congress. Parts on Indians translated and printed by Chabot and used from his translation by Myself. May 25, 1944." --John R. Swanton.
Photographs used to illustrate John Reed Swanton's "The Indians of the Southeastern United States" depicting American Indians of the Southeast and their dwellings, food preparation, and ceremonies.
Biographical note:
John Reed Swanton (1873-1958) was an ethnologist and ethnohistorian with the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) from 1900 until his retirement in 1944. Swanton spent his first few years at the BAE studying the Haida and Tlingit groups of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and published a number of significant articles on the language, ethnography, and folklore of Northwest Coast Indians. His focus then shifted to the American Indians of the Southeastern United States, where his interest remained for the rest of his career. In addition to conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the Southeast, Swanton studied extensively the history of the area in order to better understand its indigenous cultures and is considered a pioneer in the field of ethnohistory. During his career Swanton published numerous articles and several major works on Southeastern American Indians, including the reference work The Indians of the Southeastern United States (1946), a Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin (No. 137).
Local Numbers:
NAA Photo Lot R87-2Q
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional photographs published in BAE Bulletin 137 can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 80-39.
Photographs made by Swanton can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 76 and the BAE historical negatives.
The National Anthropological Archives hold more than 200 manuscripts created or collected by Swanton, in the Numbered Manuscripts.
Objects collected by Swanton, including potsherds from various sites in Southeastern United States can be found in the Department of Anthropology in accessions 111748, 113252, 122679, 129788, 165802, and 062577.
Contained in:
Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology photograph collections, undated
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
Rights:
Copy prints in this collection that represent photographs not held by the National Anthropological Archives are for reference only.
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Genre/Form:
Paintings
Sketches
Photographs
Illustrations
Drawings
Citation:
Photo Lot R87-2Q, John Reed Swanton photograph collection of illustrations for "The Indians of the Southeastern United States", National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
This subseries of the Northeast/Southeast series contains Harrington's Creek, Seminole, Alabama, Koasati, and Choctaw research. These include original field notes in Creek and Seminole Harrington took from John Thompson on April 22, 1940, most of which were corrected by Haas on the same date. Another larger group of terms were extracted from Haas' typewritten unpublished manuscript (ca. 1938 -1940) and filed one term to a page in random order. There are no linguistic comments by Harrington. A still larger section labeled "Haas Orthography" contains occasional comments by Harrington. Presumably this section also stems from a then unpublished manuscript by Haas. The majority of his comparative linguistic notes involve Haas and Thompson, with Harrington sitting in as a third party. Choctaw equivalences are based on Byington (1915). A few Koasati and Alabama terms are included. Some notes apparently reflect conversations between Harrington and Haas, with some emphasis on phonetics and ethnohistory. The interview with Sylvestine presumably was brief--it yielded only a few general comments on Alabama placenames. There is a section on the etymology of the name Alabama. Harrington copied various versions from Hodge's "Handbook" (1907) and added some original annotations as well as comments from Haas, Thompson, and Sylvestine. Also in this subseries are two pages of random terms, undated, and no source given. Three Choctaw words were apparently taken from Allen Wright's Chahta Leksikon, a Choctaw in English Definition (1880). The subseries also contans excerpts from conversations Harrington had with Edward Sapir.
Biographical / Historical:
While on a Delaware language field trip centered around Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in April 1940, John P. Harrington evidently found time to be present when the linguist Mary R. Haas interviewed Creek speaker John Thompson. She also commented on notes Harrington took directly from Thompson, and she shared with him information from her unpublished manuscript of Creek vocabulary. He also interviewed James Feagin Sylvestine, a patient at the Shawnee Sanitorium in Oklahoma and an excellent Alabama speaker. Harrington also frequently consulted Cyrus A. Byington's, A Dictionary of the Choctaw Language (1915) and Frederick W. Hodge's "Handbook of the American Indians North of Mexico" (1907).
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
Genre/Form:
Field notes
Vocabulary
Manuscripts
Collection Citation:
John Peabody Harrington papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The preferred citation for the Harrington Papers will reference the actual location within the collection, i.e. Box 172, Alaska/Northwest Coast, Papers of John Peabody Harrington, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
However, as the NAA understands the need to cite phrases or vocabulary on specific pages, a citation referencing the microfilmed papers is acceptable. Please note that the page numbering of the PDF version of the Harrington microfilm does not directly correlate to the analog microfilm frame numbers. If it is necessary to cite the microfilmed papers, please refer to the specific page number of the PDF version, as in: Papers of John Peabody Harrington, Microfilm: MF 7, R34 page 42.
Photographs of Southeastern Native American people, homes, ceremonial grounds, and events made circa 1900s-1910s by John Reed Swanton. The lantern slides include images of southeastern rivers and bayous and historical maps. Additionally, there are a number of slides with notes and charts relating to linguistic comparisons.
Arrangement:
Swanton's original order has been maintained. The photographs are in alphabetical order by language group or tribe. Lantern slides are listed at the end.
Biographical/Historical note:
John Reed Swanton (1873-1958) was an ethnologist and ethnohistorian with the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) from 1900 until his retirement in 1944. Swanton spent his first few years at the BAE conducting research among the Haida and Tlingit communities of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and published a number of significant articles on the language, ethnography, and folklore of Northwest Coast Tribes. His focus then shifted to Native Americans of the Southeastern United States.
In addition to conducting ethnographic fieldwork in the Southeast, Swanton studied the history of the area in order to better understand its indigenous cultures and is considered a pioneer in the field of ethnohistory. During his career Swanton published numerous articles and several major works on Southeastern Native Americans, including the reference work The Indians of the Southeastern United States, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 137, 1946.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The National Anthropological Archives holds more than 200 manuscripts created or collected by Swanton.
Photographs relating to Swanton's work with the Tlingit are held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 24.
The anthropology collections of the National Museum of Natural History hold objects collected by Swanton, including potsherds from various sites in Southeastern United States (accessions 111748, 113252, 122679, 129788, 165802, and 062577).
Restrictions:
The original nitrate negatives are in cold storage and require advanced notice for viewing.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
To a considerable degree, the James H. Howard papers consist of manuscript copies of articles, book, speeches, and reviews that document his professional work in anthropology, ethnology, ethnohistory, archeology, linguistics, musicology, and folklore between 1950 and 1982. Among these are a few unpublished items. Notes are relatively scant, there being somewhat appreciable materials for the Chippewa, Choctaw, Creek, Dakota, Omaha, Ponca, Seminole, and Shawnee. The chief field materials represented in the collection are sound recordings and photographs, but many of the latter are yet to be unidentified. A series of color photographs of Indian artifacts in folders are mostly identified and represent the extensive American Indian Cultural collection of costumes and artifacts that Howard acquired and created. Other documents include copies of papers and other research materials of colleagues. There is very little original material related to archeological work in the collection and that which is present concerns contract work for the Lone State Steel Company.
Scope and Contents:
The James Henri Howard papers document his research and professional activities from 1949-1982 and primarily deal with his work as an anthropologist, archeologist, and ethnologist, studying Native American languages & cultures. The collection consists of Series 1 correspondence; Series 2 writings and research, which consists of subject files (language and culture research materials), manuscripts, research proposals, Indian claim case materials, Howard's publications, publications of others, and bibliographical materials; Series 3 sound recordings of Native American music and dance; Series 4 photographs; and Series 5 drawings and artwork.
Howard was also a linguist, musicologist, and folklorist, as well as an informed and able practitioner in the fields of dance and handicrafts. His notable books include Choctaw Music and Dance; Oklahoma Seminoles: Medicines, Magic, and Religion; and Shawnee! The Ceremonialism of a Native American Tribe and its Cultural Background.
Some materials are oversize, specifically these three Winter Count items: 1. a Dakota Winter Count made of cloth in 1953 at the request of James H. Howard, 2. a drawing of British Museum Winter Count on 4 sheets of paper, and 3. Photographs of a Winter Count.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged in 5 series: Series 1. Correspondence, 1960-1982, undated; Series 2. Writings and Research, 1824-1992; Series 3. Sound Recordings, 1960-1979; Series 4. Photographs, 1879-1985; Series 5. Drawings and Artwork, 1928-1982.
Chronology:
1925 -- James Henri Howard was born on September 10 in Redfield, South Dakota.
1949 -- Received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Nebraska.
1950 -- Received his Master of Arts from the University of Nebraska and began a prolific record of publishing.
1950-1953 -- Began his first professional employment as an archaeologist and preparator at the North Dakota State Historical Museum in Bismarck.
1955-1957 -- Was a museum lecturer at the Kansas City (Missouri) Museum.
1957 -- James H. Howard received his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. Joined the staff of the Smithsonian's River Basin Surveys in the summer.
1957-1963 -- Taught anthropology at the University of North Dakota.
1962 -- Chief archeologist at the Fortress of Louisberg Archeological Project in Nova Scotia.
1963-1968 -- Taught anthropology at the University of South Dakota; State Archeologist of South Dakota; Director of the W. H. Over Dakota Museum.
1963-1966 -- Director of the Institute of Indian Studies, University of South Dakota.
1968-1982 -- Associate professor of anthropology at Oklahoma State University at Stillwater (became a full professor in 1971).
1979 -- Consulted for exhibitions at the Western Heritage Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.
1982 -- Died October 1 after a brief illness.
Biographical/Historical note:
James H. Howard was trained in anthropology at the University of Nebraska (B.A., 1949; M.A., 1950) and the University of Michigan (Ph.D., 1957). In 1950-1953, he served as archeologist and preparator at the North Dakota State Historical Museum; and, in 1955-1957, he was on the staff of the Kansas City (Missouri) Museum. During the summer of 1957, he joined the staff of the Smithsonian's River Basin Surveys. Between 1957 and 1963, he taught anthropology at the Universtity of North Dakota. Between 1963 and 1968, he served in several capacities with the University of South Dakota including assistant and associate professor, director of the Institute of Indian Studies (1963-1966), and Director of the W.H. Over Museum (1963-1968). In 1968, he joined the Department of Sociology at Oklahoma State University, where he achieved the rank of professor in 1970. In 1979, he was a consultant for exhibitions at the Western Heritage Museum in Omaha, Nebraska.
Howard's abiding interest were the people of North America, whom he studied both as an ethnologist and archeologist. Between 1949 and 1982, he worked with the Ponca, Omaha, Yankton and Yaktonai Dakota, Yamasee, Plains Ojibwa (or Bungi), Delaware, Seneca-Cayuga, Prairie Potatwatomi of Kansas, Mississipi and Oklahoma Choctaw, Oklahoma Seminole, and Pawnee. His interest in these people varied from group to group. With some he carried out general culture studies; with other, special studies of such phenomena as ceremonies, art, dance, and music. For some, he was interest in environmental adaptation and land use, the latter particularly for the Pawnee, Yankton Dakota, Plains Ojibwa, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, and Ponca, for which he served as consultant and expert witness in suits brought before the United Stated Indian Claims Commisssion. A long-time museum man, Howard was also interested in items of Indian dress, articles associated with ceremonies, and other artifacts. He was "a thoroughgoing participant-observer and was a member of the Ponca Hethuska Society, a sharer in ceremonial activities of many Plains tribes, and a first-rate 'powwow man'." (American Anthropologist 1986, 88:692).
As an archeologist, Howard worked at Like-a-Fishhook Village in North Dakota, Spawn Mound and other sites in South Dakota, Gavin Point in Nebraska and South Dakota, Weston and Hogshooter sites in Oklahoma, and the Fortess of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia. He also conducted surveys for the Lone Star Steel Company in Haskall, Latimer, Le Flore and Pittsburg counties in Oklahoma.
Related Materials:
Howard's American Indian Cultural Collection of Costumes and Artifacts, that he acquired and created during his lifetime, is currently located at the Milwaukee Public Museum. In Boxes 19-21 of the James Henri Howard Papers, there are photographs with accompanying captions and descriptions in binders of his American Indian Cultural Collection of Costumes and Artifacts that his widow, Elfriede Heinze Howard, created in order to sell the collection to a museum.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by James Henri Howard's wife,
Elfriede Heinz Howard, in 1988-1990, 1992, & 1994.
Restrictions:
The James Henri Howard papers are open for research.
Access to the James Henri Howard papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Indians of North America -- Southern states Search this
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.
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.
Indians of North America -- California Search this
Type:
Archival materials
Field notes
Vocabulary
Songs
Narratives
Maps
Place:
California -- Languages
California -- History
Date:
1919-1947
Scope and Contents:
This subseries of the Southern California/Basin series contains John P. Harrington's research on Luiseno and Juaneno.
The Luiseno linguistic and ethnographic notes consist mainly of notes elicited from Maria Jesusa Omish and Maria Jesusa Soto in 1933 and from Bernardo Cuevas in 1934. The material is a random rehearing of the information which Harrington assembled for Chinigchinich ... with continued refinements of terms from DuBois and Kroeber. Substantial amounts of ethnographic information were recorded. A Gabrielino Indian, Jose Juan Jauro, was credited with an occasional Juaneno and Ventureno term. A group of Sparkman terms was reheard in 1934 with Micaela Calec and with Juan S. Calac, Willie [Calac], and Victor Meza. Jesus Jauro provided a few Gabrielino and Serrano terms.
A large section of the Luiseno vocabulary is arranged semantically; the notes were accumulated between 1932 and 1934 with elicitations from more than fifteen informants. Juaneno, Diegueno, Cahuilla, and Gabrielino terms were also recorded. Animals, ceremonies, placenames, and plant names contain the largest amounts of material. Included among the notes are first-hand recollections of events which the informants witnessed or participated in, bits of local biography, and ethnographic miscellany. There is also an earlier vocabulary, possibly from Cecilia Tortes, dated May 17, 1919.
Records of his placename trips cover information recorded in 1925, 1932, 1933, and 1934 from his trips to Corona, Elsinore, Hemet, Mesa Grande, Murietta rancheria, San Jacinto, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Soboba, Warner Springs, and many smaller sites between these points. He traveled with many Luiseno speakers and interviewed local residents along the way, noting the mileage between sites, and often sketching rough maps of the area. The result is a journal of linguistic, ethnographic, and geographic material, which is unfortunately somewhat difficult to read. Some Cupeno and Diego terms were recorded.
The Luiseno texts contains Chinigchinich songs composed by Jose Luis Albanez in the 1870s and 1880s. A small group of songs sung by Encarnaciona and Juan Calac were recorded for Harrington by Josephine Porter Cook in 1934 and 1935. No corresponding discs have been located in N.A.A. The related notes comprise linguistic annotations and often an English precis of the song text. A typescript titled "Notes for the Use of Miss Roberts" refers to the ethnomusicologist Helen H. Roberts. The document covers topics of an instructive nature such as the linguistics of song, the ethnography of song, musical accompaniment, dances, etc. Three Luiseno texts from Adan Castillo contain interlinear English or Spanish translations. Also present is the beginning of a possible paper titled "Southern California Indian Legends for Children" and dated 1947. Some of the stories are in English only.
The Juaneno vocabulary is limited to plant names elicited from Anastacia de Majel, with a few Luiseno equivalences from Jose Albanez. There are some incidental ethnographic observations.
The Juaneno linguistic and ethnographic notes section contains notes copied from the notebooks of Father St. John O'Sullivan of the Mission San Juan Capistrano. Most of the information is of an ethnographic nature from a number of informants, although some original linguistic data was supplied to O'Sullivan by Jose de la Gracia Cruz, known as Acu. Acu's reliability, unfortunately, was questionable. There is a mixture of anecdotes, reminiscences, stories, folklore, hymns, ethnohistory, and related miscellany. Some stories may be Luiseno rather than Juaneno.The linguistic content was reheard with Anastacia de Majel. Eustaquio Lugo added some Juaneno and Luiseno terms. There are also notes copied from San Juan Capistrano Mission records. A file of fieldwork with de Majel, which probably took place in 1933, resulted in substantial amounts of both linguistic and ethnographic information, with some Luiseno input from Albanez.
The rehearings of Sparkman data section contains Juaneno and Luiseno data. Some of the rehearings were conducted by Harrington's nephew, Arthur E. Harrington, who worked with de Majel.
Among the drafts and notes for Chingchinich are Luiseno annotations of Robinson's 1846 translation of Boscana's account. There are also incomplete, initial drafts of translations of Boscana's account into Catalonian and literary Spanish by E. Vigo Mestres and into Luiseno by Albanez.
Rehearings of notes used for Chinigchinch include information on material culture, names of persons, placenames, and more stories and anecdotes. Vocabulary and especially orthography were accorded detailed attention. Rehearings of terms from DuBois are included and some Luiseno equivalences.
Notes and drafts for Boscana's original manuscript contains the results of his fieldwork among Luiseno and Juaneno speakers in 1934 as part of his plan to publish annotations of the manuscript. Harrington worked with many of the same people, particularly Anastacia de Majel and Jose Olivas Albanez. Adan Castillo gave a number of Luiseno and Cahuilla terms for the phonetic section. Harrington worked from a numbered typescript of the original Spanish manuscript. This triple-spaced material is interfiled with related ethnographic and linguistic handwritten notes. A second complete typed copy of the Spanish manuscript is filed separately.
Biographical / Historical:
Aside from a continuing effort to record the languages of the "Mission Indians of California," John P. Harrington's study of Luiseno and Juaneno sprang from two main roots. The first was his interest in providing a linguistic treatment of Alfred Robinson's 1846 translation of Father Geronimo Boscana's account of the Indians of San Juan Capistrano Mission. The second involved plans for extensive rehearings of Philip Stedman Sparkman's Luiseno vocabulary collected between 1899 and 1906. The Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California, holds this manuscript, the title page of which reads as follows: "The Luiseno Language, Being the language spoken by the San Luis Rey, San Luis, or Luiseno Indians of Southern California. A Shoshonean dialect. Written by P. S. Sparkman, at the Rincon, San Diego County, California, 1899 to 1906." It consists of 713 leaves of typescript, with annotations and revisions by Alfred L. Kroeber.
Harrington began serious and thorough work on the annotations for Boscana's historical account in March of 1932. His interest continued until at least, and probably past, April 1936 and resulted in two publications and extensive notes on a proposed third publication. Harrington was convinced that Boscana's account, probably written between 1820 and 1822, stood alone as an early ethnological document on the Spanish Missionary period in California and was therefore an ideal subject for major ethnographic and linguistic amplifications. The work proceeded in three general phases.
The first phase culminated in the publication early in 1933 of Harrington's book titled Chinigchinich: A Revised and Annotated Version of Alfred Robinson's Translation of Father Geronimo Boscana's Historical Account of the Belief, Usages, Customs and Extravagencies [sic] of the Indians of This Mission of San Juan Capistrano called the Acagchemem Tribe. The linguistic material is chiefly Luiseno.
In 1933 while Chinigchinich ... was still in the printing process, Harrington began a second round of rehearings, this time focusing mainly on the Juaneno language. This period forms the second cohesive phase.
Meanwhile a search initiated in 1932 for Boscana's original manuscript was completed. Abel Doysie wrote from Paris that he had discovered the original document in the Bibliotheque Nationale. M. Doysie photographed the sixty-page manuscript and sent it to Harrington on January 3, 1933. Harrington's translation, A New Original Version of Boscana's Historical Account of the San Juan Capistrano Indians of Southern California, appeared in June 1934. In the introduction, Harrington stated that "it is an 1822 variant of the Historical Account that Robinson translated, each version containing certain important data that the other omits. " The new manuscript contained fifteen chapters; the Robinson translation had sixteen.
On page 3, Harrington mentioned "exhaustive notes" for a later volume of annotations to the translation and although in 1936 he received a {dollar}500 grant from the Social Research Council to carry through this plan, the annotations were not published. Phase three, however, centers around this endeavor. In 1935 and 1936, Harrington copied and reorganized hundreds of pages of notes and added new data preparatory to the proposed third publication.
John Peabody Harrington papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
The preferred citation for the Harrington Papers will reference the actual location within the collection, i.e. Box 172, Alaska/Northwest Coast, Papers of John Peabody Harrington, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
However, as the NAA understands the need to cite phrases or vocabulary on specific pages, a citation referencing the microfilmed papers is acceptable. Please note that the page numbering of the PDF version of the Harrington microfilm does not directly correlate to the analog microfilm frame numbers. If it is necessary to cite the microfilmed papers, please refer to the specific page number of the PDF version, as in: Papers of John Peabody Harrington, Microfilm: MF 7, R34 page 42.
This series contains financial records, correspondence, records of donations, contracts, and administrative records from the Latin American Archaeology Fund (LAAF). The LAAF was created by Clifford Evans while he was chair of the Department of Anthropology in 1971, in order to fund "activities related to the advancement of archaeological research in Latin America." Researchers working on Latin American research projects in the fields of archaeology, cultural ecology, ethnohistory, physical anthropology of archaeological skeletons, palynology, carbon-14 dating, and other related fields could apply for funds which were applied towards travel, museum study, purchase of supplies and other materials, research support, and fieldwork. Evans and Meggers supported the LAAF financially and administratively until the early 1990s. This series retains Meggers's original order (mostly chronological).
Collection Restrictions:
The Betty J. Meggers and Clifford Evans papers are open for research. Personal correspondence, however, is RESTRICTED until 2026.
Collection Rights:
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Collection Citation:
Betty J. Meggers and Clifford Evans Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund.
Sturtevant, William C. 1981. "R. F. Heizer and the Handbook of North American Indians." In Contributions of Robert F. Heizer to California Ethnohistory. Simmons, W. S. and Bickel, P. McW, editors. 1–5. Berkeley: Archaeological Research Facility, Department of Anthropology, University of California.
Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Computer disks are currently restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Robert Rankin papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
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Collection Citation:
Robert Rankin papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
Digitization and preparation of sound recordings for online access has been funded through generous support from the Arcadia Fund.
