The John Canfield Ewers Papers document his wide ranging anthropological interests from early White depictions of Native Americans to the material culture of the Plains tribes through correspondence, exhibit catalogs, field notes, illustrations, lectures, maps, photocopies of archival materials, photographs, and writings. The collection includes materials relating to his numerous research projects and publications such as his books on plains sculpture and Jean Louis Berlandier as well as his field research among the Assiniboin and Blackfoot tribes. Ewers' career as an ethnologist based in a museum is amply documented through correspondence, exhibit plans and scripts, notes, and reports showcasing his work for the National Park Service and his fifty plus years at the Smithsonian. The voluminous correspondence file highlights his close collaboration with individuals such as Stu Conner, Hugh Dempsey, Claude Schaeffer, and Colin Taylor. Ewers' graduate studies and his family are featured in Series XI. One special category of materials in this collection is Series XIV, the card files. Ewers pulled information from his field notes and other sources, classified them, and typed or wrote them up on 3x5 or 5x7 inch index cards. He then organized these files alphabetically by subject within large categories such as "Collecting Alpha by Collectors Name" or "Fur Trade and Trade Goods." The card files include correspondence and photographs and closely relate to materials throughout the rest of the collection. Though Ewers' papers are primarily textual in nature, there are graphic materials throughout his files. Series XIII features the graphic materials that Ewers kept separate from his files such as the contents of his slide cabinets. There is overlap within this series as Ewers kept multiple copies of his slides in various locations. This series also includes audiotapes of conferences and symposia at which Ewers spoke and three scrapbooks. Of note are original pencil and ink drawings from his book, The Horse in Blackfoot Culture, in Series XV. Transcripts of oral history interviews with John Canfield Ewers are also available at the Smithsonian Institution Archives.
Arrangement note:
This collection was organized into 15 series - Correspondence, Research & Subject Files, Research Projects, Trips and Presentations, Artists of the Old West, North American Indian Art, Plains Sculpture Book, Berlandier Project, Smithsonian Institution, National Park Service, Personal, Writings by Ewers, Audiovisual Materials, Card Files, and Art Work.
Biographical/Historical note:
John Canfield Ewers (1909-1997) earned a B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1931 and an M.A. in Anthropology from Yale University in 1934. Ewers began his career in museums as a Field Curator for the National Park Service. He helped design exhibits at Vicksburg National Battlefield and Ocmulgee National Monument among others. In 1941, the Bureau of Indian Affairs hired Ewers to design and establish the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana. After a short stint in the Navy during World War II, Ewers joined the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. He worked at the Smithsonian for over fifty years in numerous capacities including Director of the National Museum of History and Technology (now called the National Museum of American History). Ewers' research dealt with the Plains Indians and the Blackfoot tribe in particular. Ewers wrote several books on a wide variety of topics including White artists depictions of Native Americans, Plains Indian sculpture, and the horse in Blackfoot Indian culture.
Restrictions:
The John Canfield Ewers papers are open for research.
Tintypes depicting fur trader Robert Meldrum and his wife Medicine Tree [Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke); also known as Margaret].
Scope and Contents:
P08166
This collection contains two circular gem tintypes pasted to a mat board. The tintypes depict Robert Meldrum and his wife Medicine Tree [Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke); also known as Margaret]. The photographs were shot by an unidentified photographer in St. Louis, Missouri, circa 1858-1865.
According to the original inventory, the tintypes were part of a jewelry locket. At some unknown point in time, the tintypes were removed from the locket and pasted to a mat board.
Arrangement:
The tintypes are arranged on a mat board inside an archival phase box.
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Meldrum (1802-1865) was a fur trader and interpreter for the Apsáalooke (Crow/Absaroke) tribe.
Born in 1802, Meldrum and his family emigrated from Scotland to Canada in 1812 and eventually moved to the United States. By the late 1820s, Meldrum was living in St. Louis, Missouri and working in the Rocky Mountain fur trade industry.
The American Fur Company hired Meldrum in 1833 to act as a liaison between the company and the Crow community in Montana. He was stationed at various American Fur Company trading posts and commercial forts along the Yellowstone and Upper Missouri Rivers including Fort Cass, Fort Alexander, Fort Sharpy, and Fort Sharpy II. At these posts, Northern Plains tribes brought various furs to be traded for guns, ammunition, clothing, beads, and other goods.
Meldrum also learned to speak the Apsáalooke language and served as an interpreter between the tribe and U.S. Government. The tribe conferred Meldrum the status of chief and gave him the name "Round Iron" because of the iron trinkets he gifted. Meldrum reportedly married several Apsáalooke women over the years, including Medicine Tree (Margaret), although very little was written about them.
On July 10, 1865, Meldrum died at the American Fur Company's Fort Union on the Upper Missouri River.
Related Materials:
The Montana Historical Society Photograph Archives also holds a photograph of Robert Meldrum.
Separated Materials:
The National Museum of the American Indian also holds other objects from Jirah Isham Allen's collection (object catalog numbers 147472 to 147486).
Provenance:
Formerly in the collection of Jirah Isham Allen (Colonel Ike Allen, 1839-1929, a Montana prospector, pioneer, and storekeeper) and probably collected by him between 1862 and about 1920; purchased by MAI from Jirah Allen in 1926.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archives Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Tintypes of Robert Meldrum and Medicine Tree, P08166, NMAI.AC.386; National Museum of the American Indian Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Many of SIA's holdings are located off-site, and advance notice is recommended to consult a collection. Please email the SIA Reference Team at osiaref@si.edu.
Journal de Larocque de la rivière Assiniboine jusqu'à la rivière "Aux Roches Jaunes," 1805; éd. avec des notes par L.J. Burpee. Pub. avec l'autorisation du ministre de l'agriculture sous la direction de l'archiviste
