These papers reflect the professional and personal life of Frederica de Laguna. The collection contains correspondence, field notes, writings, newspaper clippings, writings by others, subject files, sound recordings, photographs, and maps. A significant portion of the collection consists of de Laguna's correspondence with family, friends, colleagues, and students, as well as her informants from the field. Her correspondence covers a wide range of subjects such as family, health, preparations for field work, her publications and projects, the Northwest Coast, her opinions on the state of anthropology, and politics. The field notes in the collection mainly represent de Laguna and her assistants' work in the Northern Tlingit region of Alaska from 1949 to 1954. In addition, the collection contains materials related to her work in the St. Lawrence River Valley in Ontario in 1947 and Catherine McClellan's field journal for her research in Aishihik, Yukon Territory in 1968. Most of the audio reels in the collection are field recordings made by de Laguna, McClellan, and Marie-Françoise Guédon of vocabulary and songs and speeches at potlatches and other ceremonies from 1952 to 1969. Tlingit and several Athabaskan languages including Atna, Tutchone, Upper Tanana, and Tanacross are represented in the recordings. Also in the collection are copies of John R. Swanton's Tlingit recordings and Hiroko Hara Sue's recordings among the Hare Indians. Additional materials related to de Laguna's research on the Northwest Coast include her notes on clans and tribes in Series VI: Subject Files and her notes on Tlingit vocabulary and Yakutat names specimens in Series X: Card Files. Drafts and notes for Voyage to Greenland, Travels Among the Dena, and The Tlingit Indians can be found in the collection as well as her drawings for her dissertation and materials related to her work for the Handbook of North American Indians and other publications. There is little material related to Under Mount Saint Elias except for correspondence, photocopies and negatives of plates, and grant applications for the monograph. Of special interest among de Laguna's writings is a photocopy of her historical fiction novel, The Thousand March. Other materials of special interest are copies of her talks, including her AAA presidential address, and the dissertation of Regna Darnell, a former student of de Laguna's. In addition, materials on the history of anthropology are in the collection, most of which can found with her teaching materials. Although the bulk of the collection documents de Laguna's professional years, the collection also contains newspaper articles and letters regarding her exceptional performance as a student at Bryn Mawr College and her undergraduate and graduate report cards. Only a few photographs of de Laguna can be found in the collection along with photographs of her 1929 and 1979 trips to Greenland.
Scope and Contents:
These papers reflect the professional and personal life of Frederica de Laguna. The collection contains correspondence, field notes, writings, newspaper clippings, writings by others, subject files, sound recordings, photographs, and maps.
A significant portion of the collection consists of de Laguna's correspondence with family, friends, colleagues, and students, as well as her informants from the field. Her correspondence covers a wide range of subjects such as family, health, preparations for field work, her publications and projects, the Northwest Coast, her opinions on the state of anthropology, and politics. Among her notable correspondents are Kaj Birket-Smith, J. Desmond Clark, Henry Collins, George Foster, Viola Garfield, Marie-Françoise Guédon, Diamond Jenness, Michael Krauss, Therkel Mathiassen, Catharine McClellan, and Wallace Olson. She also corresponded with several eminent anthropologists including Franz Boas, William Fitzhugh, J. Louis Giddings, Emil Haury, June Helm, Melville Herskovitz, Alfred Kroeber, Helge Larsen, Alan Lomax, Margaret Mead, Froelich Rainey, Leslie Spier, Ruth Underhill, James VanStone, Annette Weiner, and Leslie White.
The field notes in the collection mainly represent de Laguna and her assistants' work in the Northern Tlingit region of Alaska from 1949 to 1954. In addition, the collection contains materials related to her work in the St. Lawrence River Valley in Ontario in 1947 and Catharine McClellan's field journal for her research in Aishihik, Yukon Territory in 1968. Most of the audio reels in the collection are field recordings made by de Laguna, McClellan, and Marie-Françoise Guédon of vocabulary and songs and speeches at potlatches and other ceremonies from 1952 to 1969. Tlingit and several Athapaskan languages including Atna, Tutochone, Upper Tanana, and Tanacross are represented in the recordings. Also in the collection are copies of John R. Swanton's Tlingit recordings and Hiroko Hara's recordings among the Hare Indians. Additional materials related to de Laguna's research on the Northwest Coast include her notes on clans and tribes in Series VI: Subject Files and her notes on Tlingit vocabulary and Yakutat names specimens in Series 10: Card Files.
Drafts and notes for Voyage to Greenland, Travels Among the Dena, and The Tlingit Indians can be found in the collection as well as her drawings for her dissertation and materials related to her work for the Handbook of North American Indians and other publications. There is little material related to Under Mount Saint Elias except for correspondence, photocopies and negatives of plates, and grant applications for the monograph. Of special interest among de Laguna's writings is a photocopy of her historical fiction novel, The Thousand March.
Other materials of special interest are copies of her talks, including her AAA presidential address, and the dissertation of Regna Darnell, a former student of de Laguna's. In addition, materials on the history of anthropology are in the collection, most of which can found with her teaching materials. The collection also contains copies of photographs from the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899. Although the bulk of the collection documents de Laguna's professional years, the collection also contains newspaper articles and letters regarding her exceptional performance as a student at Bryn Mawr College and her undergraduate and graduate report cards. Only a few photographs of de Laguna can be found in the collection along with photographs of her 1929 and 1979 trips to Greenland.
Frederica Annis Lopez de Leo de Laguna was a pioneering archaeologist and ethnographer of northwestern North America. Known as Freddy by her friends, she was one of the last students of Franz Boas. She served as first vice-president of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) from 1949 to 1950 and as president of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) from 1966-1967. She also founded the anthropology department at Bryn Mawr College where she taught from 1938 to 1972. In 1975, she and Margaret Mead, a former classmate, were the first women to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Born on October 3, 1906 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, de Laguna was the daughter of Theodore Lopez de Leo de Laguna and Grace Mead Andrus, both philosophy professors at Bryn Mawr College. Often sick as a child, de Laguna was home-schooled by her parents until she was 9. She excelled as a student at Bryn Mawr College, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in politics and economics in 1927. She was awarded the college's prestigious European fellowship, which upon the suggestion of her parents, she deferred for a year to study anthropology at Columbia University under Boas. Her parents had recently attended a lecture given by Boas and felt that anthropology would unite her interests in the social sciences and her love for the outdoors.
After a year studying at Columbia with Boas, Gladys Reichard, and Ruth Benedict, de Laguna was still uncertain whether anthropology was the field for her. Nevertheless, she followed Boas's advice to spend her year abroad studying the connection between Eskimo and Paleolithic art, which would later became the topic of her dissertation. In the summer of 1928, she gained fieldwork experience under George Grant MacCurdy visiting prehistoric sites in England, France, and Spain. In Paris, she attended lectures on prehistoric art by Abbe Breuil and received guidance from Paul Rivet and Marcelin Boule. Engaged to an Englishman she had met at Columbia University, de Laguna decided to also enroll at the London School of Economics in case she needed to earn her degree there. She took a seminar with Bronislaw Malinowski, an experience she found unpleasant and disappointing.
It was de Laguna's visit to the National Museum in Copenhagen to examine the archaeological collections from Central Eskimo that became the turning point in her life. During her visit, she met Therkel Mathiassen who invited her to be his assistant on what would be the first scientific archaeological excavation in Greenland. She sailed off with him in June 1929, intending to return early in August. Instead, she decided to stay until October to finish the excavation with Mathiassen, now convinced that her future lay in anthropology. When she returned from Greenland she broke off her engagement with her fiancé, deciding that she would not able to both fully pursue a career in anthropology and be the sort of wife she felt he deserved. Her experiences in Greenland became the subject of her 1977 memoir, Voyage to Greenland: A Personal Initiation into Anthropology.
The following year, Kaj Birket-Smith, whom de Laguna had also met in Copenhagen, agreed to let her accompany him as his research assistant on his summer expedition to Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet. When Birket-Smith fell ill and was unable to go, de Laguna was determined to continue on with the trip. She convinced the University of Pennsylvania Museum to fund her trip to Alaska to survey potential excavation sites and took as her assistant her 20 year old brother, Wallace, who became a geologist. A close family, de Laguna's brother and mother would later accompany her on other research trips.
In 1931, the University of Pennsylvania Museum hired de Laguna to catalogue Eskimo collections. They again financed her work in Cook Inlet that year as well as the following year. In 1933, she earned her PhD from Columbia and led an archaeological and ethnological expedition of the Prince William Sound with Birket-Smith. They coauthored "The Eyak Indians of the Copper River Delta, Alaska," published in 1938. In 1935, de Laguna led an archaeological and geological reconnaissance of middle and lower Yukon Valley, traveling down the Tanana River. Several decades later, the 1935 trip contributed to two of her books: Travels Among the Dena, published in 1994, and Tales From the Dena, published in 1997.
In 1935 and 1936, de Laguna worked briefly as an Associate Soil Conservationist, surveying economic and social conditions on the Pima Indian Reservation in Arizona. She later returned to Arizona during the summers to conduct research and in 1941, led a summer archaeological field school under the sponsorship of Bryn Mawr College and the Museum of Northern Arizona.
By this time, de Laguna had already published several academic articles and was also the author of three fiction books. Published in 1930, The Thousand March: Adventures of an American Boy with the Garibaldi was her historical fiction book for juveniles. She also wrote two detective novels: The Arrow Points to Murder (1937) and Fog on the Mountain (1938). The Arrow Points to Murder is set in a museum based on her experiences at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the American Museum of National History. Fog on the Mountain is set in Cook Inlet and draws upon de Laguna's experiences in Alaska. Both detective novels helped to finance her research.
De Laguna began her long career at Bryn Mawr College in 1938 when she was hired as a lecturer in the sociology department to teach the first ever anthropology course at the college. By 1950, she was chairman of the joint department of Sociology and Anthropology, and in 1967, the chairman of the newly independent Anthropology Department. She was also a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania (1947-1949; 1972-1976) and at the University of California, Berkeley (1959-1960; 1972-1973.)
During World War II, de Laguna took a leave of absence from Bryn Mawr College to serve in the naval reserve from 1942 to 1945. As a member of WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service), she taught naval history and codes and ciphers to women midshipmen at Smith College. She took great pride in her naval service and in her later years joined the local chapter of WAVES National, an organization for former and current members of WAVES.
In 1950, de Laguna returned to Alaska to work in the Northern Tlingit region. Her ethnological and archaeological study of the Tlingit Indians brought her back several more times throughout the 1950s and led to the publication of Under Mount Saint Elias in 1972. Her comprehensive three-volume monograph is still considered the authoritative work on the Yakutat Tlingit. In 1954, de Laguna turned her focus to the Atna Indians of Copper River, returning to the area in 1958, 1960, and 1968.
De Laguna retired from Bryn Mawr College in 1972 under the college's mandatory retirement policy. Although she suffered from many ailments in her later years including macular degeneration, she remained professionally active. Five decades after her first visit to Greenland, de Laguna returned to Upernavik in 1979 to conduct ethnographic investigations. In 1985, she finished editing George Thornton Emmons' unpublished manuscript The Tlingit Indians. A project she had begun in 1955, the book was finally published in 1991. In 1986, she served as a volunteer consultant archaeologist and ethnologist for the U. S. Forest Service in Alaska. In 1994, she took part in "More than Words . . ." Laura Bliss Spann's documentary on the last Eyak speaker, Maggie Smith Jones. By 2001, de Laguna was legally blind. Nevertheless, she continued working on several projects and established the Frederica de Laguna Northern Books Press to reprint out-of-print literature and publish new scholarly works on Arctic cultures.
Over her lifetime, de Laguna received several honors including her election into the National Academy Sciences in 1976, the Distinguished Service Award from AAA in 1986, and the Lucy Wharton Drexel Medal from the University of Pennsylvania in 1999. De Laguna's work, however, was respected by not only her colleagues but also by the people she studied. In 1996, the people of Yakutat honored de Laguna with a potlatch. Her return to Yakutat was filmed by Laura Bliss Spann in her documentary Reunion at Mt St. Elias: The Return of Frederica de Laguna to Yakutat.
At the age of 98, Frederica de Laguna passed away on October 6, 2004.
Sources Consulted
Darnell, Regna. "Frederica de Laguna (1906-2004)." American Anthropologist 107.3 (2005): 554-556.
de Laguna, Frederica. Voyage to Greenland: A Personal Initiation into Anthropology. New York: W.W. Norton Co, 1977.
McClellan, Catharine. "Frederica de Laguna and the Pleasures of Anthropology." American Ethnologist 16.4 (1989): 766-785.
Olson, Wallace M. "Obituary: Frederica de Laguna (1906-2004)." Arctic 58.1 (2005): 89-90.
Related Materials:
Although this collection contains a great deal of correspondence associated with her service as president of AAA, most of her presidential records can be found in American Anthropological Association Records 1917-1972. Also at the National Anthropological Archives are her transcripts of songs sung by Yakutat Tlingit recorded in 1952 and 1954 located in MS 7056 and her notes and drawings of Dorset culture materials in the National Museum of Canada located in MS 7265. The Human Studies Film Archive has a video oral history of de Laguna conducted by Norman Markel (SC-89.10.4).
Related collections can also be found in other repositories. The University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania holds materials related to work that de Laguna carried out for the museum from the 1930s to the 1960s. Materials relating to her fieldwork in Angoon and Yakutat can be found in the Rasmuson Library of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in the papers of Francis A. Riddell, a field assistant to de Laguna in the early 1950s. Original photographs taken in the field in Alaska were deposited in the Alaska State Library, Juneau. Both the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress and the American Philosophical Library have copies of her field recordings and notes. The American Museum of Natural History has materials related to her work editing George T. Emmons' manuscript. De Laguna's papers can also be found at the Bryn Mawr College Archives.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Frederica de Laguna.
Restrictions:
Some of the original field notes are restricted due to Frederica de Laguna's request to protect the privacy of those accused of witchcraft. The originals are restricted until 2030. Photocopies may be made with the names of the accused redacted.
Rights:
Contact repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
This collection is comprised of the professional papers of Gordon D. Gibson. The collection contains his correspondence, field notes, research files, museum records, writings, photographs, sound recordings, and maps.The bulk of the collection consists of Gibson's southwestern Africa research. This includes his field notes, film scripts, photographs, sound recordings, and grant proposals he wrote in support of his fieldwork in Botswana, Namibia, and Angola. In addition, the collection contains his research notes, maps, drafts, publications, and papers presented at conferences. While most of his research focused on the Herero and Himba, the collection also contains his research on the Ovambo and Okavango and other southwestern African groups. In the collection is a great deal of photocopies and microfilms of literature on southwestern African ethnic groups, many of which are in Portuguese and German and which he had translated for his files. He was also interested in African material culture, especially Central African headgear. His research on African caps is well-represented in the collection, and includes photos of caps at various museums, source materials, research notes, and textile samples of knots and loop work. Gibson's files as the curator of African ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History also make up a significant portion of the collection. Among these records are his files for the museum's Hall of African Cultures and other African exhibits; his files on the museum's African collections, early donors and collectors of the collections; his personnel files; documents relating to his committee work; department and museum memos; meeting minutes; and his records as head of the Old World Division and acting chair of the department. The collection also documents the efforts to establish the Smithsonian's National Anthropological Film Center, now the Human Studies Film Archives, as well as his work on the planning committee to establish the Museum of Man at the Smithsonian. Memos and minutes relating to the Smithsonian's Center for the Study of Man are also present in the collection. In addition to Gibson's field photos, the collection also contains African photos taken by others. Among these are Herbert Friedmann's photos of Kenya; Hausmann's Libya photos; photos by Ralph Kepler Lewis during the Morden Africa Expedition in Kenya; and photos by Lawrence Marshall, Volkmar Wentzel, Alfred Martin Duggan Cronin, and Father Carlos Estermann. There are also photos of the exhibit cases from the Hall of African Cultures; photos of Smithsonian and non-Smithsonian African artifacts; and copies of photographs he obtained from different archives, including the National Anthropological Archives. Other materials in the collection include his files as film reviews editor for the American Anthropologist during the 1960s and 70s and his activities in different organizations.
Arrangement:
Arranged into 19 series: (1) Correspondence, 1938-1998; (2) Southwestern Africa Research, 1951-2004; (3) Caps Research; (4) Nineteenth Century Collectors; (5) General Research Files; (6) Exhibits, 1959-2007; (7) Curatorial Files, 1936-1984; (8) National Anthropological Film Center, 1965-1983; (9) Museum of Man, 1952-1981 [bulk 1968-1981]; (10) Center for the Study of Man (1967-1979); (11) Writings, 1947-1981; (12) Organizations; (13) Daily Log, 1958-1983; (14) Personal Files ; (15) Card Files; (16) Photographs, circa 1904-1983 [bulk 1953-1983]; (17) Microfilm; (18) Maps; (19) Sound Recordings
Biographical Note:
Gordon D. Gibson (1915-2007) was trained at the University of Chicago (Ph.D., 1952) and joined the staff of the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology in 1958 as its curator of African ethnology. He served in that capacity until 1983. During the 1960s, he undertook a major renovation of the National Museum of Natural History's African exhibits, which had been on display since the 1920s. He developed the Hall of African Cultures, which opened in 1969 and remained on view until 1992. He was also instrumental in establishing the National Anthropological Film Center, now the Human Studies Film Archives. During his tenure, he also served as the first chairman of the Senate of Scientists of the National Museum of Natural History (1963-1964), chairman of the museum's photographic facilities committee (1968), member of the Center for the Study of Man, and member and chairman of the Department of Anthropology collections committee and its photographs records committee (1970s-1980s). He also had special interests in the department's library and processing lab. In 1980, he was chairman of a committee which studied the feasibility of establishing a Smithsonian Institution Museum of Man. Gibson held several offices and committee memberships with the Anthropological Society of Washington during the during the 1960s and 1970s and served as film review editor of the American Anthropologist. Gibson conducted fieldwork among the Herero and Himba in Botswana (1953, 1960-61), Namibia (1960-61, 1971-73), and Angola (1971-73). Articles produced from his field research include "Bridewealth and Other Forms of Exchange Among the Herero," "Double Descent and Its Correlates among the Herero of Ngamiland," "Herero Marriage," and "Himba Epochs." While in the field, he also filmed footage of the Herero, Himba, Zimba, and Kuvale. His edited films include Herero of Ngamiland (1953), Himba Wedding (1969), and The Himba (1972). In addition to the Herero and Himba, he also conducted research on the Okavango and Ovambo people. He edited and translated Carlos Estermann's Ethnography of Southwestern Angola (published in 3 volumes in 1976-81) and edited and contributed to The Kavango Peoples (1981). Gibson's research interests also included Central African headgear, coauthoring High Status Caps of the Kongo and Mbundu (1977) with Cecilia R. McGurk.
Related Materials:
Other materials relating to Gordon Gibson at the National Anthropological Archives can be found in the Records of the Department of Anthropology, Records of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and the Records of the American Anthropological Association.
The Human Studies Film Archives holds his films on the Herero, Himba, Kuvale, and Zimba.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives has materials relating to Gibson's work as the first chairman of the Senate of Scientists.
Provenance:
The papers of Gordon D. Gibson were received in three separate accessions. The first accession (comprised of correspondence; committee files; and materials relating to the Herbert Ward collection, the National Anthropological Film Center, the Center for the Study of Man, and the Museum of Man) was transferred to the National Anthropological Archives by Gibson after his retirement. A guide to this accession was created in 2001. An accretion (consisting of correspondence, fieldwork and research files, curatorial files, writings, photographs, sound recordings, and maps) was transferred to the archives by Gibson's family in 2007. His exhibition and museum specimen files were transferred to the archives in 2008 by the Department of Anthropology.
Restrictions:
The Gordon Davis Gibson papers are open for research. Access to the computer disks in the collection are restricted due to preservation concerns. The personnel files of Smithsonian staff have also been restricted.
Access to the Gordon Davis Gibson papers requires an appointment.
Consists mainly of correspondence with Sol Tax, editor of the American Anthropologist at the time. Also includes correspondence with contributors and prospective contributors to the volume and participants in a related symposium, including Jules Henry, Evon Zartmann Vogt, Jean C. Harrington, David M. Schneider, Charles F. Harding, III, John Gillin, Margaret Mead, Melford Spiro, Leonard Mason, Alan P. Merriam, Clyde Kluckhohn, Marvin Kaufmann Opler, Walter Rochs Goldschmidt, and Ruth Landes.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 7369
Genre/Form:
Letters
Citation:
Manuscript 7369, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
May Mayko Ebihara's oral history interviews with Conrad Arensberg (3/7/84); Harold Conklin (1/26/82); William Davenport (8/19/82); James B. Griffin (10/7/81); Jane Richardson Hanks (8/6/82); Lucien M. Hanks (8/7/82); Robert Heizer and George Foster (10/2/74); Charles Hocket (8/25/81); Thomas Kirsch (8/25/81); Alfred Kroeber, et al. on Sapir (dub 5/11/1959); Floyd Lounsbury (1/27/82); David Mandelbaum (11/9/78); Margaret Mead (12/8/66); Mervyn Meggitt; Robert and Beatrice Miller (7/29/86); Horace Miner (10/7/81); George P. Murdock (8/20/82); Robert Murphy (10/17/80); John V. Murra (8/24/81); Leopold Pospisil (1/28/82); Irving Rouse (1/27/82); Lauriston Sharp (5/6/82); Edward Shils (11/19/83); Robert J. Smith (8/26/81). Also includes typewritten transcripts for some of the above, as well as for interviews with Theodore Stern and David H. French. The collection also contains notes on anthropology departments at Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 2009-15
Other Archival Materials:
May Ebihara's Reed College bachelor's thesis (1955), "An Ethnohistorical Study of the Shoshoni Indians of the Northern Basin," was received with the collection and transferred to the John Wesley Powell Library of Anthropology.
Most of the collection concerns Sister Inez's study of child life of the Chippewa, Arapaho, Araucanian, Ainu, miscellaneous papers about other tribes of the Plains, Southwest, Southeast, and Latin America. Part of the material is based on readings, the remainder on her own field work. Most of this material is in the form of note slips, the original notes from which they were made having presumably been destroyed. There are also materials that reflect her interest in social problems, particularly among the Chippewa. Some recordings reflect an interest in early days in Montana. There are also some of the so-called grandmother stories. The material concerning the Ainu includes material of Chiye Sano and Midori Yamaha, Sister Inez's assistants in Japan. The papers also include a very small amount of correspondence of Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux. Most of Sister Inez's correspondence has been retained by the College of St. Benedict.
Scope and Contents:
These papers reflect the professional life of anthropologist Sister Inez Hilger. The collection includes correspondence; Latin American diaries and notebooks (arranged chronologically); noteslips (arranged by tribe and/or subject); reading notes; notes on museum specimens; outlines and draft publications; survey materials; black and white photographs (both prints and negatives, arranged by subject and geographical area); color slides; sound recordings; some outline tracings of artifacts; plant specimens; newspaper clippings (primarily concerning Indians and Sister Inez); published maps; and several original illustrations. There is also a large amount of printed material, primarily reprints of Hilger's articles.
Of special interest are psychological tests (temporarily restricted) which Hilger and associates administered to Ainu and Japanese school children in 1965. Also of note are Margaret Mead's and Father John M. Cooper's materials relating to the study of child life. In addition, Mary Zirbes, Hilger's niece, conducted a tape-recorded interview with Hilger, concerning her early life and entrance into the Catholic University of America.
Correspondents include Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux. The collection occupies 18.5 linear feet of shelf space.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or National Anthropological Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Arrangement:
Series 1. Diaries and Notebooks. 1946-47; 1966-68.
Series 2. Material Relating to the Field Guide to the Ethnological Study Of Child Life. 1932-1966. 5 In.
Series 3. Noteslips Regarding the Chippewa, 1932-1942. ca 14 in.
Series 4. Chippewa Photographs. 1932-1940. 8 1/4 In.
Series 5. Noteslips, Photographs and Other Material Concerning the Arapahos. 1935-1942. 16 In.
Series 6. Miscellaneous Field and Reading Notes. 1936-1943. 22 In.
Series 7. Noteslips From Secondary Sources. N.D. 36 In.
Series 8." Notes On Crow Culture." Ca. 1970. 1/2 In.
Series 9. Noteslips Concerning the Araucanians. 1946-1947; 1951-1952. 12 In.
Series 10. Araucanian Photographs. 1946-52 28 In.
Series 11. Miscellaneous Araucanian Material. 1916-65 (Much Undated). 7 In.
Series 12. Material Regarding Huenun Namku: An Araucanian Indian Of the Andes Remembers the Past. 1952-62. 10 In.
Series 13. Material Regarding the Ainu and together With the Ainu. Ca. 1965-71. 16 In.
Series 14. Material Relating to Psychological Test Administered to Ainu and Japanese School Children. 1964-69. 10 In.
Series 15. Ainu Photographs. 1957-65. 7 In.
Series 16. Material Regarding the Television Course "Anthropology Of the Americas." 1957-58 13 In.
Series 17. Writings. 1931-64. 10 In.
Series 18. Printed Material. Most 1930s-70s. 3 Ft.
Series 19. Miscellany. 1938-70 2 In.
Series 20. Sound Recordings
Series 21. Maps. 1929-58 (Several Undated). 47 Items
Series 22. Miscellaneous Photographs. 1932-46. 8 In.
Biographical Note:
Marie Inez Hilger was born to a family of German immigrants October 16, 1891 in Roscoe, Minnesota. She joined the order of the Sisters of St. Benedict in 1914. Throughout her life, Sister Inez's primary institutional affiliation was the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. She joined its staff when it still operated as a high school. A plan to convert the school into a college was the impetus for Sister Inez to pursue further studies in history, literature, sociology, and anthropology at the University of Minnesota and The Catholic University of America. She was the first woman fully admitted to The Catholic University of America and matriculated with an anthropology Ph.D. in 1939. In 1955, she became a research associate of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
Sister Inez's field work began during the 1930s with concern for the social problems of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota. However, with the influence of Rhoda Metraux and Margaret Mead, she eventually developed a special interest in the life of children. She pursued studies in this field among the Chippewa (1932-1966); Arapaho (1935-1942), Araucanian (1946-1947; 1951-1952), and Ainu and Japanese (1962-1963). In addition, she carried out miscellaneous ethnological studies among several Plains, southwestern, southeastern, and Latin American tribes. At the end of her life, Sister Inez was working among the Blackfeet collecting what she called "grandmother tales." Her work was basically descriptive.
In addition to her classroom teaching and field work, Sister Inez prepared a field guide on the study of child life for the Human Relations Area File. Sister Inez died May 18, 1977 in St. Joseph, Minnesota.
Provenance:
Most of the papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Sister Inez in 1974. An increment was sent by Sister Inez's niece Mary K. Zirbes in 1977. Another increment was received from St. Benedict's Convent in St. Joseph, Minnesota, 1979.
Restrictions:
The Sister Marie Inez Hilger papers are open for research. The following series is restricted: Series 14. Material Relating to Psychological Test Administered to Ainu And Japanese School Children.
Access to the Sister Marie Inez Hilger papers requires an appointment.
Timothy Asch was an anthropologist and ethnographic film maker who devoted his professional life to using film as a recording and teaching medium. His papers cover the period from 1966 until his premature death in 1994 and reflect his active career in the field. A large portion of the files relates to his work among the Yanomami people of Venezuela and to his concern with bias in film making.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Timothy Asch document his career as an anthropologist, educator,
photographer and filmmaker through correspondence, photographs, research files
(articles and notes), and teaching materials (course information and lecture notes). The
files relating to Asch's film projects include articles, field notes, and reviews. The major
correspondents in this collection are Patsy Asch, Tom Beidelman, Napoleon Chagnon,
James Fox, Robert Gardner, Douglas Lewis, Peter Loizos, David & Olga Sapir, and
Minor White.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into the following 13 series:
Series 1) Correspondence (1953-1994)
Series 2) College and graduate School (1955-1965)
Series 3) Teaching materials (1964-1993)
Series 4) Film projects (1964-1991)
Series 5) Articles and reviews (1972-1994)
Series 6) Alpha-Subject (1955-1989)
Series 7) Conferences, film festivals, and film organizations (1963-1993)
Series 8) Grants (1962-1993)
Series 9) Other people's work (1952-1995)
Series 10) Personal and family (1951-1994)
Series 11) Photographs (1947-1991)
Series 12) Sound recordings (bulk 1960s-1970s)
Series 13) Note slips, rolodexes, and business cards (1987, undated)
Biographical note:
Asch studied photography at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. While serving in the United States Army in Japan from 1951-55 he spent his off-duty hours photographing rice production and household activities in remote Japanese villages. After his military service, he enrolled in Columbia University graduating in 1959 with an undergraduate degree in Anthropology. After graduation, he went to work at the Peabody Museum at Harvard as an assistant editor to John Marshall on the Kung Bushmen film project. In 1964, he received a Masters Degree in Anthropology from Boston University where he studied in the African Studies Progam and read Anthropology with T.O. Beidelman at Harvard. In 1968, Asch and Marshall founded Documentary Educational Resources, a film distribution company. Anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon approached Asch in 1968 to film among the Yanomammmi people of Venezuela. This collaboration led to a major project resulting in over thirty films.
Chronology
1950-1951 -- California School of Fine Arts and Apprenticeships with photographers Minor White, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams
1953-1954 -- Military Service in Korea
1959 -- B.S. in Anthropology Columbia University
1959-1962 -- Ethnographic film consultant, Harvard University's Peabody Museum
1964 -- M.A. in Anthropology Harvard University
1965-1966 -- Curriculum Consultant, Ethnographic studies and the Bushmen Social Studies Curriculum Project (initially Educational Services, Inc., later called Educational Development Center)
1966-1968 -- Lecturer in Anthropology and Theater Arts, Brandeis University
1966-1968 -- Anthropology Curriculum and Media Consultant to the Newton Public Schools
1967-1994 -- Co-Founder and Director of Documentary Educational Resources, Watertown, Massachusetts, a non-profit curriculum development corporation distributing educational media
1968-1970 -- Visiting Assistant Professor, Anthropology Department, New York University
1969-1973 -- Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Brandeis University
1973-1979 -- Research Fellow in Ethnographic film, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
1974-1976 -- Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
1975 -- Research Cinematographer, National Anthropological Film Center, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
1976-1981 -- Senior Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Institute of Advanced Studies, the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
1982 -- Visiting Research Scholar, Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
1983-1994 -- Director, Center for Visual Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, University of Southern California
Related Materials:
The Human Studies Film Archives holds 93,000 feet (43 hours) of original film footage and the accompanying sound as well as the edited films from the 1968 and 1971 film projects by Timothy Asch and Napoleon Chagnon documenting the Yanomamo Indians of southern Venezuela and northern Brazil (between the Negro and Upper Orinoco rivers).
Provenance:
Donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Patsy Asch in 1996.
The papers of John Joseph Honigmann (1914-1977) consist largely of research material of a specialist in personality, socialization, and social problems of Subarctic and Arctic people. Trained at Yale University (M.A., 1943; Ph.D., 1947), Honigmann spent most of his professional career at the University of North Carolina (1951-77) and was chairman of its Department of Anthropology from 1970-1975. Some material reflects his classroom teaching and administrative work. There are also general reference materials and materials relating to the history of anthropology.
Correspondents include David F. Aberle, Saeed K. Alizai, Nels Anderson, Asen Balikci, Victor Barnouw, Harry Basehart, Ronald Berndt, William E. Bittle, Gordon Blackwell, Walter Boek, Paul J. Bohannan, Robert J. Braidwood, Robert Carneiro, Joseph B. Casagrande, Norman A. Chance, Yehudi A. Cohen, Earl W. Count, David Damas, William Davis, Pierrette Desy, Cora du Bois, Richard Duncan, Fred R. Eggan, Loren C. Eiseley, Gary L. Emmons, Vincent Erickson, Sam J. Ervin, Arthur Evans, Lita B. Fejos, Paul Fejos, William N. Fenton, F.L. Fischer, Regina Flannery, Don Charles Foote, Clellan Ford, Morris Freilich, Clifford Geertz, Mickey Gibson, John P. Gillin, Thomas F. Gladwin, Walter R. Goldschmidt, Ward H. Goodenough, Theodore D. Graves, John Gulick, Zachary Gussow, Charles Hamori-Torok, Asael T. Hansen, Edward B. Harper, S.I. Hayakawa, Dwight B. Heath, June Helm, Maria Herzmaier, George K. Hindley, Tom R. Hopkins, Francis L.K. Hsu, Katherine Jocher, Berton H. Kaplan, Michael Kenny, Solon T. Kimball, Harriet J. Kupferer, Gordon B. Laing, L.L. Langness, Margaret L. Lantis, Oscar Lewis, Nancy O. Lurie, Donald S. Marshall, Abraham H. Maslow, John S. Matthiasson, Selz C. Mayo, Tom F.S. McFeat, Margaret Mead, Betty J. Meggers, George P. Murdock, Raoul Naroll, George Nelleman, Arthur Niehall, Marrilee Oakes, Morris E. Opler, Harold Orlans, Cornelius Osgood, Simon Ottenberg, John G. Peck, William Pollitzer, Ruben E. Reina, David Reisman, Marcel Rioux, Frank H.H. Roberts, Jr., Edward S. Rogers, Irving Rouse, Beate R. Salz, A.H.A. Siddiqi, Norman Simpkins, Leon Sinder, Richard Slobodin, Edward H. Spicer, Leslie Spier, Robert F.G. Spier, George D. Spindler, Sol Tax, Morton I. Teicher, Laura Thompson, Mischa Titiev, Brian du Toit, John Trudeau, Arthur Tuden, Victor F. Valentine, Frank G. Vallee, Clark Vincent, Fred W. Voget, Evon Z. Vogt, C. Von Furer-Haimendorf, Willard Walker, Anthony F.C. Wallace, Gene Weltfish, and Eric R.Wolf.
Arrangement note:
The Honigmann papers are not fully processed and are only broadly desccribed in this finding aid. The collection is arranged into (1) Churchill, five northern towns, and Schefferville, undated; (2) the Cree of Attawapisdat, Ontario, 1947-1956; (3) Frobisher Bay, 1963; (4) Great Whale River; (5) Inuvik, 1967; (6) Material concerning the Kaska of Lower Post, British Columbia, and Southern Yukon Territory, 1944-1945; (7) General anthropological subjects and teaching;(8) General and miscellaneous material on peoples of the world; (9) West Pakistan; (10) Canadian Wildlife Service Arctic Ecology Map; (11) Understanding Culture; (12) Miscellany; (13) Correspondence, ca. 1950s-1970s
Biographical / Historical:
Honigmann was regularly in the field. In 1943, this began with an ethnographic study of the Fort Nelson Slave in Canada. In 1944-1945, he was with the Kaska in British Columbia. In 1947-1948, he worked at Attawapiskat on James Bay and, in 1949-1950, at Great Whale River on Hudson Bay. He investigated town life in Pakistan in 1952 and 1957-1958. During the summers of 1960-1962, 1964-1966, 1972, and 1975, his studies carried him to a village in Austria. In 1963, he worked at Frobisher Bay and in 1967 at Inuvik.
1914 -- Born June 7, New York City, New York
1937 -- Married Irma Grabel
1942 -- Student at Columbia University Received BA from Brooklyn College
1943 -- Received MA from Yale University Field trip with the Fort Nelson Slave in Fort Nelson (3-6 months)
1944-1945 -- Field trip with the Kaska in British Columbia, Canada (3-6 months)
1946-1947 -- Assistant professor of Sociology and anthropology at State College, Washington
1947 -- Received PhD in anthropology from Yale University
1947-1948 -- Field trip at Attawapiskat, James Bay, Ontario, Canada Research anthropologist for the National Committee for Community Health Studies in Toronto, Canada
1948-1951 -- Assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at New York University
1949 -- Published Anthropology, Culture and Ethos of the Kaska Society
1949-1950 -- Field trip at Great Whale River, Hudson's Bay, Ontario, Canada
1951-1955 -- Associate professor of anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
1952 -- Field trip at Pakistan
1955 -- Field trip at Attawapiskat, James Bay, Ontario, Canada
1955-1957 -- Professor of anthropology, UNC, Chapel Hill
1957-1958 -- Field trip at Pakistan
1959 -- Published The World of Man
1960 -- Field trip at Austria
1962 -- Published Foodways in a Muskeg Community Field trip at Austria
1963 -- Published Understanding Culture Field trip at Frobishers Bay, Baffin Island, Canada
1964 -- Field trip at Austria
1965 -- With wife Irma, co-authored Eskimo Townsmen
1966 -- Field trip in Austria
1967 -- Published Personality in Culture Field trip at Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada
1967-1970 -- Postdoctoral fellowship and grants: NSF grant
1970 -- Co-authored Arctic Townsmen Chairman of the department of anthropology, UNC, Chapel Hill
1972 -- Field trip at Austria
1975 -- Field trip at Austria
1977 -- Died at Chapel Hill, NC, August 4
Provenance:
Most of Honigmann's papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Irma Honigman, his wife, between October 1977 and January 1979. Honigmann's daughter, Karen Honigmann Schaefer, donated her father's field journals in July 1993.
Restrictions:
Some materials concerning the operations of the University of North Carolina Department of Anthropology are restricted.
Rights:
Honigmann used pseudonyms when referring to his informants in publications. Irma Honigmann has requested that researchers refrain from publishing their names.
Video oral history of anthropologist Zunia Henry conducted by anthropologist Murray Wax. Dr. Henry discusses her husband Jules Henry, a noted psychological anthropologist; her experiences at Columbia University; the people and events that were influential in her career; her book entitled, "Pathways to Madness;" and her work in Argentina among the Piliga Indians.
Legacy Keywords: Benedict, Ruth, 1887-1948 ; Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 ; Henry, Jules, 1904-1969 ; Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978 ; Profession musician ; Universities Columbia University ; Argentina El Chaco ; Germany Berlin ; Mexico Mexico City ; Special Collections ; Russians ; Piliga Indians
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1989.10.15
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Video Dialogues in Anthropology, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Video oral history of anthropologist and sociologist Murray Wax conducted by anthropologist H. Russell Bernard. Dr. Wax discusses the people and events that were influential in his career including Franz Boas and Robert Redfield, his work among the Sioux and Cherokee Indians, and teaching.
Legacy Keywords: Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 ; Hewes, Everett ; Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978 ; Redfield, Robert ; Wax, Rosalie ; Universities University of Miami ; Universities University of Chicago ; Language Cherokee ; Sociology ; Anthropology applied anthropology ; South Dakota Pine Ridge ; Oklahoma ; Special Collections ; Sioux ; Cherokee Indians ; Indians of North America Great Plains ; Dakota Indians ; Indians of North America Southern States
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1989.10.17
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Video Dialogues in Anthropology, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Video oral history of anthropologist Lambros Comitas, Director of the Research Institute for the Study of Man, conducted by anthropologist H. Russell Bernard. Dr. Comitas discusses his work in anthropology as a Caribbeanist and his studies at Columbia University and comments on those who were influential in his career including Margaret Mead, M.G. Smith, and Vera Rubin.
Legacy Keywords: Harris, Marvin, 1927-2001 ; Kimbel, Sol ; Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978 ; Murphy, Robert ; Rubin, Samuel ; Rubin, Vera ; Wagley, Charles, 1913- ; Arensberg ; Smith, M.G. ; Universities Columbia University ; Anthropology applied anthropology ; Universities Teachers College ; War World War II ; Caribbean ; Jamaica ; Bolivia ; Special Collections ; North America ; United States ; Florida
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1989.10.20
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Video Dialogues in Anthropology, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Video oral history of anthropologist Elizabeth Colson conducted by anthropologist Charles Wagley. Dr. Colson discusses the people and events that were influential in her career including her work in Central Africa and her affiliation with the Rhodes-Livingston Institute. She also discusses the opportunities that were afforded women anthropologists at that time.
Legacy Keywords: Benedict, Ruth, 1887-1948 ; Gluckman, Max ; Hooten ; Hunter, Monica ; Koon ; Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978 ; Movious, Paul ; Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. ; Wilmington Bolk, Marie ; Universities Boston University ; Universities Brandeis University ; Special Collections
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1989.10.10
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Video Dialogues in Anthropology, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Video oral history of anthropologist Charles Wagley. Professor Wagley discusses the people and events that were influential in his career including his fieldwork in Brazil and Guatemala and subsequent work in the public health sector, his life during World War II, and his experience as president of the American Anthropological Association in 1971 during the Vietnam War.
Legacy Keywords: Benedict, Ruth, 1887-1948 ; Boas, Franz, 1858-1942 ; Devreux, Georges ; Harris, Marvin, 1927-2001 ; Herskovits, Melville J. 1895-1963 (Melville Jean), ; Hertzog, George ; Kroeber, A. L. 1876-1960 (Alfred Louis), ; Landis, Ruth ; Limpkin, William ; Linton, Ralph ; Mead, Margaret, 1901-1978 ; Radin, Paul, 1883-1959 ; Strong, William Duncan, 1899-1962 ; Taylor, Walter W., Jr. ; Willy, Gordon ; Universities Columbia University ; War World War II ; War Vietnam War ; Legal governmental access to field data ; Brazil ; Guatemala ; Special Collections
General:
Local Number: HSFA 1989.10.5
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Video Dialogues in Anthropology, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
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.
Some materials concerning the operations of the University of North Carolina Department of Anthropology are restricted.
Collection Rights:
Honigmann used pseudonyms when referring to his informants in publications. Irma Honigmann has requested that researchers refrain from publishing their names.
Collection Citation:
John Joseph Honigmann Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
This series consists of student rosters, lecture notes, class handouts, syllabi, and student papers from courses and seminars that Landes taught at William Alanson White Institute, University of Southern California, Claremont Graduate School, the Rand School of Social Science, McMaster University, and the Los Angeles City Health Department.
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.
This series consists of Landes's curricula vitae, clippings and writings about Landes, Landes's reflections on her life, her financial records, and a miscellany of materials that pertain to her personal life. Among the materials that can found in Subseries: Miscellany are her diplomas; will; and a copy of her marriage certificate for her marriage with her second husband, Ignacio Lutero Lopez. Also in this series are Landes's class notes from a course taught by Margaret Mead.
Arrangement:
Series 5 is arranged into the following 3 subseries: (5.1) Biographical materials; (5.2) Financial; (5.3) Miscellany
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.
This series consists of drawings, photographs, and postcards. The drawings are comprised of sketches by Landes, including self-portraits; a drawing by G.W. Allen; and a photomechanical print of a drawing of Edison Carneiro by José Guimarães. The postcards are unused and were collected by Landes from various locations around the world. The photographs are a mix of field research photographs and personal photographs. Topics include her field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Bahia (now known as Salvador), Brazil; the Prarie Potawatomi in Mayetta, Kansas; the Ojibwa in Emo, Ontario, near Manitou Rapids; the Chippewa in Red Lake, Minnesota; and the Acadians (Cajuns) of Lousiana. There are also photographs of Landes, her family, and friends/colleagues. Among the photographs are images of Landes's parents, Ruth Benedict, Edison Carneiro, Sally Chilver, Alexander Daveron, Jules Henry, Elmer Samuel Imes, and Margaret Mead.
All the materials within this series have been digitized, with the exception of the nitrate negatives. Digital surrogates were only made of some of the nitrate negatives that do not have corresponding prints; see folder "Negatives" for more information. All of the images can be viewed online in the Smithsonian online catalog at http://siris-archives.si.edu.
The following have been separated and are restricted: Thirty-one 35mm nitrate negatives, mostly of Landes's 1938-39 Brazilian photographs and some of her photographs from Chevy Chase, Maryland, and 23 nitrate sheet film of Ojibwa (Chippewa), Potawatomi, and unidentified Native Americans. Prints exist for most of the Brazilian and Chevy Chase negatives. The negatives without corresponding prints are mostly variations of existing prints. Prints exist for most of the Ojibwa negatives, while prints do not exist for many of the Potawatomi negatives and negatives of unidentified Native Americans. These negatives, which appear to be from Landes's field research in the 1930s, have been digitized. (Digital surrogates: Landes_35mm; Landes_negatives; Landes_xray)
Arrangement:
Series 6 is arranged in the following 3 subseries: (6.1) Drawings; (6.2) Photographs; (6.3) Postcards
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.
Box 174 also contains 1 oversize item from Series VII [Anthropological Subjects, Anthropology, Related Subjects & Scholars—MacLean's Magazine—Nov. 1954]
Collection Restrictions:
Some materials concerning the operations of the University of North Carolina Department of Anthropology are restricted.
Collection Rights:
Honigmann used pseudonyms when referring to his informants in publications. Irma Honigmann has requested that researchers refrain from publishing their names.
Collection Citation:
John Joseph Honigmann Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
This series consists of anthropologist Ruth Landes' field photographs and personal photographs in the Ruth Landes Papers. Topics include her field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Bahia (now known as Salvador), Brazil; the Prarie Potawatomi in Mayetta, Kansas; the Ojibwa in Emo, Ontario, near Manitou Rapids; the Chippewa in Red Lake, Minnesota; and the Acadians (Cajuns) of Lousiana. There are also photographs of Ruth Landes; family and friends/colleagues including her parents, Ruth Benedict, Edison Carneiro, Sally Chilver, Alexander Daveron, Jules Henry, Elmer Samuel Imes, Margaret Mead; and Landes' vacation photographs.
Arrangement:
Photographs are organized by subject.
Funding note:
These photographs were cataloged and digitized with the assistance of a grant from the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
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.
Genre/Form:
Photographs
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.
