The Mary Harriman Rumsey collection largely consists of photographic prints and lantern slides documenting the Harriman Expedition to Alaska in summer 1899. These depict members of the expedition and Alaskan scenery and people. The collection also includes scenic photographs of Alaska taken by Dora Keen in 1914 and photographs of Blackfeet, Hopi, Apache, and Suquamish Indians made by Edward Curtis in 1900 and 1903.
Scope and Contents:
The bulk of the collection comprises photographic prints, lantern slides, and one map documenting the Harriman Alaska Expedition from May to July of 1899. These photographs were made by members of the expedition, most prominently its official photographer Edward S. Curtis, funder Edward Henry Harriman, and lead scientist C. Hart Merriam. They depict Alaskan scenery, members of the expedition, and Native people and settlements that they encountered. Mary Harriman Rumsey's collection also includes later platinum prints of American Indians made and signed by Curtis (1900, 1903), photographs of glaciers in Alaska by Dora Keen (1914), a photograph of a painting by Charles Schreyvogel (1903), and a photograph of White Pass by Arthur Clarence Pillsbury (1898).
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in three series: photographs relating to the Harriman Expedition; photographs of Alaska that were not made on the Harriman Expedition; and other photographs relating to American Indians. The Harriman series is arranged in a rough chronological order.
Biographical / Historical:
Mary Harriman Rumsey (1881-1934) was an important American philanthropist and the oldest child of railroad tycoon Edward Henry Harriman. In 1901, while studying at Barnard College, she co-founded the Junior League for the Promotion of Settlement Movements (later named the Junior League of the City of New York), which facilitated charitable work by privileged women among New York's impoverished groups. Rumsey's efforts lead to the establishment of the Association of Junior Leagues International Inc. in 1921. Additionally, Rumsey co-founded Today magazine with her brother Averell Harriman and others, and in 1933 she chaired the Consumer Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration.
In 1899, Mary Harriman was among the Harriman family members who accompanied the Harriman Alaska Expedition. Originally planned as a bear-hunting trip for the family, the expedition, was funded by Edward Henry Harriman and organized with the help of ethnographer and naturalist Clinton Hart Merriam. The party of accomplished scientists, naturalists, photographers, artists, and writers cruised from British Columbia to Siberia and back on a private ship, the SS George W. Elder, in June and July of 1899. The scientists' findings were published in the thirteen-volume Harriman Alaska Series, and Harriman also paid the expedition's official photographer, Edward S. Curtis, to compile souvenir albums from the over 5,000 photographs made during the course of the expedition.
Related Materials:
The Smithsonian Institution Archives, University of Washington Special Collections, and Library of Congress have photo albums relating to the Harriman Alaska Expedition. The SI Archives also holds the Harriman Alaska Expedition Collection and photogravure plates from the Harriman Alaska Series.
NMAI holds photogravure plates and proofs made from Edward Curtis's later photographs and Frederick Dellenbaugh's expedition notes in the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation records. The National Anthropological Archives also holds Curtis photographs and papers.
Separated Materials:
The following materials were also part of Mary Harriman Rumsey's estate, gifted to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, in 1934. Where possible, their current locations have been noted.
33 artifacts, most of which were likely collected in Alaska by the Harriman Alaska Expedition, are now housed in the NMAI object collection (catalog numbers 18/6460 - 18/6494)
A set of Harriman Alaska Expedition books, probably now in the Cornell University Libraries
4 phonograph records
A bundle of botanical specimens
Provenance:
This collection was donated as part of the estate of Mary Harriman Rumsey to the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, in May 1934.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive 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 Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited users to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not changed, 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.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Mary Harriman Rumsey Collection of Harriman Alaska Expedition Photographs, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
This collection was processed with funding from the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Lee Ya-Ching Papers, NASM.2008.0009, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
This subseries of the Notes and writings on special linguistic studies series contains material reflecting John P. Harrington's long-time interest in theories of the Siberian origin of American Indians. Materials consist of notes and drafts for his paper "Siberian Origin of the American Indian.
His early notes include handwritten and typed versions of the outline "Antiquity of Man . . . " from 1915 (dated by handwriting as well as by type of pencil and paper); copies of short early vocabularies recorded by La Perouse (Tchoka) and Father Jette (Ten'a), probably prepared by Harrington around 1922 to 1923; a mimeographed statement by the Science News Service, dated 1923; newspaper clippings on Harrington's theories from 1924; and two pages of notes which Harrington recorded during a discussion with colleague Truman Michelson in November 1926. There is also an undated typed proposal titled "Investigation of the Origin of the Native American Race." This three page document does not appear to have been written by Harrington, but the source is not indicated.
Materials accumulated during the period 1937 to 1938 are the most numerous. They include notes from interviews; copies of correspondence; records regarding the computation of tribal areas; notes on maps and photographs; and reading notes, extracts, and bibliographic references to secondary sources. The transcripts of interviews, dated February 1937 through November 1938, include information from Riley Moore, Carl Bishop, John G. Carter, and B.A.E. colleagues Truman Michelson and Matthew W. Stirling. The lengthiest set of notes is from a discussion with Smithsonian archeologist Henry B. Collins, who described fieldwork he had conducted from May to November 1936. The brief file of correspondence contains letters from Diamond Jenness and H. E. Rollins and a note from John G. Carter. The file on illustrative materials includes maps and charts showing the computation of land areas occupied by the Chukchee, Aleut, Eskimo, and Athapascan tribes. Supplementing these are notes from meetings with staff members of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in March and April 1937. There are also notes on maps, motion picture films, and photographs, as well as illustrations by Clark M. Garber and Joelle Danner. The notes from secondary sources include the title page and table of contents for a manuscript by Ivan A. Lopatin titled "The Cult of the Dead Among the Natives of the Amur Valley." There are also a few pages on file for another paper by Lopatin, "Material on the Language of the Natives of the Amur Region." There is also a sizable set of notes relating to the translation of various terms--mostly tribal names--into Russian. These include cut-and-pasted portions of letters which Waldemar Jochelson sent Harrington.
The material compiled after 1937 is highly miscellaneous. Items from the 1940s include a sixteen-page untitled rough draft on the migration of Siberian man; a three-page typed carbon copy of the article "Stepping Stones Between Eurasia and America" which was used in a release by the Office of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, on August 4, 1940; a partial draft of an article on boats; a sectional map of the Bering Strait which was mailed to Harrington by C. M. Garber on January 18, 1947; and notes from interviews with Mr. [Tappan?] Adney on March 28, 1941, with William Heslop and King Mooers later in that year, and with Henry B. Collins on December 8, 1947. There is also an Eskimo vocabulary which Harrington copied from William Thalbitzer and three pages of miscellaneous notes dating from the late 1950s.
A separate file of notes on Chukchee spans the entire period of Harrington's work on Siberia. There are a number of pages on Chukchee, Yukagir, and Eskimo mythology which he extracted from his notes for lectures at the University of Washington in 1910; brief notes from discussions with Truman Michelson, Waldemar Jochelson, and Franz Boas around 1926 to 1928; and copies made on February 23, 1937, of "Chukchee polysynthesis words" which had been compiled in an unspecified article by colleague Robert W. Young. The source of data for the latter was Waldemar Bogoras's paper "Chukchee" in the Handbook of American Indian Languages edited by Franz Boas. Later material includes a copy of a letter from Ivan Lopatin (November 23, 1947) with an enclosure titled "Discovery of the Chukchee and Derivation of the Name"; a copy by Harrington of the enclosure; and the rough beginning of a paper by Harrington titled "Short Sketch of the Grammar of the Chukchee Language," also evidently written in 1947.
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Genre/Form:
Notes
Manuscripts
Maps
Vocabulary
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.
