The Grace F. Thorpe Collection (1900-2008) includes documents, photographic prints, slides, negatives and other materials that encapsulate the breadth of Grace Thorpe's life and work as a WWII veteran, Native rights activist, and dedicated daughter, mother and family member. This includes material from her personal, military and professional life. Series 1: Early Life and Family History (1921-1940) includes materials related to the Thorpe family including photographs of Grace's parents, Jim and Iva at the Carlisle Indian School as well as letters and photographs from Grace as a young girl. Series 2: Military Career and Life in Japan (1943-1950) includes documents, photographic prints and negatives from Grace's time as a Corporal in the Women's Army Corps and her life as a wife and mother in Japan following the war. This series also includes the medals Grace received for her service in WWII. Series 3: Pearl River, New York and Business (1950-1967) contains documents and photographs from Grace's time as a mother and business woman in Pearl River, New York. Series 4: Working on Behalf of Native Americans and Activism (1968-1977) includes documents, photographic prints and negatives from Grace's work with various Native American organizations on economic and civil rights issues following her move to Arizona in 1967. Series 5: Jim Thorpe and His Legacy (1912-1984) includes documents, photographic prints and negatives regarding Jim Thorpe and the work by the Thorpe family to restore Jim's Olympic record and keep his legacy alive. Series 6: Later Years (1979-2007) includes documents, photographic prints and negatives from Grace's life in Oklahoma, her work as an environmental activist, and other activities later in her life.
Arrangement:
This collection has been arranged in six series chronologically based on how the collection was received with minor changes. The Series' include--Series 1: Early Life and Family History (1921-1940), Series 2: Military Career and Life in Japan (1943-1950), Series 3: Pearl River, New York and Business (1950-1967), Series 4: Working on Behalf of Native Americans and Activism (1968-1977), Series 5: Jim Thorpe and His Legacy (1912-1984), and Series 6: Later Years (1979-2007). There is some chronological crossover between Series 5: Jim Thorpe and His Legacy and the rest of the collection.
The physical arrangement of the materials was determined by storage needs.
Biographical / Historical:
Grace Frances Thorpe was born in Yale, Oklahoma on December 10, 1921 to parents James (Jim) Francis Thorpe (Sac and Fox (Sauk)) and Iva Margaret Miller Thorpe. Jim, already a famed athelete and olympic medalist, had met Iva as students at Carlisle Indian School and were married in 1913. Grace was the youngest of four, Gail Margaret, James and Charlotte Marie though her brother James died from polio at a young age. When Iva and Jim divorced in 1923, Iva and the girls moved to Chicago while Jim moved to California to pursue work in the movies. For school, Grace attended St. Mary's Academy, Sacred Heart, in Oklahoma and Haskell Institute in Kansas, which was where her father had attended school.
In 1943 Grace worked briefly at the Ford Motor Company before enlisting in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during WWII. After attending training and graduating from the WAAC Training Center in Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia, Thorpe attained the rank of Corporal, and served as a Recruiter for the Women's Army Corps stationed in Tucson and Camp White in Oregon before being assigned overseas to the New Guinea Campaign. From 1944-1945 Corporal Thorpe was stationed in New Guinea, Philippines and Japan. Following an Honorable Discharge in 1945, Grace remained in Japan during the occupation with her husband Lieutenant Fred W. Seely (1918-2008) whom she married in June 1946. She became employed at General MacArthur Headquarters as Chief of the Recruitment Section, Department of Army Civilians, Tokyo, Japan. Both of her children, Dagmar (1946-) and Paul Thorpe (1948-1964) were born during this time in Japan.
Grace and her children left Japan and arrived in San Francisco on April 20, 1950. They lived in Pearl River, New York from late 1950 to the mid 1960s. She first became employed as a Hostess with Welcome Wagon upon completing training in July of 1951 and later became a supervisor, business machine salesperson, and territorial account executive for the Yellow Pages with the Reuben H. Donnelly Corp. earning recognition in Distinguished Sales Performance. She completed a course in effective speaking and human relations conducted by the Dale Carnegie Institute and won a Best Speech Award. In 1967, Grace moved to Arizona where she became involved with American Indian tribes. Grace was appointed Economic Development Conference Coordinator for the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)'s 1968 and 1969 conferences. In 1969-1970, Grace joined Native American Activists at the occupation of Alcatraz Island for three months and managed their publicity. She then served as a Congressional Intern from 1974-1975 for Senator James Abourezk. Grace was later appointed Legislative Assistant with the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs and as a Task Force Program and Planning Analyst for the American Indian Policy Review Commission. During this time period she attended—The Antioch School of Law, Washington DC; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Research Fellow), Boston, Massachusetts; University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Northeastern University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. During this time she also began working on the restoration of her father's 1912 Olympic titles as well as other projects to recognize and honor her father.
After returning to her tribal homeland in Oklahoma she became active in tribal affairs and in 1983 successfully restored her father's Olympic record. She also conducted genealogical research on the Thorpe family. Her article "The Jim Thorpe Family' was published as a two-part series in the Chronicles of Oklahoma in 1981. In later years, Grace served her tribe as a tribal judge, health commissioner, and became an environmental activist opposing nuclear waste on tribal lands. She remained active in Native American issues, a matriarch of the Thorpe family, and involved with her granddaughter, Tena Malotte, and her great-grandchildren, Aspen and Huna.
Biographical note provided by Dagmar Seely, daughter to Grace Thorpe, with additions by Rachel Menyuk, Processing Archivist.
Separated Materials:
27 nitrate negatives have been moved offsite and are being housed at the National Anthropological Archives.
Provenance:
Donated by Dr. Dagmar Seely and Tena Malotte, 2015.
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.
Alcatraz Island (Calif.) -- History -- Indian occupation, 1969-1971. Search this
Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Grace F. Thorpe Collection, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Copies made from a photograph album compiled by Robert Burnett that appears to relate to three periods. A few photographs dated around 1910-1912 were likely received from Burnett's family and depict family members, ranchers, tipis, and people gathered for White River Frontier Days. Other photographs show Burnette and friends while he was in high school and then in the US Marine Corps during World War II. Many of the later photographs date around 1961-1964, when Burnette was Executive Secretary of the National Congress of American Indians; some of these depict Burnette and other Native Americans with John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, George McGovern, and Stewart L. Udall.
Biographical/Historical note:
Robert Burnette (1926-1984) was a Native American civil rights leader, Tribal Chair of the Rosebud Sioux, and Executive Secretary of the National Congress of American Indians. He is also the coauthor of The Road to Wounded Knee, published in 1974.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 92-45
Reproduction Note:
Copy negatives made by Smithsonian Institution, 1990.
Location of Other Archival Materials:
The National Museum of the American Indian Archives holds the National Congress of American Indians Records, 1933-1990.
The majority of the photographs were made by Thomas B. Card during World War II and the postwar years in Japan, South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Middle East. He documented people, architecture, and scenery, as well as military bases and personnel in Okinawa, Japan. Additionally, there are images of Mexican archeological sites, Camp Claiborne in Louisiana (made in 1944), the 1932 Amur River flood, and Benito Mussolini's execution.
The collection also includes photographs taken by Paul W. Card in China before World War II, including images of the Yangtze River, historical architecture and art, people, shrines, and cities.
Biographical/Historical note:
Thomas B. Card was an engineer and Army officer during World War II. After completing his freshman year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (September 1916-October 1917), he joined the signal corps in World War I, later transferrimg to become a pilot in the air service. Returning to school, he graduated from the Masssachusetts Institute of Technology in 1921 and received a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Graduate School in 1930. During World War II, he supervised the construction of bases in the Caribbean and Japan, and served as commanding officer of the 601st Engineers Base Depot on Okinawa. He was promoted to Colonel, CE, in 1945. In 1947, he led a group of engineers working on the Bechtel International Modernization Project in Saudi Arabia, as well as other post-war work in Argentina and Trinidad.
Paul W. Card, Thomas B. Card's brother, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1927 and was assigned to work in China's Yangtze River region until 1938. He spent most of his time protecting the United States Legation in Nanjing and gathered intelligence as a "Naval observer."
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 2000-02, NAA Photo Lot 97-43
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Photographs made by Thomas B. Card, previously filed in Photo Lot 97-43, have been relocated and merged with Photo Lot 2000-02.
Restrictions:
Original nitrate negatives are in cold storage and require advanced notice for viewing.
Photo Lot 2000-02, Thomas B. Card and Paul W. Card photographs of world travels and World War II, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
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.
Historical Note:
With the coming of World War II, George Peter Murdock, in a move to aid the efforts of the United States, turned the attention of his Cross Cultural Survey file (later the Human Relations Area File) to the Pacific, especially the Japanese mandated islands there. This resulting file includes abstracts and illustrations from publications on five-by-eight-inch cards and slips. They are arranged by geographic area and subject following George Peter Murdock's Outline of Cultural Materials, 1945. The set was maintained in the offices of the Ethnogeographic Board at the Smithsonian Institution. By report, the file was heavily used by the U. S. Navy in planning the invasions of islands in the Pacific.
Related Materials:
Smithsonian Institution Archives holds records related to the Pacific Survey file in Records, 1942-1946 (SIA.FARU0087), Series 8: Uncompleted Project File: 1943-1945.
Restrictions:
The Pacific Survey file is open for research.
Access to the Pacific Survey fle requires an appointment.
16.5 cu. ft. (2 record storage boxes) (29 document boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Manuscripts
Place:
Japan -- Social life and customs
Africa -- Social life and customs
Micronesia -- Social life and customs
Date:
1942-1946
Descriptive Entry:
This collection includes records concerning the Board's projects, general correspondence, committee and organization work and information concerning specialized data
and special subjects. Postwar regional administration records, geographic reports, country information files, photographs and uncompleted project records are also included,
as are the Board's fiscal, conference, meeting and miscellaneous records.
Historical Note:
The Ethnogeographic Board was established during the Second World War. It was established primarily to act as a clearinghouse for government wartime needs. During the
three and one-half years of its existence (June of 1942 through December of 1945) the board provided ethnogeographic information on the non-European areas of the war, notably
Africa, Micronesia, Melanesia and Indonesia. It aided in the location and mobilization of area and language specialists, especially anthropologists. It was jointly sponsored
by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, the National Research Council and the Smithsonian Institution. The Board utilized facilities
and other technical assistance provided by the latter. William Duncan Strong served as the Board's Director from 1942 until 1944 at which time he was succeeded by Henry B.
Collins Jr. The salaries of both men were provided by the Smithsonian.
The original Board consisted of six members and until 1945 met semi-annually as an advisory and policy making body. In addition, five separate committees worked closely
with the Board. These included the Committee on African Anthropology; the Committee on the Anthropology of Oceania; the Joint Committee on the Latin American Studies; the
Intensive Language Program; and the Smithsonian War Committee. A sixth, the Committee on Asiatic Geography, was formed as a result of a Board-sponsored conference. Each committee
remained an independent entity, although theoretically the Board was supposed to integrate the work of all of these committees. The Board received its financial support from
the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and its own sponsoring organizations. Of the latter, the Smithsonian contributed the largest portion.
Five major undertakings were of sufficient magnitude to be designated as projects. The most important of these was the "Survival Project." At the request of the United
States Navy, the Ethnogeographic Board and the staff of the Smithsonian prepared the manual Survival on Land and Sea in 1943. Several editions were published and by
1944 970,000 copies had been printed and distributed to the armed forces in the Pacific Theater.
In September of 1942 the Board sponsored a conference on Bolivian Indians in New Haven. Its purpose was to discuss those factors relevant to the use of Indians as industrial
labor in the mines and to encourage greater agricultural output from this group. A thirty-five page report resulted from this conference and was subsequently distributed by
the Board. Though this project was less extensive than the "Survival" project it was significant because it was designed to serve as a model for other similar projects.
In January of 1944 under the direction of Research Associates Bacon and Fenton a third project was initiated. The subsequent "Survey of Area Studies in American Universities"
was undertaken to analyze the foreign area courses offered at selected universities. A total of 27 universities from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts were included, and
reports on about one-third of these were completed.
In March of that year the Board members discussed the feasibility of writing a history of the Board's activities. It was agreed that such a record was necessary and eventually
Board member Wendell Clark Bennett was designated to draft this account. This fourth project, covering the activities of the Board up to June of 1945, was completed in August
of that year.
In June of 1945 the last major undertaking was initiated. At that time the executive committee considered compiling a list of all war-related documents provided by the
Board. Homer Barnett was assigned late in 1945 to survey those documents concerned with the Pacific Area. This project was combined with the never-completed Pacific Survey
Project under Barnett's direction.
Although not considered a major undertaking, the "World File of Area and Language Specialists List" might better be described as an ongoing Board project. Approximately
5000 names were included on this roster. The sources from which they were gathered were numerous and included the Committee on Latin American Anthropology; the Committee on
Asiatic Geography; the Intensive Language Program; and the Smithsonian War Committee. The lists provided by the Committees on the Anthropology of Africa and Oceania formed
the backbone of this roster. The geographic areas of primary concern included Africa, Indonesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. This roster was used extensively by the government
and other agencies throughout the course of the war.
Besides its own projects, the Board participated in a number of others in conjunction with various organizations and institutions. The Board assisted in the preparation
of a manual entitled "Jungle and Desert Emergencies" with the Air Corps. The Quartermaster General's Office worked with the Board on a "Reconnaissance Report on Concentrated
Rations of Primitive Peoples". Cooperating with the American Council of Learned Societies, the Board aided in the development of a program to train personnel in the Russian
language. Other projects initiated but never completed included the Pacific Survey Project, the Area and Language Notes Project and the Research Committee Project.
Though the Board continued to operate until December of 1945, the first three years of its existence were those of the greatest activity.
The Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit (IDO) opened in German-occupied Krakow, Poland, in 1940. The Sektion für Rasse- und Volkstumforschung (IDO-SRV) (Section for Racial
and National Traditions Research) was an anthropological unit of the IDO that classified people by studying their anthropometric and genealogical information. The collection
was seized by the United States and British armies after the end of World War II and given to the Smithsonian Institution on permanent loan once they were deemed of no further
value for military intelligence.
In 2003, the Polish government requested this collection be transferred back to Poland. These records document the task force that was created by Cristián Samper, Director
of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), at the request of the Secretary of the Smithsonian to investigate the legal, scientific, ethical, and archival issues related
to the return of these records. In 2004, the task force recommended the records be returned after microfilm copies and digital surrogates had been made. In a ceremony at the
Polish Consulate in New York on September 27, 2007, the IDO records were transferred from the National Anthropological Archives to Uniwersytet Jagielloński (Jagiellonian University),
Krakow. (See also related records in Accession 05-091.)
These records were compiled and maintained by Ruth Osterweis Selig, Special Assistant to the Director, NMNH. Materials include correspondence, meeting minutes, notes, clippings,
brochures, and reports. Some materials are in electronic format.
MS 7332 Partial list of Oceania experts in Washington
Creator:
Ethnogeographic Board (Washington, D.C.) Search this
Extent:
11 Pages
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Place:
Oceania
Date:
January 29, 1943
Biographical / Historical:
The list was produced by the World War II agency housed at the Smithsonian whose purpose was to provide and coordinate anthropological and geographical information useful for the war effort.
Yale University. Institute of Human Relations Search this
Names:
Ethnogeographic Board (Washington, D.C.) Search this
Extent:
125 Items (1.25 inches)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Place:
Oceania
Marshall Islands -- gazetteer
Marshall Islands -- Meteorology
Melanesia -- emergency adaptation
New Guinea
Marshall Islands -- Food -- Water
Caroline Islands -- Meteorology
Date:
1943
Scope and Contents:
Includes "Gazetteer of the Marshall Islands"; "Meteorology of the Marshall Islands"; "Emergency Adaptations in Melanesia: Some Practical Suggestions"; "Seaplane Landings in Northern Dutch New Guinea"; "Food and Water Supply in the Marshall Islands"; "Distribution of Diseases in Melanesia"; and "Meteorology of the Caroline Islands."
Unbound pages from an album documenting Silas William Thompson's participation in the United States Navy during World War II, with particular focus on the Battles of Peleliu and Angaur and his time at Base 20 Hospital. The collection includes a group portrait of Company B-8 of the Naval Hospital Corps School, views of Base 20, the invasion of Peleliu and its aftermath, prisoners of war, Palauans on Peleliu and Angaur, and one image of Yap men dancing. Two issues of the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper declaring the Allies' victories in Europe and the Pacific, Navy certificates from the training station and hospital school, and letters from Naval administrators, are also available with the collection.
Biographical/Historical note:
Silas William Thompson was a US Navy medic during the invasions of Angaur and Peleliu during World War II.
Photo Lot 98-32, Silas William Thompson photograph collection relating to Peleliu during World War II, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
