Indians of North America -- California Search this
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Negatives
Photographs
Date:
circa 1900
Scope and Contents note:
Photographs of baskets in the collection of Charles P. Wilcomb. They include Pomo baskets and baskets of the people of Tulare County. The photographs may have been made by a Smithsonian photographer.
Biographical/Historical note:
Charles Presby Wilcomb (1865-1915) was an amateur anthropologist and store owner in New Hampshire and California. Born in The Weirs, New Hampshire, he opened a store in nearby Laconia in 1884, selling both general merchandise and antiques and curios. Four years later, Wilcomb opened two stores in Visalia, California, the latter of which was named Visalia Museum of Curiosities and Nanscawen & C., props. Wilcomb's routine was to summer in New Hampshire, where he collected Colonial artifacts, and winter in California, where he collected artifacts from the California tribes. During this time, he also interviewed Indigenous California people about their traditions and collected representational examples, particularly baskets. Wilcomb became the first curator of the Golden Gate Park Memorial Museum (later the M.H. de Young Museum) when it opened in 1895. He loaned many of his baskets to the museum for its collections, where they remained until the Park commissioners requested their removal in 1904. Unable to convince the commissioners to purchase his "Indian collection," Wilcomb was forced to sell it to Robert Calvin Hall in 1905. No longer with the de Young Museum, Wilcomb curated Hall's entire collection until his death in 1915.
Local Call Number(s):
NAA Photo Lot 73-26F
Location of Other Archival Materials:
Additional photographs of Wilcomb's collection of baskets are held in National Anthropological Archives Photo Lot 24.
The National Anthropological Archives also holds letters from Wilcomb to Otis Tufton Mason regarding baskets (Department of Anthropology records, Manuscript and Pamphlet File) and Mason's papers.
Restrictions:
The collection is open for research.
Access to the collection requires an appointment.
