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Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Date:
1904-2005
bulk 1915-1996
Scope and Contents:
These records document the activities of the American Anthropological Association from 1904 through 2007 (although the majority of the files only date to 1996), with informational content regarding its constitution and by-laws, constitutional changes and ballot voting, dating back to its creation in 1902. The majority of the records consist of correspondence and memoranda, both originals and carbon copies, typed and handwritten. Also included are telegrams, postcards, notes, lists, reports, newspaper clippings, publications, newsletters, articles, receipts, meeting minutes and agendas, programs, expense accounts, budget material, planning schedules and other documents relating to the business of the Association, as well as tape recordings of various AAA program sessions, tape recordings and video tapes regarding interviews and other material pertaining to the Tasaday, tape recordings regarding ethics cases, tape recording for classroom material for the Anthropology Curriculum Study Project, and mainframe computer tapes, computer discs, and printouts regarding the Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology. There are photographs, mostly documenting some of the sessions and attendees at the annual conference in Mexico, 1959, photographs and slides used for special AAA Newsletter themes (under Publication Department files in series 4), and a photograph of Roy Rappaport.
The most extensive documentation including all of the presidential papers, date from 1947, when the newly created Executive Board (established by constitutional changes in 1946) received funds from the Carnegie Corporation of New York City to establish a secretariat headed by an executive secretary (later, executive director). With the creation of the latter office, files were more systematically transferred to and maintained by the organization. With the permanent move of the executive secretary to Washington, DC, in 1959, the records of the organization became more expansive.
Though this guide documents the records in great detail, not all items of information, whether by name, subject, or geographical location has been noted. In addition to locating information through the "find" feature, researchers should search throughout the list of file folders that come within the time frame of inquiry and review those folders that may hold additional information.
Researchers should be cognizant of the fact that there will be accretions to the records of the American Anthropological Association as tranfers are made to the National Anthropological Archives. Documentation about the accretions may reside in separate guides.
American Anthropological Association Organizational Name Index
AAA committees, task forces, and commissions that are well documented include: Administrative Advisory Committee; AIDS Task Force; Anthropology and Archaeological Research in Latin America (including laws and requirements for conducting research in Latin American countries written in Spanish and Portuguese); Anthropology as a Profession; Anthropology Curriculum Study Project; Anthropology Research Services; Archives Committee; Franz Boas Memorial Committee; Committee on Anthropological Research in Museums; Committee on Science in the Promotion of Human Welfare; Committee to Study Research and Ethics (1965-1967), including interviews of anthropologists conducting research in foreign countries and regional areas; Committee on Ethics; Committee on International Cooperation; Committee on Scientific Research; Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology and Committee to Study the Academic Employment of Women in Anthropology; Committee Point IV Manual; Committee for the Recovery of Archaeological Remains; Committee on Scientific Communications; Commission on Lesbian and Gay Issues in Anthropology; Committee on International Cooperation; Congressional Fellowship Program; Environment Task Force; Involuntary Resettlement Task Force; Lurie Commission; Program in Anthropology and Education and Special Teacher Improvement Programs; Program of Visiting Anthropologists; Publication Policy Committee; Task Force on Poverty and Homelessness; and Task Force on Teaching Anthropology.
American Anthropological Association Cases, Issues and Projects of Concern and/or Undertaken by the Association
Franz Boas issue; status of anthropology in the United States government; Alfred Metraux and Argentine indigenous population; Vietnam; reorganization; establishment of a secretariat, executive secretary and executive director; Aswan Dam and sites in "Ancient Nubia"; CIA and anthropological research; Derek Freeman and Margaret Mead controversy; El Paso Natural Gas Company archaeological salvage program; establishment of the Alfred Vincent Kidder award; anthropology and the Graduate Record Examination; anthropology and the military; Baltimore Neighborhood Project; Camelot Project; Bureau of American Ethnology; career pamphlets on anthropology; civil liberties; employment in anthropology; Exxon-Valdez litigation; guides to anthropology departments in the United States; Hollywood "ten"; human rights; Richard G. Morgan (Ohio State Museum) case; move of the secretariat to Washington, DC, and subsequent move of AAA headquarters in DC and Virginia; Navajo/Hopi land dispute; professional freedom; race and intelligence; Peruvian research; resolutions on professional and scientific freedom; River Basin surveys; register of anthropologists; River Valley Archaeology Program; scientific freedom; selected writings from American Anthropologist for special publication; Simon Fraser University (dismissal of faculty members); Morris Swadish (City College of New York) affair; Tasaday issue; Thailand research; University of California loyalty oath and dismissal of 21 faculty members; Viking Fund Medal award; David Webster case (assassination of Webster); and Yanomami (Yonomamo) Indians and human rights violations.
American Anthropological Association Sections, other Anthropology Associations, and Additional Organizations that are well Documented
American Association for the Advancement of Science; American Association of Physical Anthropologists; American Association of University Professors; American Council on Education; American Council of Learned Societies; American Ethnological Society; American Sociological Society; Anthropological Association of Hawaii; Anthropological Society of Washington; Asia Foundation; Carnegie Foundation of New York; Carroll Reece House Congressional Committee to investigate tax exempt foundations; Central States Anthropology Society; Council for Old World Archaeology; Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Division of Anthropology and Psychology, Educational Resources in Anthropology; Indian Land Claims Committee; Indian Service Program; International Congress of Americanists; International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences; International Council of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences; International Directory of Anthropologists; International Society for Psychedelic Anthropology; National Academy of Sciences; National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel; National Institute of Mental Health; National Park Service (environmental research and applied anthropology); National Research Council; National Science Foundation; Program in Ethnographic Film; Smith, Kline and French Laboratories; Social Science Research Council; Society for American Archaeology; Society for the Anthropology of Visual Communications; Society for Applied Anthropology; Society for the History of Anthropology; Society for Medical Anthropology and Group for Medical Anthropology; Society for Psychological Anthropology; Southwestern Anthropological Society; Wenner-Gren Foundation; Western States Branch of AAA; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; Yukon Island Research Reservation.
American Anthropological Association Officers and other Individuals who are Documented or who have Important Correspondence
Aberle, David F.; Adams, Richard; Aginsky, Ethel G; Beals, Ralph Leon; Barnett, Homer Garner; Barr, William; Benedict, Ruth; Bennett, Wendell C.; Berreman, Gerald D. Boas, Franz; Boggs, Stephen T.; Bohannon, Laura; Bohannon, Paul J.; Brew, John Otis; Brumfiel, Elizabeth Margarethe; Byers, Douglas; Carstens, Peter; Casagrande, Joseph; Cault, Allen D.; Chagnon, Napoleon A.; Chapple, Eliot Dismore; Cole, Fay-Cooper; Collier, Donald; Collier, Malcolm; Collier, Malcolm Carr; Conklin, Harold C.; Cooper, John M.; Cornman, John M.; Dobzhansky, Theodosius; Douglass, Andrew Elliott (award for); Du Bois, Cora; Eddy, Elizabeth M.; Eggan, Frederick; Ehrich, Robert W.; Eiseley, Loren C.; Emery, Emil Ernest; Farabee, William Curtis; Fenton, William N.; Flannery, Regina; Forman, Sylvia Helen; Foster, George M.; Frantz, Charles; Freeman, Derek (Freeman-Mead controversy); Friedl, Ernestine; Gearing, Frederick O.; Gifford, Edward W.; Gillin, John P.; Goddard, Pliny E.; Godfrey, Jr., William S.; Godfrey, Richard; Goldschmidt, Walter; Goodenough, Ward H.; Hallowell, Alfred Irving; Haury, Emil Walter; Headland, Thomas N.; Helm, June; Henderson, Eric (use of field notes in Navajo/Hopi land dispute); Hendricks, Glenn L.; Herskovits, Melville, J.; Hill, Willard Williams; Hoebel, E. Adamson; Hoijer, Harry; Howells, William W.; Hsu, Francis K.; Hurwitch, Jan; Hymes, Dell H.; Jenness, Diamond; Jennings, Jesse D.; Jensen, Arthur P.; Johnson, Frederick; Judd, Neil M.; Keesing, Felix M.; Kidder, Alfred Vincent.; Kidder, Alfred V. II; Kluckhorn, Clyde; Knight, Jr., Vic (misuse of AAA name to collect artifacts); Kroeber, Alfred Louis; Laguna, Frederica de; Leakey, L. S. B. (1959 visit to United States); Lehman, Edward J.; Lessa, William A.; Lewis, Oscar (problem with Children of Sanchez); Linton, Ralph; Lowie, Robert H.; Lurie, Nancy Oestreich; MacCurdy, George Grant; Manners, Robert A.; Marshall, Donald S.; Maruyama, Magorah; Mason, J. Alden; Mead, Margaret; Meggers, Betty J.; Mendelbaum, David; Merwin, B. W.; Modiano, Nancy; Moorhead, Evelyn; Moorhead, Warren K.; Moran, Emilio F.; Moses, Yolanda T.; Murdock, George P.; Murra, John Victor; Nader, Laura; Noon, John A.; Nusbaum, Jesse L.; Olmsted, David; Opler, Morris Edward; Osgood, Cornelius B.; Parsons, Elsie Clews; Rappaport, Roy Abraham; Reining, Conrad C.; Roberts, Jr., Frank H. H.; Rouse, (Benjamin) Irving; Sapir, Edward; Schneider, David; Setzler, Frank Mary; Shapiro, Harry L.; Spicer, Edward H.; Spier, Leslie; Spindler, George; Spoehr, Alexander; Sterud, Eugene L.; Steward, Julian H.; Stocking, George; Stout, David B.; Strong, William Duncan; Swanton, John Reed; Tax, Sol; Textor, Robert B.; Tozzer, Alfred M.; Underhill, Ruth M.; Voegelin, Carl F.; Voegelin, Erminie Wheeler; Vogt, Evon Z.; Wallace, Anthony F. C.; Wagley, Charles; Wallach, Irving A.; Ward, Lauriston; Washburn, Sherwood Larned; Weidman, Hazel H.; Weitzer, Bella; Weltfish, Gene; White, Leslie A.; Wissler, Clark; Woodbury, Nathalie, F. S.; Woodbury, Richard B.
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:
American Anthropological Association Development and Creation of a Secretariat
Most of early American anthropology focused on indigenous Native Americans and can be traced back to 1784 when Thomas Jefferson carried out stratigraphic excavations of the Indian mounds on his land in Virginia. Jefferson's interest continued and was strongly reflected when as President he instructed Meriwether Lewis (Corps of Discovery Expedition also known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806) to record the names of the nations he encountered along with their numbers, languages, traditions, laws and customs.
Local ethnological and anthropological associations were later established, such as the American Ethnological Society (AES), founded in New York, 1842, and the Anthropological Society of Washington (ASW), created in Washington, DC, 1879. Anthropology as a national science was recognized in 1882, when the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) created a Section (H) for Anthropology. By 1896, the community of anthropologists began informal discussions regarding the establishment of a national organization. These discussions were held among members of the AES and the ASW, while informal talks (sanctioned by the AAAS) were held by Section H members on establishing a national group. At the Section H meeting a decision was reached between those members who wanted a national organization and those who were concerned about diverting attention and support away from the AAAS. With formal approval by the AAAS, Section members of the Association began holding their own winter meetings, separate from the AAAS annual conference, which continued through 1901-1902.
With national leadership coming from the Anthropological Society of Washington and the American Ethnological Society, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) was formed and incorporated in Washington, DC, in 1902. Two major compromises were reached. The Anthropological Society of Washington discontinued publishing the American Anthropologist and surrendered the journal name. The new journal would be called the American Anthropologist, New Series, and would be edited by representatives of all anthropological sections in the United States and Canada. This journal began publication in January 1899. The second agreement concerned whether the national organization should be opened to anyone interested in anthropology (W. J. McGee) or should only constitute professional anthropologists (Franz Boas). The matter was settled when it was decided that membership would be opened to anyone, but that control of the organization would reside in the hands of a council composed of professional members, only.
The AAA was designed to promote the science of anthropology, stimulate and coordinate efforts of American anthropologists, support local and other societies devoted to anthropology, publish and encourage publications regarding anthropology, and conduct and support research. In a revised constitution approved by the Association in December 1902, research support was dropped. The AAA grew by assisting in the development of regional associations, authorizing the creation of a Central States Branch (1921) and the Pacific Division (1929), and increasing its affiliation with existing local organizations such as the Philadelphia Anthropological Society in 1935.
Around the close of World War II, a water-shed event occurred in the development of the Association's administration that stongly supported its ability to maintain historical and administrative records in a more permanent and cohesive fashion. Starting with the May 1945 meeting of the Society for American Archaeology held at the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC, and continuing through the year, several groups of concerned anthropologists began discussing the need to find a way to provide greater support for its professional members. These anthropologists also discussed what they felt was a failure on the part of the American Anthropological Association to maximize its usefulness for the members and carry out specific projects that were desired. They questioned whether the causes were due to a lack of effective operational means. Meetings were held during the summer at the National Research Council (NRC) and again, later in the year, in Washington, DC. Additional anthropologists met at other meetings and a proposal was drafted to create an organization that represented professional anthropologists. Correspondence between Ralph L. Beals, Julian H. Steward, Margaret Mead, Theodore D. McCowan, Homer C. Barnett, Luther S. Cressman, Frank M. Setzler, and William Duncan Strong voiced a need for a new anthropological association, one that represented all areas of anthropology, supported post-war anthropological projects, coordinated activities between anthropologists and the federal government, cooperated with the various councils where anthropologists had representation, developed teaching standards in anthropology, and created employment standards for anthropologists. They drafted a constitution for such an organization. Others within this circle of correspondents wanted to reorganize the AAA.
The leadership of the AAA responded to the call for reform. During the annual meeting held on December 28, 1945, attendees voted to appoint a Committee of Nine (later called the Reorganizing Committee) to ascertain the views of the professional members of the AAA, affiliated societies and local groups, regarding proposals to reorganize the AAA, establish a secretariat, and to find additional ways to further professional interests. The Committee's findings and recommendations were to be issued to the entire profession within two months before the 1946 annual meeting. Julian H. Steward was appointed chairman.
To meet the needs of those anthropologists who wanted a greater professional organization, the AAA adopted a new constitution at the winter meeting of 1946. Two classes of membership, members and fellows, were created. Anyone was eligible to become a member, but without voting privileges. To become a fellow (voting member), one had to meet certain requirements, which included a degree in anthropology, a publication(s) in the field of anthropology, or a doctorate in an allied field and being actively engaged in anthropology. An Executive Council was created. Only fellows could vote for Council members, elect officers, and vote on other business matters. The Association's Council was the final authority. From its membership were elected the president, vice-president (later, president-elect), and an Executive Board (replacing the Executive Committee). The Board voted on the selection of fellows. While the Council met once a year at the annual meeting, the Board was given the authority to meet whenever it deemed necessary. The Board received its own operating budget. It was given broad powers to act quickly and authoritatively, so that issues and actions required by the profession would be reviewed and voted upon in a timely fashion. The Board could create and disband task forces and appoint a secretary and treasurer. It could not amend the constitution and by-laws.
While the revised constitution made the organization more supportive of and controlled by professional anthropologists and created a more dynamic executive branch, the Council also approved 14 major topics recommended by the Committee on Reorganization. Within those broad topics, the Council asked the Executive Board to study 35 objectives and activities. As for a permanent secretariat, the Council felt that while it could serve the profession it was unrelated to the immediate needs of the organization; that financing it should not be a problem faced for the present time and "should not prejudice the proposals concerning organization."
President Clyde Kluckhorn and the Executive Board realized that they would not be able to evaluate all the proposals and or begin the activities approved by Council, regardless of its members' individual goodwill. The AAA urgently needed an executive secretary. At the request of the Board, Kluckhorn wrote Charles Dollard at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, asking for funds to hire an executive secretary full-time for the first year and half-time for two more years, and for a salaried full-time typist-clerk for twenty-nine months. Their work and responsibilities would include the re-integration of the sub-sciences of anthropology and increasing the strategic value of anthropology as a discipline where the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences met. If the grant was awarded the Executive Board's choice for the position would be Erminie Voegelin. Kluckhorn then enumerated some of the recommendations voted by Council. Not wanting to take any chances, Kluckhorn wrote a personal letter to his friend Dollard that same day. On June 12, 1947, Dollard notified Kluckhorn that the officers of the Corporation took a very "sympathetic" view of the Association and agreed to commit the requested funds. A formal follow-up letter from the secretary would confirm the action. The funds were to be used from August 1, 1947 until December 31, 1949. When the grant was concluded, funds were committed by the AAA for a part-time executive secretary, with limited staff, until 1959, when the position once again became full-time.
From 1947 until 1959, the executive secretariat received support from the local institution where the position resided: Indiana University (Bloomington), Phillips Academy, and Beloit College. In 1959, the executive secretariat moved to Washington, DC, which became the permanent home for the Association. There, the position was funded full-time. The offices were first located at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, without cost. When the AAA lost its quarters in 1967 to the expanding needs of its host, the Association moved its offices to a permanent structure on New Hampshire Avenue. In 1993, the AAA moved to Arlington, Virginia.
American Anthropological Association: History of its Archives and an Archives for the Papers of Anthropologists
Beginning with the creation of an executive secretariat, the AAA became interested in trying to retrieve as much of its early history as possible. Calls went out from the executive secretary and president for the transfer of task force material and papers of past presidents. In addition, from 1957 through 1972, the organization officially began looking at the need to provide support for unpublished anthropological records, repositories to house them, and the question of what do with its own accumulation of records.
On April 24, 1957, the Executive Board delegated the president to appoint a committee to collaborate on the preservation of primary records. This interest appears to have come from the AAA's membership in the Committee of Primary Records, which was established in the Division of Anthropology and Psychology located within the NRC of the National Academy of Sciences. Sol Tax was appointed chairman of the Special Committee on the Preservation of Primary Records. The Committee met in Chicago, February 17-18, 1958, drafted a tentative report, and sent it to a few selected fellows for comment and suggestions. The fellows approved the recommendations and the Committee issued the draft as a final report. One recommendation was that the AAA should publish an international directory of primary sources, to continue serially with the assumption that it would report on institutional holdings and perhaps major personal collections. The Executive Board approved the report on April 25, 1958 and had it forwarded to the NRC for its consideration with an informal note that a tentative editor for the publication had been selected. At the following Board meeting, the Committee was terminated.
Formal discussions regarding the topic of what to do with research material created by anthropologists was again taken up by the Board in 1962. At the Board's next meeting, May 13-14, 1963, the Publication Policy Committee reported on the first day that its mission was to publish research findings from the conclusion of the work until the dissemination of the information. The following day Board member Joseph Casagrande reported that the issues he was concerned with, the location and preservation of field notes, papers, and other documents, were "intimately" related to the recommendations made by the Publication Policy Committee. He wanted to pursue the problem with a small committee through conversations with the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). The Board agreed and suggested that Margaret Blaker, archivist at the Bureau of American Ethnology [the BAE later merged with the Department of Anthropology and the BAE archives became the National Anthropological Archives], be contacted as a good resource person. At the November 1963 Board meeting, Casagrande reported that he was planning to form an ad hoc group after an initial discussion with the SSRC, which would meet once or twice to formulate a proposal to the Council.
Within the body of the AAA's records there appears to be no continuity between the various initiatives undertaken regarding what to do with primary source material of anthropologists as well as the Association's own records. At the November 1966 Board meeting, editor Ward Goodenough proposed publishing Anthropological Documents to make available anthropological research data so it could be used by fellow scientists. During the meeting of the Board in May 1967, its members discussed the possibility of forming another committee on archives. Executive Secretary Charles Frantz stated that he had written to several members to see if they would be interested in forming a committee to inventory and perhaps centralize documents about the Association and individual anthropologists. Several responded enthusiastically and it was suggested that the American Philosophical Society might fund such a committee. The Board endorsed the recommendation and asked that Frantz continue his correspondence with interested persons.
Franz resigned from the AAA around August 1968 and Conrad C. Reining became secretary later that year (he was eventually given the title executive secretary). In October 1968, the Executive Board formed an Archives Committee. Its mission was to develop policy and procedures for the conservation and use of documents of value to the profession. Reining served as the acting chair. By November 1968, Reining reported to the Board that he had formed a committee. He found that the archives in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution adequate for the purposes proposed in a resolution that would be brought before the Council meeting. Later that month the Council adopted a resolution urging anthropologists to consider the NAA as the repository for their field notes, reports and professional papers if no other arrangements had been made for preservation of such materials.
The question before Council was whether the National Anthropological Archives should be considered the repository of choice for anthropologists, if no other arrangements were made with other archival programs. Before Council made its decision there was some concern about the selection of the NAA. At one point during the discussion, Reining considered the Library of Congress. Informal and formal discussions were held with Smithsonian staff and members of the Department of Anthropology. Saul Riesenberg, chairman of the Department of Anthropology, was sent a copy of the draft resolution and was asked if his office was prepared to undertake the task involved. The draft resolution, he wrote, had been discussed and agreed upon, and expansion of the Department's Archives was being contemplated.
The Committee on Archives, now chaired by Sturtevant, met in May 1969 at the Department of Anthropology in the National Museum of Natural History. One major outcome of the meeting was the decision that all files of the Association, prior to 1959, would be transferred to the NAA as long as they would be accessible to the AAA and could be reclaimed with the proviso that the Archives be allowed to microfilm any files reclaimed. Reining would provide an inventory of the contents of the Association's files; and Sturtevant would draft a recommendation to the Board on management and preservation of official or copies of records of current and future officers, and draft a letter for Cora Du Bois requesting ex-presidents contribute their papers still in their possession.
During the following month Secretary Conrad C. Reining transferred 12 feet of records stored in file drawers, along with a content list, to the NAA archivist Margaret C. Blaker. Before she would accession them, Blaker requested a formal ruling by the Board transferring the records to the NAA. She provided suggested points to Reining for the Board to consider in a resolution at the New Orleans annual meeting later in the year. It was not approved. Instead, the Board wanted to know why it was considering Blaker's recommendations and not their own. They were more concerned about having their own personal remarks placed on record and having them quoted than approving the recommendations.
In February 1970, Stocking wrote Reining that files dating from 1917 to 1957 had been sent to the NAA. The Board was supposed to have developed a transfer form for a lawyer to review, which was then to be forwarded to Pilling to send on for comment by an archivist he knew at his university. Stocking wanted to know where the matter stood. There was no response. On July 19, 1971, Charles Wagley (AAA president) wrote Stocking that the Executive Board voted at its May 1971 meeting to discharge the Archives Committee. The new AAA executive secretary, Edward J. Lehman, wrote Stocking in August that the Committee, as well as several others, were dismissed due to a deficit in funds, and, because of that, the Finance Committee had recommended that committees which had not been active be dismissed.
The Board did not take up a resolution regarding its records at the San Diego meeting in 1970, nor the following year in New York City. Blaker updated her recommendations to be considered for a resolution in October 1971. Those recommendations were basically what the Board wrote in its resolution in May 1972, establishing the NAA as the permanent repository for its records. The deposit was permanent and was not to be withdrawn under any circumstances unless the AAA established its own archives. The action was concluded after Blaker retired.
With the 1972 resolution, the American Anthropological Association officially concluded its long historical discussion regarding its recognition of the importance of anthropologists maintaining their materials, the importance of its own records, and the availability and value of the National Anthropological Archives to the anthropology community.
Related Materials:
There are over twenty-five collections in the National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives that document various aspects of the American Anthropological Association. Researchers should work with the reference archivist in finding this material. NAA also houses the records of the following AAA sections:
American Ethnological Society
Association for Feminist Anthropology
Central States Anthropological Society
Council for Museum Anthropology
Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges
Society for Cultural Anthropology
Society for Humanistic Anthropology
Society for Medical Anthropology
Society for Visual Anthropology
NAA is also the repository for the following anthropological societies whose activities are documented in the records of AAA:
Society for American Archaeology
Society for Applied Anthropology
Below is a selected list of collections, not housed at NAA, documenting individuals who played a prominent role in the activities of AAA:
Homer Garner Papers, 1937-1986, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon
Ruth Benedict Papers, 1905-1948, Archives and Special Collections, Vassar College
Alfred Irving Hallowell Papers, American Mss. Coll. 26, Philosophical Society
E. Adamson Hoebel Papers, 1925-1993, Mss. Coll. 43, American Philosophical Society
Dell H. Hymes Papers, 1947-1992, American Philosophical Society
Frederick Johnson Papers, 1948-1968, Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles
Alfred Louis Kroeber papers, 1869-1972, Bancroft Library
John Alden Mason Papers, 1904-1967, MSS.B.M384, American Philosophical Society
Morris Edward Opler Papers, #14-25-3238, Division of Rare Books and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Libraries
Elsie Clews Parsons papers, 1880-1980, Mss. Ms.Coll. 29, American Philosophical Society
Provenance:
Records were transferred from the American Anthropological Association to the National Anthropological Archives. The three last subseries of presidential papers (series 1) were donated directly from the creator or their heirs to NAA.
Restrictions:
At the 71st meeting of the Executive Board, May 1972, the Board adopted the motion authorizing transfer of the American Anthropological Association archives to the National Anthropological Archives. By definition all records created by elected and appointed offices, or committee members of AAA, while acting in an official capacity were records of the Association. No records less than five years old were to be deposited, and no records less than ten years old were open for scholarly use, except by Association officers, or when otherwise stated. All records would be open to use after 50 years from date of creation. The American Anthropological Association gave literary property rights to the public. Researchers will need to review restrictions that may apply to presidential papers.
All Exxon-Valdez folders located in series 4, subseries 4, "Committee on Ethics," are closed until further notification from the State of Alaska, Department of Law.
Access to the American Anthropological Association records requires an appointment.
Leimgruber, Peter. 2007. "Case Study 9.1: Monitoring land cover change in Myanmar's protected areas." In Sourcebook on Remote Sensing and Biodiversity Indicators.. Strand, H., Höft, R., Strittholt, J., Miles, L., Horning, N., and Fosnight, E., editors. 135–137. Montreal: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
151 commercial stereographs depicting scenes of South Asia. Sources include Underwood and Underwood Publishers; Ricalton; H.C. White Co.; American Stereoscopic Co. and Keystone View Co. Collectively this is a nearly complete complement of photographs of India taken by James Ricalton.
Local Numbers:
E591
FSA A2014.06 2.S
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the National Museum of Asian Art's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Genre/Form:
Stereoscopic photographs
Stereographs
Collection Citation:
Robert J. Del Bonta Collection, FSA A2014.06. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Jacques Seligmann & Co. records, 1904-1978, bulk 1913-1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Processing of the collection was funded by the Getty Grant Program; digitization of the collection was funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Glass plate negatives in this collection were digitized in 2019 with funding provided by the Smithsonian Women's Committee.
(resume/artist biography; photocopy of letter to Samuel Carabajal, from Msgr. A. Lanzoni, Department Head, Secretariat of State, the Vatican, 09/05/1981; clipping)
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Use requires an appointment and is limited to the Washington, D.C. research facility.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Tomás Ybarra-Frausto research material, 1965-2004. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.5 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material. Also found is a motion picture film documenting a mural/mosaic project that Packard did with the children at Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco, 1956.
Scope and Contents note:
The Emmy Lou Packard papers measure 9.5 linear feet and date from 1900 to 1990, and focus on the career of painter, printmaker, muralist, and sculptor Emmy Lou Packard. Also found are extensive materials relating to Packard's personal and professional relationship with muralist Diego Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo, with whom Packard lived for one year in Mexico. Papers include correspondence, financial records, notes, writings, exhibition files, photographs, and printed material.
Biographical materials include resumes, personal forms, and certificates. Correspondence is with family, friends, and colleagues, including muralist Anton Refregier, songwriter Malvina Reynolds, and composer John Edmunds. There is one letter from Dorothea Lange. Also found is correspondence with various political and arts organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Russian magazine Soviet Woman. Much of the correspondence discusses personal relationships and political and art-related activities. Additional correspondence with and concerning Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo is arranged in Series 6.
Personal business records found within the papers include studio real estate and rent records, insurance records, price lists for artwork, consignment records, and miscellaneous receipts. There is one interview transcript of an interview with Packard for the Radical Elders Oral History Project. The papers include a series of notebooks/diaries, address lists, and other notes.
Packard's reference files and personal papers documenting her professional and close personal relationship with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo are arranged into a separate series. They include her research files for a planned book on the two artists, personal letters between Packard and the couple, as well as several interesting photographs. Also found in this series are notes, writings, and printed materials relating to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other Mexican artists, such as Covarrubius, Juan O'Gorman, and Pablo O'Higgins.
The collection also includes typescripts and additional writings by Packard and others. Artwork consists of orginal drawings and prints by Packard and others not directly associated with projects. Exhibition and project files for many of Packard's commissioned projects are also found within the collection, including her files for the restoration of Anton Refregier's Rincon Annex Post Office mural in San Francisco and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco. Many of the project files contain correspondence, reports, contracts, printed material, photographs, and artwork. Also found is a motion picture film documenting a mural/mosaic project that Packard did with the children at Hillcrest Elementary School in San Francisco, 1956.
The papers also include photographs of Packard, her family, residences, artwork, friends, and colleagues, including Cesar Chavez, Juan O'Gorman, Malvina Reynolds, Charles Safford, Ralph Stackpole, and Tennessee Williams. Two scrapbooks are found, as well as additional printed materials such as clippings and exhibition announcements and catalogs. There are also two artifact items, a vinyl record of Malvina Reynolds and a political campaign button.
Arrangement note:
The collection is arranged into 15 series.
Series 1: Biographical Material, 1942-1985 (Box 1; 1 folder)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1919-1990 (Box 1-3; 2.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Personal Business Records, 1945-1985 (Box 3; 21 folders)
Series 4: Interview Transcript, 1979 (Box 3; 1 folder)
Series 5: Notes, 1900-1985 (Box 3-4, 10; 1.1 linear feet)
Series 6: Reference Files on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, 1929-1986 (Box 5, 10, OV 11; 0.9 linear feet)
Series 7: Writings by Packard, 1953-1984 (Box 6; 17 folders)
Series 8: Writings by Others, 1955-1984 (Box 6; 19 folders)
Series 9: Artwork, 1921-1976 (Box 6; 10 folders)
Series 10: Exhibition Files, 1950-1964 (Box 6, OV 11; 5 folders)
Series 11: Project Files, 1953-1985 (Box 6-7, 10, OV 11; 1.8 linear feet)
Series 12: Photographs, 1914-1982 (Box 8, 10; 0.8 linear feet)
Series 13: Scrapbooks, 1947-1950 (Box 8, 10; 0.2 linear feet)
Series 14: Printed Material, 1936-1988 (Box 8-9, 10; 1.0 linear foot)
Series 15: Artifacts, 1984 (Box 9-10, OV 11; 2 folders)
Biographical/Historical note:
Emmy Lou Packard was born in Imperial Valley, California on April 15, 1914, to Walter and Emma Leonard Packard. In the late 1920s she lived with her family in Mexico City where she became acquainted with Diego Rivera, from whom she received regular art criticism and encouragement. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and completed courses in fresco and sculpture at the California School of Fine Arts in 1940. That year and the next, Packard worked as a full-time painting assistant to Rivera on his 1,650 square-foot fresco at the World's Fair in San Francisco. During this project, Packard became very close to Rivera and Frida Kahlo and returned to Mexico with them and spent a year living with the couple.
From then on, except for in 1944-1945 working for a defense plant, Packard worked and grew in various aspects of her art. In addition to her work in fresco, Packard is known for her work in watercolor, oil, mosaic, laminated plastic, concrete, and printmaking, both in linocuts and woodblocks. She received numerous commissions that included installations for ships, hotels, and private homes for which she executed large woodcuts and mural panels. During the 1950s and 1960s, Packard was hired to restore several historic murals, most notably the Rincon Annex Post Office mural by Anton Refregier and the Coit Tower murals in San Francisco.
Between 1966 and 1967 she was commissioned by architects to design and execute a number of concrete and mosaic pieces, one of which went to the Mirabeau Restaurant in Kaiser Center, Oakland. She also designed and executed a mural for the Fresno Convention Center Theater during that same period. In 1973-1974, she designed and supervised a glazed brick mural for a public library in Pinole, California.
Packard had one-woman shows at the San Francisco Museum of Art, Raymond and Raymond Gallery (San Francisco), Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Mass.), Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, Pushkin Museum (Moscow), and March Gallery (Chicago). Emmy Lou Packard died in 1998.
Related Archival Materials note:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Emmy Lou Packard conducted by Mary Fuller McChesney in 1964.
Provenance:
Emmy Lou Packard donated her papers to the Archives of American Art from 1984-1988. An additional 16mm reel of motion picture film donated in 2023 by Donald Cairns, Packard's son.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Occupation:
Painters -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Sculptors -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Muralists -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Topic:
Printmakers -- California -- San Francisco Search this
Mural painting and decoration, American Search this
Mural painting and decoration, Mexican Search this
