1927.
Price: $7,500.00
Hardcover. A group of 97 photographs taken by Thomas Dale Stewart and his associates in Alaska while on an expedition to study the Cup'it Eskimos. Most are approximately 4" x 6", many are captioned on the verso. Thomas Dale Stewart, a protégée of Aleš Hrdlicka, was one of the founders of modern forensic anthropology. He attended George Washington and Johns Hopkins, and began work for the Smithsonian Department of Anthropology in 1924. In 1927, he went to Alaska to work with Henry Collins, primarily on Nunivak Island, Nash Harbor, and Cape Etolin in the Bering Sea, some of the most isolated places in Alaska, to study and measure the people and make excavations in the area of the Nunivak Island Cup'it Eskimos, the first time anthropologists had studied the area in any detail. Their measurements of 180 living Eskimos, and 178 skulls was published by Hrdlicka. Stewart was later appointed Head Curator of the Department of Anthropology, and later Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. He did important work on anthropometry, early man, and forensic anthropology, and later was the primary consultant to the FBI for forensic anthropology.
The breakdown of the photographs is as follows: 36 anthropological studies of Eskimos, each captioned; 20 on the sites of the diggings showing skulls, campsite, etc.; 25 images of the general area of the diggings; 14 images of native peoples in general scenes, working and in their village; two walrus photos - one of a dead walrus, the other of an elaborately carved tusk. Other than the anthropological studies, most of the images are uncaptioned.
Also included is a postcard of the boat from Henry Collins to Stewart dated in 1929, presumably in the Bering Sea, "does this remind you of the smell of Akutan? We are waiting as usual here in Unalaska. Think I'll climb Pyramid Mt. maybe tomorrow. Good luck with the Pueblo skulls. HBC." Also included is a Typed Letter Signed addressed to Stewart in 1930 from Joseph Sweetman Ames, the President of Johns Hopkins, announcing Stewart has been named the "Franklin P. Mall Scholar in Anatomy." This archive of photographs appears to be unpublished and not held in the National Anthropolgy Archive, and are an early and important source of Stewart and Collins's work in Alaska.
Item #394481
