National Anthropological Archives and Human Studies Film Archives

James H. Wallace is a photographer and the director of the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Printing and Photographic Services. The prints, made privately by Wallace, show a demonstration before White House.

DATE: 1976

QUANTITY: 14 prints

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 80-5

RODMAN WANAMAKER COLLECTION

Between 1908 and 1913, Rodman Wanamaker, son of a Philadelphia department store owner, sponsored three expeditions to the American Indians. These were photographic expeditions intended to document a passing way of life and make the Indian "first-class citizens" to save them from extinction. Joseph K. Dixon was the photographer. On the first expedition, he made many portraits and captured scenes of Indian life. The expedition climaxed on the Crow Reservation with the filming of a motion picture about Hiawatha. The second expedition in 1909 involved a motion filming a reenactment of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. In 1913, Wanamaker sponsored the groundbreaking for a National Memorial to the First Americans on Staten Island. The monument was never built. The third expedition, the "Expedition of Citizenship," also took place in 1913. For it, the American flag was carried to many tribes, and their members were invited to sign a declaration of allegiance to the United States.

These large bromide prints were presentation photographs, such collections having been placed in several museums. Mostly, the subjects are Blackfeet, Cheyennes, Crows, Dakotas, and other northern plains tribes. Dixon's negatives are at the Mathers Museum of Indiana University.

DATES: 1908-1913

QUANTITY: 154 prints

ARRANGEMENT: By United States National Museum catalog number

FINDING AID: List; reference slides; included in SIRIS.

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 64

PARIS STUDIO OF HERBERT WARD (1863-1919)

Herbert Ward was an English explorer, once in the service of the Congo Free State and a member of Henry M. Stanley's Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. Inclined toward art as a youth, he studied in Paris after his explorations. Around 1899, he studied sculpting in Paris and, with missionary zeal, began to create bronzes of Africans and African life, interpreting them for the European. In his studio, he assembled the bronzes and "a great collection of curios, a collection second only to that of the King of the Belgians." The photographs show that collection.

Ward's bronzes and artifacts are now part of the African collection of the Smithsonian's Department of Anthropology.

DATE: 1911

QUANTITY: 24 prints

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 75-52

WARING, ANTONIO JOHNSTON, JR. (1915-1964), Papers

Antonio J. Waring was trained at Yale University (B.A. in English, 1938; M.D., 1942). He practiced pediatrics in Savannah, Georgia, until 1962, when he retired to devote more time to archeology.

Waring's interest in archeology began when he was a teenager and continued through museum studies at college. A strong influence on him were several notable archeologists working in Georgia Work Projects Administration (WPA) during the late 1930s. In 1938, under Joseph R. Caldwell, he worked at Irene Mound. In 1939, under William H. Sears, he worked at Kolomoki and, under Lewis H. Larsen, at Etowah. With guidance from Preston Holder, he carried out excavations at the Deptford site in 1937 and the Bilbo site in 1939. In 1947, he excavated the Refuge site in South Carolina near Savannah. He also had an interest in site of coastal Georgia. Later in his life, he worked with Robert S. Neitzel at the Fatherland site near Natchez, Mississippi. Just before his death, he was working on Fort McAlister, a Civil War site near Richmond Hill, Georgia.

Stephen Williams points out that Waring was interested in two broad problems in Southeastern archeology. One was the late Archaic culture of the region, and the other was the so-called "Southern Cult" of the late prehistoric Southeast (American Antiquity, 31:4 (1966), 551).

The papers reflect much of Waring's archeological field work and includes material on the Southern Cult. There is also material on the history of Georgia archeology. Correspondents include Douglas S. Byers, Joseph Caldwell, Charles H. Fairbanks, James B. Griffin, Preston Holder, Earnest A. Hooton, Frederick Johnson, Arthur R. Kelly, T.M.N. Lewis, Kenneth Orr, Irving Rouse, John H. Rowe, William Duncan Strong, George C. Vaillant, Clarence H. Webb, William S. Webb, and Gordon R. Willey.

DATE: 1930s-1950s

QUANTITY: 1.4 linear meters (4.5 linear feet)

ARRANGEMENT: Subject files

FINDING AID: List by Stephen Williams

WASHBURN, WILCOMB, Documents from Indian Claims Cases

(Washburn's own papers are in the Smithsonian Institution Archives).

FIELD PORTRAIT OF WALDO RUDOLPH WEDEL AND GEORGE S. METCALF

The two Smithsonian archeologists are examining the Hayes "Council Circle" site in Rice County, Kansas. John Saylor, of the Lyons [Kansas] Daily News, probably took the photograph.

DATE: 1970

QUANTITY: 1 print

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 58

WEDEL, WALDO RUDOLPH (1908- ), AND MILDRED MOTT WEDEL (1912-1995), Papers

Waldo R. Wedel attended Bethel College, Newton, Kansas; the University of Arizona (B.A., 1930); University of Nebraska (M.A., 1931); and University of California (Ph.D., 1936). At Nebraska, he was a student of William Duncan Strong, who trained him in Plains archeology and introduced him to the direct historical approach (which Wedel himself named). Although his chief mentor at California was Alfred L. Kroeber, the ecological ideas of geographer Carl Saur strongly influenced him.

During 1930-1933, Wedel went through an apprenticeship with Strong at Signal Butte, in the Loup River Valley, and in eastern Nebraska. In late spring, 1933, he worked at Medicine Creek in Frontier County, Nebraska, for the Nebraska Historical Society. After he received his Ph.D., he worked in Nebraska again, collecting pottery for the Gila Pueblo Foundation.

After this, Wedel began to concentrate on a survey of his native Kansas, a region little known archeologically. Excavating as needed, studying surface finds and local collections, and employing aerial photography, he sketched the prehistory of Kansas in broad outlines filled with some detail. A major theme of that study was the influence of the environment on human life in Kansas, including its effect on the movement of people in and out of the region. Partially through these outside influences and partially through his broader interest in Plains prehistory, Wedel also worked in neighboring states.

The Kansas survey began during the field seasons of 1937 and 1938 with work in the northeastern part of the state. He excavated an old Kansa site near Kansas City, worked along the Missouri River bluffs above the city, and worked in the Kansas River valley near Manhattan, Kansas. He also excavated a Hopewell site in Platte County, Missouri. Then, following up reports of ancient finds in Colorado, he turned to caves near Pueblo, reconnoitered along the Purgatoire River and Chacuaco-Plum Canyon in Las Animas County, and examined open sites in Baca County. In 1939, Wedel worked in Scott and Lane counties in western Kansas and continued his survey in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the state. In 1940, he continued the survey in Rice and Cowley counties.

In the summer of 1946, Wedel was detailed to establish and direct the Missouri Basin Project (MPB) of the Bureau of American Ethnology River Basin Survey (RBS). He continued as director until 1950, with details each summer to the MBP headquarters in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1951, he was detailed to excavate an Arikara Village in the Oahe Reservoir area near Pierre, South Dakota. In 1954, he examined archeological sites in Kansas and observed the effect of severe drought in the state. In 1955 and 1957, he worked at Cheyenne River Village in Stanley County, South Dakota. In the latter year, he excavated two earth lodge villages in Stanley County (39ST203 and 39ST50).

In 1961 and 1962, Wedel began work at the Lamb Spring site near Littleton, Colorado. In the summers of 1965 and 1966, he excavated a Wichita Indian village in Rice County, Kansas, concentrating mainly on so-called council circles. In 1967, he again worked at central Kansas village sites with a particular interest in so-called council circles. He reconnoitered portions of southwestern Kansas and the Oklahoma-Texas panhandles in 1970. During the following year, he excavated the Tobias village site near Lyons, Rice County, Kansas. In 1973, he made test excavations in Chalk Hollow, a tributary of the Palo Duro Canyon in Texas. In 1974, he carried out ethnobotanical investigations in central Kansas and also studied the pipe-making industry of that region. During the same year, he surveyed Caddo village sites along the Red River in Texas and Oklahoma.

From his rich and varied experience in Plains archeology, Wedel produced several books. In 1936, he published his Master's thesis as An Introduction to Pawnee Archeology, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 112, 1936. In 1959 he produced Introduction to Kansas Archeology, BAE Bulletin 174, 1959, which one archeologist has described as the culmination of his survey in Kansas. In 1961 appeared his synthesis of Plains prehistory in Prehistoric Man on the Great Plains; and in 1986, he produced Central Plains Prehistory: Holocene Environments and Culture Changes in the Republican River Basin.

Other than Plains archeology, Wedel worked in widely separated places. As a student at the University of California, he joined a Laboratory of Anthropology field school session led by Ralph Linton. It was devoted to basic ethnographic work among Comanche Indians around Walters, Oklahoma. As a student, he also carried out archeological investigations in the Bay Area of California. In 1933-1934, he joined Strong and Winslow Walker's Civil Works Administration-Bureau of American Ethnology expedition to Kern County, California. With E.F. Walker, he was in charge of excavations at Buena Vista Lake. In the 1930s, after moving to Washington, D.C., he became involved in the Potomac River area, working at a site near Seneca in Montgomery County, Maryland, and, with T. Dale Stewart, at the village of Nacotchtanke (Anacostia) at Bolling Air Force Base, District of Columbia. On weekends in 1938 and 1939, he carried out site surveys in the Potomac Valley. His interest in local archeology continued in his work with amateur archeologists.

During the winter of 1938-1939, Wedel reconnoitered the Holton River drainage area near Saltville, Virginia. In 1943, he joined a Smithsonian-National Geographic Society expedition to La Venta, Mexico, where Matthew W. Stirling continued his work on Olmec culture. In 1963, he became a consultant to the Mummy Cave Project of the Whitney Gallery of Western Art.

Except early work for the Nebraska Historical Society and Gila Pueblo Foundation, Wedel's institutional affiliation has been with the Smithsonian Institution. In 1936, he was appointed assistant curator under Curator Neil M. Judd in the United States National Museum Division of Archeology. He was made associate curator in 1942. During World War II, he was detailed for a brief period to the Quartermaster Corps Military Planning Division, analyzing captured foreign materiel. In 1950, he was named curator of archeology, and in 1962, he became head curator of the Department of Anthropology. In 1964-1965, he was acting head of the newly organized Smithsonian Office of Anthropology. He became Senior Archeologist in 1965. In 1977, he retired and was appointed curator emeritus.

Like most curators of his day, Wedel was heavily involved in museum work, including the acquisition, cataloging, and storage of specimens. He was also in charge of archeological exhibits during the 1950s renovation of the United States National Museum exhibits.

Wedel served as secretary of the Society for American Archaeology in 1940 and became its president in 1948-1949 and again in 1951-1952. He was president of the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1951-1952 and chairman of the 20th Plains Conference at Lincoln in 1962. In 1965, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 1967, he was chairman of the symposium on Plains Caddoan origins, and he was president of the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1968. In 1968-1970, he was president of the Board of Directors of the Plains Anthropologist.

Wedel received honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska in 1962 and from Kansas State University in 1986. The Society for American Archaeology awarded him its Distinguished Service Award in 1986.

Mildred Mott was trained in history at the University of Iowa (A.B. , 1934) and in anthropology with an emphasis on archeology at the University of Chicago (M.A., 1938). She continued at Chicago until 1940. While in school, she worked at the University of New Mexico Jemez Field School and the University of Chicago's Kincaid Site in Illinois. In 1937-1938, she assisted Florence Hawley in the University of Chicago Dendrochronology Laboratory. In 1939, for the Iowa Historical Society, she excavated a mound in Webster County, Iowa.

In 1939, Mildred Mott married Waldo Wedel and afterwards accompanied him on many trips to the field. In addition, she pursued an interest in ethnohistory that she developed in school. In particular, she worked on the ethnohistory of regions where her husband was working, often taking advantage of field seasons to retrace routes of early European explorers. Thus, she carried out intensive work on French explorations in the Plains areas (particularly Jean-Baptiste Bénard, Sieur de la Harpe; Pierre-Charles Le Sueur; Claude-Charles Dutisne; and Jean-Baptiste Teuteau). She also published on Plains Caddoan origins and on the Iowa and the Wichita. In 1978-1979, under contract with the Corps of Engineers, she studied the ethnohistory of a Wichita village and French post at the Deer Creek site, Kay County, Oklahoma.

In 1974, Mildred Wedel was appointed a Smithsonian Institution research associate in anthropology. In 1985, she was one of several women honored by the American Anthropological Association for their long-time involvement in anthropology.

Primarily, Waldo Wedel's papers concern his archeological field work and his many publications. There is also considerable material concerning his curatorial duties and activities with anthropological organizations. There are also a few personal papers. In addition, there are materials relating to such activities as Wedel's expert testimony in claims cases brought by the Missouri and Oto, Pawnee, and Kansa Indians (which also involved Mildred Wedel) during the 1940s and 1950s. Mildred Wedel's papers are almost all letters, most of which concern her ethnohistorical and archeological work, conferences in which she participated, and her publications.

List of correspondents

DATES: 1930s-1980s

QUANTITY: ca. 18.3 linear meters (ca. 60 linear feet)

ARRANGEMENT: Tentative series include (1) correspondence of Waldo R. Wedel; (2) correspondence of Mildred M. Wedel; (3) notes and field notebooks; (4) miscellaneous Plains material; (5) climate and weather data; (6) notebooks; (7) newspaper clippings regarding Rice County, Kansas, 1966-1967; (8) drawings of Plains artifacts; (9) Mummy Cave papers; (10) C14 laboratory and committee; (11) material regarding land claims; (12) material regarding organizations and administration; (13) material regarding the Smithson bicentennial; (14) exhibit material; (15)

travel papers; (16) material regarding the Plains conferences; (17) material regarding the Society for American Archaeology; (18) material regarding the Committee for the Recovery of Archaeological Remains, 1969-1970; (19) manuscripts of writings; (20) cartographic material; (21) publications; (22) photographs

FINDING AID: Folder list

E. A. WEGENER COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF WANAPUM INDIANS

One image is by Robley L. Johnson, of Richland, Washington, and another is by James S. Rayner, of Yakima, Washington. Pictured are Puck-Hyah-Toot (sculpted bust), Jim Looney, Elijah Sapaliah, Henry Tomawash, Cy Tomawash, Johnny Tomawash, Johnny Buck, Frank Buck, Rex Buck, Martha Johnny, Dolores Buck, and Margaret Buck. One image is labeled "Tomawash breaks camp." There are also photographs of dwellings, ceremonies, and a feast. Most subjects and photographers are, however, unidentified.

DATES: 1940s-1950s (some probably earlier)

QUANTITY: 20 copy prints

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 86-65

JOHN MITCHELL WELDON NEW MEXICO COLLECTION

Weldon was a businessman and engineer who went to New Mexico to work on a water project. Some portraits in his collection may be by a professional photographer. Other photographs are snapshots, possibly made by Weldon himself. Included are Navahos and probably other Indians, views of Albuquerque, the road to Santa Fe, railroads, livestock, and a mining tunnel. A few items are copy prints, the donor having retained the originals.

DATE: ca. 1911-1912

QUANTITY: 38 prints

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 83-33

EXTRACTS FROM AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ACCOUNT BOOK OF EVERT WENDELL

Wendell was a trader in Albany, New York, and his account book records transactions with Indians. The extracted entries include crude outlines of Indians' heads with identifying markings such as tattoos, ear ornaments, and hairdress. The tribes represented are the Cayuga, Seneca, Miami, and "Souveno." The texts are in Dutch. Cards prepared by William C. Sturtevant to describe the drawings include transcriptions and translations by T.J. Brasser. The original material is in the New-York Historical Society.

DATE: ca. 1700-1709 (original drawings)

QUANTITY: 5 prints and 5 negatives

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 81R.

M.J.W. WHITE'S PHILIPPINE ARTIFACTS

The print shows an exhibit at the Virginia Medical Society's meeting in Roanoke.

DATE: 1942

QUANTITY: 1 print

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 86-25A.

PORTRAIT OF WES WHITE AND HUDSON CRUMMIE

Crummie is of the White Oak Hill Indian Community in South Carolina. White links that community to the Four Holes Swamp Peedee of 1742-1753.  See the next entry for a note on White

DATE: 1982

QUANTITY: 2 color prints

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 83-6

WES WHITE COLLECTION

Included are copy prints and negatives and electrostatic copies of scrapbooks. The material was collected by a private researcher with a special interest in eastern Indian tribes. Much is from printed sources. Represented are mainly Shinnecock and Montauk, but there are some items concerning the Tunica and Alibamu. Some images are accompanied by notes or printed materials.

DATE: ca. 1870s-1970s (original material)

QUANTITY: 150 items

ARRANGEMENT: Undetermined

FINDING AID: None

RESTRICTION: The images from printed sources will not be reproduced unless the researcher can establish that copyrights have expired.

CALL NUMBER: Photo Lot 81-65