Frederic Ward Putnam

Frederic Ward Putnam (born 16 April, 1839 – died 14 August, 1915) was an American naturalist and anthropologist, who developed two nations most notable anthropological departments – at Harvard University and the University of California, Barkley. He is often regarded as the father of anthropological museums, developing four nation’s most respectable museums - Peabody Museum at Harvard, American Museum of Natural History in New York, Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, and the Anthropological Museum of the University of California, Barkley.

Life

Frederic Putnam was born in Salem, Massachusetts, into a New England family whose ancestors could be tracked down to the first settlers of America. Putnam attended private school in Massachusetts and was home schooled for several years. Already as a young boy he showed great interest for nature. He studied birds of his area, and at the age of 16 published the List of the Birds of Essex County (1856). With this work he become rather famous, and was invited to become Curator of Ornithology in the Essex Institute, the position he accepted in 1856. One year later, at the age of 17, he entered Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University to study zoology under Louis Agassiz.

At Harvard Putnam revealed his enormous talent for natural observation, catching the eye of his mentor Louis Agassiz, who made Putnam his assistant (serving from 1857 to 1864). Under the influence of Agassiz, Putnam’s switched his interest from ornithology to ichthyology, but continued to research in various areas of zoology. In 1864 he left Harvard, without a degree, to become Curator of Vertebrates for the Essex Institute. In the same year he married to Adelaide Martha Edmands, with whom he had Eben Putnam, Alice Edmands Putnam, and Ethel Appleton Fiske Lewis.

In 1869 he was appointed Director of the Museum in the Essex Institute, the duty he carried until 1873. He also served from 1859 to 1868 as Curator of Ichthyology at the Boston Society of Natural History; and from 1867 to 1869 as Superintendent of the Museum of the East Indian Marine Society. In 1873 he accepted his first major appointment - permanent secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - the position he carried for twenty-five years. As recognition for his contribution to science, in 1898 he was appointed the president of the Association. In 1901 he served as president of the American Folk-Lore Society, and in 1905 as president of the American Anthropological Association.

From 1874 to 1909 Putnam served as the curator of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. He directed archeological digs across 37 U.S. states and in other countries. He reorganized anthropological collection there, almost doubling it in the number of artifacts. Parallel to his work in Peabody, Putnam was asked to organize the anthropological department in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. From 1894 to 1903 he worked as Curator of anthropological department, organizing the museum’s collection and conducting numerous field trips and studies.

Putnam remarried in 1882 to Esther Orne Clark.

In 1891, as preparation for the World's Columbian Exposition that took place in 1893 in Chicago, Putnam began with a project of organizing the anthropological section for the exhibition. The collection that Putnam organized became the basis of Chicago's well-known Field Museum of Natural History.

In 1903 Putnam moved to California, becoming the first Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Anthropological Museum of the University of California, Barkley. Although already troubled by ill health, he totally dedicated himself to his new work. During his leadership the anthropological department became one of the biggest in the nation.

Putnam retired in 1909, at the age of seventy. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1915.

Work

Among numerous positions that Putnam held during his lifetime, probably the most important were two - Secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Curator of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University. Both positions required great organizational abilities, which Putnam did not lack. At the Peabody he developed the anthropological department and reorganized the museum’s collection, making it one of the biggest of this kind in the United States. Putnam’s organizational skills were also evident in his work on the Anthropological Department at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, and later in the University of California. Putnam is responsible for making both departments – at Harvard and at the University of California – two of the most respectable in the nation.

As an archeologist, Putnam relied mostly on his own explorations, the scope of which is rather limited. However, his pioneering work became base for all the future field work in this area. He conducted research on shell-heaps in Maine and Massachusetts, mound builders’ remains in Ohio, caves with aboriginal findings in Kentucky, the geological antiquity of man in New Jersey and California, and conventionalization in the ancient art of Panama. His major work was published in his report “Archaeology”, in which Putnam reviews the pre-history of California. For a long time after its publication, the report remained the most fundamental treatment of the subject, and was used as a sourcebook in numerous subsequent studies performed in California.

During his lifetime Putnam published more than 400 different articles, books, and reports, in the area of zoology, anthropology, and archeology. He was a founder and the editor of the periodical American Naturalist.

Legacy

Frederic Putnam was one of the first who recognized the value of American archaeological remains, and started several digs in North and Central America. He was followed by numerous archeologists who were inspired by his work. Putnam’s report Archeology served as a major sourcebook for all the subsequent excavations in California for decades after its publication.

Putnam remained famous for developing two of the nation's most distinguished centers of anthropological research - Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley. Under his leadership anthropological departments became more proliferated, distinguished from other social science departments.

Putnam is often regarded as the father of anthropological museums. Under his leadership four nation’s most respectable museums were developed - Peabody Museum at Harvard, American Museum of Natural History in New York, Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, and the Anthropological Museum of the University of California, Barkley

Bibliography

• Putnam, Frederic W. 1973. The archaeological reports of Frederic Ward Putnam: Selected from the annual reports of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Harvard University, 1875-1903. AMS Press. ISBN 0404573088

• Putnam, Frederic W. 1973. The selected archaeological papers of Frederic Ward Putnam. AMS Press. ISBN 0404573053

• Putnam, Frederic W. 1878. The manufacture of soapstone pots by the Indians of New England. Salem Press

• Putnam, Frederic W. 1883. Iron from the Ohio mounds; a review of the statements and misconceptions of two writers of over sixty years ago. Reprint Services Corp. ISBN 0781244765

• Putnam, Frederic W. 1887. Conventionalism in ancient American art. Salem Press

• Putnam, Frederic W. 1899. Address by Frederic Ward Putnam, the retiring president of the American association for the advancement of science. Reprint Services Corp. ISBN 0781244021

• Putnam, Frederic W. 1902. Archaeological and ethnological research in the United States: a brief summary for 1901. Reprint Services Corp. ISBN 078124403X

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Boas, Franz. 1915. Frederic Ward Putnam. American Association for the Advancement of Science

• Conn, Steven. 2000. Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226114937

• Mead, Frances H. 1909. Bibliography of Frederic Ward Putnam. Torch Press

• Williams, Stephen. 1941. Putnam Anniversary Volume: Anthropological Essays Presented to Frederick Ward Putnam, in Honor of His Seventieth Birthday, April 16, 1909. AMS Press Inc. ISBN 0404106269

External links

• Frederic Ward Putnam – Biography

• F.W. Putnam - Putnam’s biography by A. L. Kroeber, originally published in 1915 in American Anthropologist, 17, 712-718

• Frederic W. Putnam – Biography at World Wide School

• Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Harvard – Peabody Museum’s website

• American Museum of Natural History, New York – AMNH’s website

• Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago – Field Museum’s website

• The Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California – Formerly “Lowie museum of Anthropology” at the University of California, where Putnam served as the first director

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