Smithsonian Distributes Comparative List of North American Indian Vocabularies

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Summary

Ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft publishes a comparative list of North American Indian vocabularies. First Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry helps distribute the publication to missionaries, government agents, and soldiers to facilitate the collection of Indian words. Henry considers the study of Indian languages as key to understanding the origins and history of North American natives.

Subject

  • Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe 1793-1864
  • Henry, Joseph 1797-1878

Category

Chronology of Smithsonian History

Notes

Curtis M. Hinsley, Jr., The Smithsonian and the American Indian: Making a Moral Anthropology in Victorian America, Smithsonian Institution Press: 1994, p. 47.

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu

Date

1847

Topic

  • Soldiers
  • Publications
  • Historians
  • Collectors and collecting
  • Language and languages
  • Ethnologists
  • Ethnology
  • Indians of North America
  • Linguistics

Place

North America

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