Joseph Henry Gives Smithsonian Linguistic Materials on American Indians to John Wesley Powell

Summary

First Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry gives all of the Smithsonian's linguistic materials and questionnaires on Indian life to John Wesley Powell, director of the United States Geological Survey. Three years later, the materials come back to the Institution when Powell is appointed to direct the newly established Bureau of American Ethnology at the Smithsonian.

Subject

• Henry, Joseph 1797-1878
• Powell, John Wesley 1834-1902
• Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology
• United States Geological Survey (USGS)

Category

Chronology of Smithsonian History

Notes

• Image is of Major John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) seated at his desk in his office in the Adams Building on F Street in Washington, D.C., c. 1870s. Smithsonian Institution Archives, negative number 2002-12170.
• Donald Worster, A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 397.
• Neil M. Judd, The Bureau of American Ethnology: A Partial History (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), p. 6.
• Virginia Noelke, The Origin and Early History of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Ph.D diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 1974), pp. 22-23.

Contact information

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

Date

October 1876

Topic

• Historians
• Questionnaires
• Language and languages
• Ethnologists
• Ethnology
• Interagency Transfers
• Indians of North America
• Linguistics

Place

North America

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