Peabody Collection: Anthropologists' Delight

The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is for so many undergraduates "the place that has the glass flowers." Actually, though, the Peabody doesn't own them at all. Peabody occupies the left hand corner of the red-brick complex that forms the University Museum. The University Museum also contains the Biological Museum also contains the Biological Museum, the Museum of Comparative Zoology and the Minerological Museum, and this has caused all the confusion. It is the Biological Museum that owns the glass flowers.

The staff at Peabody is both amused and exasperated by this misconception on the part of students and the general public alike. Most of the people who make this mistake go through Peabody to get to the glass flowers without even glancing at its vast riches.

Since some of the exhibitions at the Peabody are poorly displayed, one realizes that this isn't entirely the fault of an insensitive public. Yet, the main reason that the Museum's collections do not catch the attention of the casual visitor is simply because most displays are not designed for him. Peabody's exhibits have always been planned primarily for the scholar.

Peabody, the first anthropological museum in America, has collected material for specialized research ever since its founding back in 1866. George Peabody, a philanthropist who emigrated to England after he had amassed his fortune in America from chain-stores and railroading, gave $150,000 to endow a "Museum and Professorship of American Archaeology and Ethnology in connection with Harvard University."

Mr. Peabody's interest in these fields came when the great discoveries about the Neanderthal man increased speculation about the origins of man, but while the great collections of North America and European primitive tools and materials could still be had inexpensively. Led more by an acquisitive instinct for relics of the past than by any definite set of anthropological objectives, the Museum took advantage of the low market.

During its first five years, it hurriedly acquired for its cases in Boylston Hall collections of the Swiss lake-dweller artifacts and Danish archaeological specimens, superb examples which twenty years later could not have been purchased at any price. The Museum even in those days organized expeditions in North America, exploring and exploiting many of the richest mounds in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, in the quest for more and more specimens.

From the ship captains and New England merchants, Peabody began to receive treasures of ethnology from the Pacific, most notably the exotic feather capes from Hawaii. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the Museum started off with the finest anthropological collection in the country and to this day its topmost position cannot easily be challenged.

The Museum's building posed another question. The cases Peabody owned were exhibited in spare corners of Boylston Hall. The amazing objects which the Peabody had gathered from its exploration, purchases, and gifts could not be displayed, or, if they were shown, could barely be seen in the murk outside Boylston's lecture room. Adequate facilities were needed.

In 1875, the Peabody chose its greatest director, Frederick Ward Putnam, who was to remain in command until 1909, and, in the following year, it moved into the first installment of its present home on Divinity Avenue. From the very beginning, the Peabody collection had been poorly displayed because of insufficient financial endowment. As he soon found out, Putnam had to raise funds unendingly to alleviate this grave situation. In fact, the endowment of Peabody was so small that it could barely meet the necessary expenses of administration.

The next segment of the building was added in 1889 and extended the Museum to within sixty feet of the Geological Museum in Agassiz's complex of scientific collections. Yet Putnam was still pressed for space. In his report to the University in 1898, he complained, "The present halls and cases are overcrowded and many interesting collections have to be kept in drawers or stored in the basement awaiting the completion of the building." It was through his determined efforts that money was raised to build a third part to Peabody, to close the gap and join it with the rest of the University Museum.

Though Peabody had expanded externally as much as was possible, within poor utilization of space resulted in a haphazard and cramped arrangement of the collection. The dingy Victorian galleries were poorly lit, and old-fashioned labelling hampered proper study of the exhibits. Especially confusing was its incomplete and inaccurate catalogue of objects in storage. These major problems were not tackled by Director Putnam despite his awareness of the problems. The collection was not yet readily accessible, even to the scholar.

Reynolds Outlines Goals

In 1929, an obstetrician who had become extremely interested in physical anthropology, Dr. Edward Reynolds, was appointed Director of the Museum. In an article written for the Alumni Bulletin, Dr. Reynolds made these comments about the condition of the collections at the Peabody Museum: "I can not avoid concluding that the exhibitions resemble a noveau riche's library, who had arranged his books only by the size and color of their bindings, in contradistinction to that of the scholar, whose library is arranged by subjects, and for utility and progress in study.... In short, this collection, fine as it is, is today of suprisingly little use for teaching." The Museum as a tool for teaching cannot really be called a truly new concept, but Dr. Reynolds' exacting standards for what constituted an educationally clear display led to a better fullfillment of the Museum's research and educational purposes. The Museum was to be no longer an illogical collection of exotic items of anthropological interest but instead was intended to become a vital aid in the training of anthropologists. As Dr. Reynolds said so aptly, "The primary purpose of the Peabody Museum is the advancement of general culture by the creation of a new life interest among many of those who have the advantage of a college education and the training of experts in the science of anthropology."

Exhibits for Scholars, Public

The function of the Peabody Museum in the Cambridge community was further pinpointed by its present director, John Otis Brew, who is also the present holder of the Peabody chair: "We have two kinds of exhibits in the Museum. Since we realize that much of our wonderful collection is of general interest, we show the most flashy material in the large halls, where our explanations are simple and directed to the layman who just wants a background at the level of Anthropology 1. The other type of exhibit is the highly specialized one, the sort of showing that only a very careful general observer could understand. These are designed as study aids for graduate courses and fill the smaller rooms. Their highly technical explanations of what the public would call boring stuff are essential to the training of specialists.

"Though we are concerned with both these types of exhibits, the small rooms are always the ones which we are most careful about. The other aspect of the Peabody as a scholar's museum is this--our stored collection is of absolutely top importance to the graduate student. He must be ablt to get these specimens quickly and be able to inspect them himself, without having to peer through a glass case. The storage of our potsherds, say, is equally as important as the exhibition of a Mayan sculpture."

This forthright discussion of the primary educational objectives of the Museum might have been the last word about the Museum's obligation to the community had it not been for the recent revival of interest in the works of primitive cultures.

The art enthusiasts were appalled to find art works from such areas as Honduras and New Ireland placed in drab cases, along with crude axes and adzes, so that the sculptures, if distinguishable at all through the ethnological confusion, still could not be seen in the round, as they should be. Needless to say, the anthropologists were amazed that the aesthetes called the way the objects were shown an "outrage to man's art."

Yet, Director Brew was well aware that the Museum's magnificent collection of primitive art involved a responsibility to the art world. In connection with Perry Rathbone, director of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, he has found what may well prove to be the ideal solution. The Peabody will lend about three hundred examples of primitive art for exhibit in a gallery permanently set aside for it in the Museum of Fine Arts. The primitive works will be shown in a manner befitting any more recent work of art.

This leaves the Peabody free to pursue its basically educational policy as a museum of anthropology. That it is a scholars' museum becomes immediately obvious as one studies its most recent report. Almost all the space is spent in telling the research ventures of its Associates. As is usual, its collections have increased by well over ten thousand specimens and, as always, the Museum is in a restricted financial position.

The Museum is faced with ever growing collections which are placed either in its relatively small exhibition space or deposited in its enormous storage areas. To make stored specimens useful, exact descriptions and cataloguing are necessary. Because of the serious deficiencies of its earlier catalogues, the Museum is trying to catch up with the recording of its over one million objects. For this, as well as all its other special functions--publications, expeditions, research, much new equipment--the Museum has an annual budget of $85,000. As a money-saving device, it asks professors who visit the Museum to study parts of its collection in order to check the catalogue to see that it is complete and up-to-date on their special areas of interest.

More material, though, is continually coming to the Museum. A ship is now carrying to Boston 38 wooden boxes of new specimens obtained by a Museum exhibition in Nicaragua. These will have to fit somewhere. The usefulness of this new Nicaragua collection, as well as some parts of the Museum's rarely used study material, is questionable. Though a Permanent Committee on Storage Space carefully weeds out many such useless items, this work requires anthropological research on a truly sweeping scale. The Museum does not have unlimited storage space, and the upkeep of a catalogue is complex and expensive enough to warrant an increase in this editorial winnowing of its collection.

In its exhibitions, space is not a major problem. The Museum's big Victorian hallways have much potential area for new displays if the space is used with ingenuity. Director Brew was able to make a reading room for the Library out of some first floor gallery space and still retained every case in the exhibit--and in a better arrangement than before.

Though some specialized displays--such as the Bronze Age tools--which are designed for the use of graduate students, have been newly revised, some of the small rooms await completion and others have yet to be renovated. For the specialist, this means that the displays are hopelessly out-of-date and educationally ineffective.

As in cataloguing, a specialist in the field is needed to remedy these ills. For instance, it took one graduate student one and a half years of laborsome research to revise four cases of Iroquois and Algonquin tools. For every item selected, a thousand were discarded. This is something which more money could not quickly accomplish for the Museum. Yet here too money could help. It seems only fair that those volunteers who devote so much extra time to the Museum be remunerated. Also, an honorarium for such services would encourage others who are qualified but far less free with their time to work for the Peabody.

Beside these research exhibits, the Museum must also be concerned about its displays for the general public, for these shows "at the level of Anthropology 1" attract the greatest number of visitors. Poor lighting and insufficient labelling plague many of these exhibitions in the large halls. For example, the nineteen cases of African specimens on the fifth floor are illumined by only two lamps in the center of the room. To make matters worse, the shades are drawn presumabaly to prevent the exhibits from fading.

The Museum's magnificent collection of Fiji Island textiles and ceremonial staffs which was collected in the nineteenth century by Alexander Agassiz, remains unlabeled and so cramped in its display that nothing can be seen to any advantage. These materials are also unclassified by tribes, severely limiting study of these objects.

The Museum does have new installations on the first floor and the third floor. These should serve as models for all future changes. The cases are lit from inside by good strong spotlighting; their labels are clear and consise, and informative essays are conveniently placed. They are admirably anthropological in nature: the viewer really gets an idea of Mayan culture after studying the exhibit.

Yet, even in these renovated areas, much classification and labelling needs to be done. The casts of the marvelous steles found at Copan are barley visible in the gloom of the end of the third-floor hallway. The public is naturally only mystified by the great casts of which many are unidentified and none is explained by an easily legible descriptive essay.

The Museum's Director is not unaware of these problems. The second floor is now undergoing a revision in exhibition methods that, when finished, will make it as enjoyably instructive as the new first floor installations of North American Indian culture. The other main halls are also slated for eventual revision. Director Brew, says" we modernize the exhibits as soon as we can get the funds--and as soon as we can get the people qualified to sift out the unimportant parts of our cases and add newer and more intresting material.

"Peabody is not at all helped by the University in these essential renovations. We do this out of our pocketbook and on our own initiative. Fund raising is a difficult task but, if one sticks to it, eventually one finds the right person who is willing to pay for the revision of an area in the Museum that really needs it.

"When we're through with our present changes, which may take over ten years to finish, then we can begin getting all our displays up-co-date once again."

In the areas which the Peabody Museum has done over completely, such as the Copan exhibits, many details need improvement, especially the casts of steles and the unmarked cases of Nicaraguan ceramics. The specialist's rooms have taken so long to rearrange that their usefulness as educational exhibits is disturbed for an unreasonably long period of time. In the areas that the Peabody can revise only when it gets the proper funds, such as the African and Oceanic halls, the present state is deplorable and quite untenable.

As has always been the case, the Peabody's troubles are mainly financial. The Museum is striving to make its exhibits more useful to both scholar and public by depending excessively upon a very slow process of fund-raising.

It is now up to the University to help the Museum fully assume a role of responsible leadership in the storage and exhibition of archeological and ethnological specimens. The University should subsidize, if only in part, a major and immediate amelioration of the Museum's present problems. The result will be a Museum which will serve with increased effectiveness not only the Cambridge community at large but, even more important, the small group of students who use the Museum as an essential aid to their education in the science of man and his culture