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 On April 25th, 1890, the United States Congress passed “An Act to provide for celebrating the 400th anniversary of the discovery [sic] of America by Christopher Columbus, by holding an International Exposition of Arts, Industries, and Manufactures, and products of the soil, mine, and sea, in the City of Chicago”, thereby setting in motion a three-year period of collecting, construction, and coordinating activity that resulted in the World’s Columbian Exposition, which opened on May 1, 1893. The World’s Columbian Exposition [WCE] was four times larger than any previous world’s fair and included 65,000 exhibits in 300 buildings spread over 686 acres in Jackson Park and the Midway Plaissance on Chicago’s South Side. When the WCE closed on October 31, 1893, more than 27,000,000 people, a number at that time equivalent to half the population of the United States, had seen the 270’ tall Ferris wheel, the neo-Classical facades of the White City and the exotic allure of the Midway Plaissance, among other attractions. More than any other single event, the WCE is responsible for introducing the American public to the study of anthropology, which was a central component of the celebration. In May 1890, the WCE’s Directorate hired Frederick Ward Putnam to oversee the development of anthropology exhibitions at the WCE. On May 31, 1890, Putnam made his first public appeal for both ethnographic and archaeological collections for display at the WCE. His goals were simple, ambitious, and audacious. Putnam sought to make “an important contribution to science” with “a perfect exhibition of the past and present peoples of America”. With a total budget of only $100,000, Putnam enlisted the help of talented assistants. On February 5th, 1891, he hired Franz Boas, who would go on to become one of the founding fathers of modern anthropology, to oversee physical anthropology collections, and George Amos Dorsey to oversee ethnographic and archaeological collections. Boas and Dorsey then helped recruit another 100 anthropologists, government officials, missionaries, and army and navy officers to collect anthropological objects from Alaska to Greenland to Tierra del Fuego. In addition to this collecting activity for which Putnam was directly responsible, the WCE boasted ethnographic exhibits provided by dozens of international commissions, including those from Australia, Brazil, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Columbia, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Italy, Japan, Java (now Indonesia), Mexico, Sweden, Korea, and elsewhere around the globe. All told, nearly 50,000 anthropological objects went on display in a 160,000 square-foot exhibit titled Anthropology: Man and His Work, and in various spaces on the WCE grounds. Putnam recognized the long-term possibilities and national historic, artistic, cultural, and scientific value of the collections under his charge, and as early as November 28, 1891, publicly proposed that the Collections constitute the core of a new anthropology museum in Chicago. Two years later, the WCE’s Directorate agreed. On August 7, 1893, the Directorate called a public meeting “to adopt measures to establish in Chicago a great museum that shall be a fitting memorial of the World’s Columbian Exposition and a permanent advantage and honor to the city.” continue to Highlights of the WCE collection back to main |
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