Guide to the Indigenous Materials at the American Philosophical Society

Description: The Eugenics Record Office Records consist of 330.5 linear feet of materials relating to the ERO, founded in 1910 for the study of human heredity and as a repository for genetic data on human traits. The Eugenics Record Office Papers (1670-1964) contain trait schedules, newspaper clippings, manuscript essays, pedigree charts, article abstracts, reprints, magazine articles, bibliographies, photographs, hair samples, postcard pictures, card files, and some correspondence which document the projects of the Eugenics Record Office during the thirty-four years of its operation. Of particular interest might be Folder "A:9770-1-118 Indians from Oklahoma (Work Sent in by Mr. Paul Roofe)" (1926), containing 118 pages of Individual Analysis Cards containing personal and family information about students at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. There is also "Folder A:9770 #1. Indian Photographs, Bureau of American Ethnography" (1870-1912), containing 23 photographs of Native individuals, all men, most with both front and profile shots, and identifying information on the back. Cultures represented include Kiowa, Brule (Dakota), Apache, Delaware, Papago (Tohono O'odham), Arapaho, Wichita, Zuni, Santa Clara (Pueblo), Shawnee, Pojoaque (Pueblo), Cheyenne, and Bannock. Folder "A:9770 #3. American Indians" (1920-1934) contains material about Bolivia Indians, Chippewas (Ojibwe) in Michigan, and from Dr. Margaret W. Koenig of the Nebraska Medical Women's League regarding the family history of Permela Palmer (Chicksaw), who married a Choctaw and then a white man, and who was of particular note because of her supernumerary mammary glands and the similarly abnormal breast development of some of her daughters. Folder "A:974 x 7. Caucasian x Indian" (1920-1925) contains trait charts of mixed families, including charts of a French-Cree and Choctaw family and a French-Cree and Scotch-Cree family sent by Mrs. L. M. William of Battleford, Sask.; a three-page typed essay, "For a Universial Marriage Law," advocating the prohibition of mixed marriages, also attributed to Mrs. William; and a magazine article, intended to be humorous, titled "Indian Wives and White Husbands" by Josiah M. Ward. Folder "A:976 x 70. American Indian - Negro" (1919-1928) contains charts, anecdotal data, notes, etc. regarding the traits of mixed children of Native and African American parents, several examples of which are stamped State Normal School, Montclair, NJ; a letter from the state registrar of Virginia to the Census Bureau concerning the efforts of people trying to gain recogition as Chickahominy, Rappahannock, and other groups despite having been previously been designated as "mullatoes," fear about such people having "broken into the census as Indians," and from there "have gotten across into the white race," and hopes to clarify matters for the 1930 Censuses; and materials (interviews, family trees, forms, notes) from a study directed by A. H. Estabrook and I. E. McDougle of the Sociology Department of Sweet Briar College--with fieldwork (such as interviews) performed by Sweet Briar students--titled "The Isshys, An Indian-Negro-White Family Group Near Amherest, Virginia."

Collection: Eugenics Record Office Records Mss.Ms.Coll.77

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