Ashley Montagu papers, 1927-1999
Language: English
Date: circa 1939-1975
Contributor: Montagu, Ashley, 1905-1999
Subject: Anthropology | Ethnography | Archaeology | Race | Land claims | Chile--History | Orthography and spelling | Land tenure | Anatomy | Sociology
Type: Text
Genre: Correspondence | Drafts | Essays | Notes
Extent: 16 folders
Description: This collection documents the entire career of anthropologist and multi-facted intellectual Ashley Montagu from 1927 to 1999. The collection consists of 55.75 linear feet of material, organized into twelve series, plus oversize. Nearly half of the collection is Montagu's correspondence with colleagues, publishers, coauthors, and intellectuals from almost every discipline, as well as admirers from many different walks of life. There also several complete manuscripts of Montagu's work, including The Natural Superiority of Women, The Elephant Man, and The Anatomy of Swearing, as well as numerous journal and magazine articles authored by Montagu. The collection reflects the range of Montagu's intellectual interests and his influence across the spectrum of academic disciplines over his 60-year career. Montagu's writings on race, anthropology, and society, his correspondence with anthropologists and linguists like Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, and C. F. Voegelin, and his class notes from anthropological coursework at Columbia University (including classes with Boas and Benedict), might yield material relating to Native Americans, but some specific items have also been identified. In the Correspondence series, there is an undated incoming item from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the Works By series, there is an undated item labeled "The American Indian: The First Victim, Draft," 2 folders relating to North American archaeology ("The Earliest Account of the Association of Human Artifacts with Fossil Mammals in North America, Correspondence" [1951] and "The Earliest Account of the Association of Human Artifacts with Fossil Mammals in North America, Draft" [1944]), 2 folders with undated drafts about Natchez skeletal antomy ("The Natchez Innominate Bone, Draft" and "The Natchez Pelvis, Draft"), and 3 undated items in a folder labeled "Native Americans, Notes." In the Works By Others series, there is Rainer, John C., "Presentation of the American Indian," undated. In the Committees and Organizations series, there are 9 items dated to 1968 in "Association on American Indian Affairs" and 2 undated items in "Native Land Foundation." In the Printed Materials series, there is a copy of Hammel, Harold T., "Thermal and Metabolic Responses of the Alacaluf Indians to Moderate Cold Exposure" (1960), 13 items in a folder labeled "Indian Affairs" (1967-1972; 1975), and 9 items in "Native Americans" (1939-1967). Of particular interest might be materials relating to Sequoya and the invention of the Cherokee syllabary, including "Sequoya, Notes," "Sequoya, Correspondence," (1960-1961), and "Sequoya, Cherokee Indian Genius who Invented an Alphabet and so Brought Literacy to his People, Drafts," all in the Works By series.
Collection: Ashley Montagu papers, 1927-1999 Mss.Ms.Coll.109