museum anthropology
For instance, cultural anthropology and archaeology,
the hearst museum of
anthropology, the new deal,
and a reassessment of the
‘‘dark age’’ of the museum in the
united states
Samuel Redman
university of california, berkeley
abstract
This article examines the claim that the period between
the dawn of the Great Depression and conclusion of the
Second World War was a ‘‘dark age’’ for the discipline of
anthropology in museums. It argues that while museums
in the United States encountered numerous common chal-
lenges due to the economic downturn and outbreak of
war, the period also presented a number of opportunities,
especially through the arrival of labor through New Deal
work-relief agencies. This article focuses on what is now
known as the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
at the University of California, Berkeley. The narrative of
the Hearst Museum during this era works to complicate
our understanding of the ‘‘museum period’’ in the United
States. [history, New Deal, museum period, Hearst Mu-
seum]
A growing body of historical literature exists on muse-
ums in the United States, yet much of it ignores the
span from the Great Depression to the Second World
War. Scholars of museum history largely agree that
museums rapidly expanded both intellectually and
physically from the late 19th century into the early 20th
century and this period has virtually dominated most
scholarship regarding museum history in the United
States (Conn 1998; Harris 1962; Stocking 1985). Many
of these same scholars argue that before the close of
the 1930s, universities largely replaced museums at the
forefront of academic research. The existing literature
tends to suggest that the Great Depression and Second
World War were completely unproductive and
nonillustrious for the museum. Complicating this de-
clension narrative is the fact that museums did
continue to produce new knowledge while expanding
their role in popular education in the United States.
Historians portray the replacement of the mu-
seum by the university as a center of cultural pro-
duction for the United States as both clean and harsh.
Museum Anthropology, Vol. 34, Iss. 1, pp. 43–55 & 2011 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1379.2010.01106.x
fields previously centered in museums across the
country, are represented as shifting to the academy
virtualight as the major proponents of the field began
pursuing a more theoretical approach to their disci-
plines. As intellectual and cultural historians turned
their attentions to the growing university in the Uni-
ted States, the museum was left understudied.
Historian and anthropologist Ira Jacknis (2006a:521)
has called these the ‘‘dark ages’’ of the museum in the
United States. George W. Stocking argues that, ‘‘by
the outbreak of the second World War . . . museum
anthropology [was] stranded in an institutional,
methodological, and theoretical backwater’’ (1985:8).
This narrative, however, leaves wide gaps in our his-
torical understanding of the museum during this
period.
This paper explores the history of museum an-
thropology from the Great Depression to the Second
World War, focusing mainly on the Phoebe A.
Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of
California, Berkeley. This paper complicates the
claim that museum anthropology fell into an utterly
silent and unproductive dark age during this era, exa-
mining the whole of the Hearst Museum’s collecting
practices, exhibitions, collections management strate-
gies, cataloguing, research, conservation, and com-
munity outreach. In particular, the implementation
of New Deal programs had a major influence on the
course of museum history in the United States, espe-
cially within departments of anthropology where
generations of collecting left scores of materials un-
catalogued, uncared for, and largely forgotten.
The ideological goals of the New Deal, which
strove to put unemployed laborers back to work while
providing them with practical on-the-job training,
complemented the needs of the museums during
this time. As the economic downturn left museums
with little funding to acquire new collections or
craft large exhibitions, the previous generation of
scholars left museums with scores of unorganized
collections in dire need of attention. New Deal labor
supplied a partial solution, contributing millions of
person-hours previously unavailable to even the lar-
ger and better funded of museums in the United
States. Lost within the statistics of person-hours and
number of work-relief laborers arriving at the mu-
seum is the fact that the New Deal reignited a
hearst museum of anthropology
significant aspect of American cultural production
centered in museums.
By approaching the museum through its involve-
ment with New Deal workers, this article aims to
redirect the questions surrounding the health of mu-
seums throughout the 20th century. In casting this
era as a simple ‘‘dark age,’’ the massive impact of the
New Deal on museums in the United States has
been neglected; yet, it is made clear here that
museums cannot be judged by the reputation of
affiliated scholars alone. My argument is perhaps
counterintuitiveFthe constraints of the Great
Depression and Second World War actually helped
foster the explosion of intellectual and popular
interest that occurred in museums in the United
States in the postwar era. A major reason for
these advancements was the help of temporary
New Deal workers, who organized museum cata-
logues and cared for collections at the Hearst
Museum as well as at numerous other museums
around the country.
Simply stated, the role of New Deal labor in pre-
serving collective American cultural heritage is sub-
stantial and merits a place in museum history. The
museum in this particular case study struggled with
its facilities, staff, and exhibitions during this period,
yet also made strides that directly led to even greater
advancements in the postwar era.
Hearst Museum Origins
The founding patron of the Hearst Museum of
Anthropology was Phoebe Apperson Hearst (1842–
1919), who funded and organized the museum’s
creation in 1901. Hearst supported the total efforts of
the department and museum fiscally for the first se-
ven years of its existence (Benedict 1991:26). Her
philanthropy to the new University of California,
Berkeley Department of Anthropology and Museum
of Anthropology reflected a desire to encourage re-
search within newly professionalizing academic
disciplines in Berkeley. Hearst made a conscious
decision to postpone the development of these enti-
ties as teaching centers, instead favoring innovative
research (Jacknis 1993:27). Her idea fit well within
the university’s overall plan to develop into a major
research university; it also fit well within the
contemporary conceptual framework of a museum-
cum-research center.
44
One of the most significant decisions Hearst Mu-
seum founders made was to hire a young anthro-
pologist named Alfred L. Kroeber. Kroeber, a student
of Franz Boas at Columbia University, was hired as an
instructor at the university and curator of the mu-
seum after completing his doctorate in 1901 (Jacknis
2006b). By this time, Boas was well established within
American anthropology and his students were start-
ing to make significant contributions to the field. In
the early years of the museum, Boas, in addition to
Frederic Ward Putnam, the director of the Peabody
Museum at Harvard, advised Hearst in museum or-
ganization and methods. Putnam had directed efforts
previously at the World’s Columbian Exposition and
would later help guide the efforts of the American
Museum of Natural History (AMNH) through a dual
appointment with Harvard (Browman 2002:515). By
this time then, Putnam was well suited for building
the new department envisioned by Hearst, and he
became the institution’s official director. In that
capacity, he offered intellectual guidance for the new
museum, but spent the majority of his time on
the East Coast. Most day-to-day responsibilities at the
museum then fell to Kroeber, who would assume
the directorship in 1925. In fact, Kroeber’s official
appointment to the directorship came after he had
already begun to spend a majority of his time teach-
ing (Jacknis 1993:27).
The new department and museum moved to es-
tablish itself in the mold of older East Coast insti-
tutions, yet it recognized its unique position to obtain
significant collections reflecting the material culture,
physical anthropology, and history of California
Indians. Originally interested in collections that
systematicallyFand globallyFdocumented ‘‘The
History of Man and his Works’’ (University of Cali-
fornia Museum of Anthropology 1920:3), after 1905,
the museum shifted its collecting and research efforts
to the study and documentation of California Indi-
ans. This was likely the result of a survey of California
Native American cultures that was announced in
1903, a development that would ultimately lead to
Kroeber’s (1925) landmark work Handbook of the In-
dians of California (see Benedict 1991:27).
As Kroeber’s stature grew within American an-
thropology, curatorial responsibilities for the Hearst
Museum began shifting to another scholar, Edward
Gifford. Gifford became an assistant curator in 1912

and served in capacities of growing significance to the
museum until his death in 1959 (Jacknis 1993:
30–31). Gifford’s formal education ended in high
school, yet his growing interest in anthropology and,
specifically, museum anthropology allowed him
an unusually distinguished and productive career.
Gifford came to the museum having worked for the
California Academy of Sciences, and advanced to full
curator by 1925 (Foster 1960:327). Kroeber’s most
active years as a museum anthropologist fell between
1908 and 1912; following this period Kroeber spent
less time at the museum and more of his time teach-
ing. Despite Gifford’s growing role at the museum,
Kroeber continued to remain involved until 1960
(Jacknis 1993:30).
In the museum’s first 20 years, it hosted 334,567
visitors.1 It featured a modest exhibit space that,
already by 1920, could only display half of the mu-
seum’s growing collections (University of California
Museum of Anthropology 1920). When the museum
moved from San Francisco to Berkeley in 1931, how-
ever, its visibility to the public significantly declined.
Kroeber lobbied the university administration for the
construction of a new building, but it became clear
that the economic climate would not allow the bud-
get for such a facility. While Kroeber’s attempts to
lobby for new facilities were met with frustration,
other museums were successful in expanding their
facilities. The Field Museum of Natural History in
Chicago had opened a larger museum building in
1921.2 The University Museum at the University of
Pennsylvania opened a new wing in 1929.3 By 1936,
the AMNH in New York would open a sparkling new
rotunda, welcoming visitors from Central Park.4 The
leadership at the Hearst Museum, meanwhile, main-
tained hope that private donors would sponsor the
construction of a new facility. Even as other museums
struggled with internal funding, the Hearst Museum’s
inability to construct or expand facilities gave the
appearance that it was falling well behind in every
aspect of museum management.
Almost immediately after the economic melt-
down of 1929, many museum leaders shifted their
rhetoric to emphasize fiscal responsibility. An annual
report for the Peabody Museum at Harvard Univer-
sity (1932–1933) reads, ‘‘In spite of these difficult
times, the Museum has been fortunate in its progress.
With the practice of the strictest economy, seven ex-
hearst museum of anthropology
peditions have been put in the field . . . and the task of
reorganizing its collections has gone steadily for-
ward’’ (Harvard University 1932–1933:296). The
rhetoric of fiscal responsibility would grow increas-
ingly common during the course of the Depression
and this made justifying the construction of new fa-
cilities a challenge, especially for museums supported
by various levels of government, which were already
reeling in the economic depression. Private institu-
tions, too, hoped to make a case for fiscal respon-
sibility to private donors often inclined to curtail
their philanthropic efforts during challenging eco-
nomic times.
Kroeber, meanwhile, was not only fighting for
space to store collections, he was also fighting for the
Hearst Museum’s existence as a semi-autonomous
institution. After he caught word that there were dis-
cussions to combine the university’s anthropology
and art museums, Kroeber sent a memo directly to
the university administration. He wrote, ‘‘anthropol-
ogy is partly a natural science and partly a social
science, and that therefore too close an affiliation
with art would be misrepresentative and prejudi-
cial.’’5 The university administration had hoped to
save space and funds by combining the institutions,
and although university leaders believed the goal to
make sense intellectually, the idea failed due to disci-
plinary concerns.
One group of authors characterized Kroeber’s quest
for a new facility as a story ‘‘of heartbreak and delay’’
(Steward et al. 1961:1045). The museum no longer had
permanent space for exhibitions, and the cancellation
of an expected donation from the Hearst family toward
the construction of a new building, coupled with
worsening economic times, ensured that another new
facility would not be completed until 1960 (Benedict
1991:27). Kroeber, however disappointed he might
have been that his proposals for a new building were
consistently being turned down, maintained that re-
search, not exhibition, was the most significant role for
the museum. Exhibition was a desirable aspect of the
university-based museum, but it was clearly secondary
to the need to produce new research through the study
and acquisition of new collections.
As the economic landscape worsened after the
stock market crash of 1929, the Hearst Museum’s
budgetary constraints deteriorated from bad to
worse. The shift from gift-based funding to the
45
hearst museum of anthropology
university payroll resulted in a severe reduction in the
museum’s budget. Perhaps as significant was the de-
cision to relegate the museum to a temporary facility
in the Civil Engineering building, with only two
rooms designated for occasional exhibitions.6 This
arrangement, organized by the university’s adminis-
tration, intended to offer a compromise; however, it
managed to upset both Kroeber and the Civil Engi-
neering Department.7 With the combination of an
extreme budget crisis, as well as an almost total lack
of adequate facilities, it would be easy to assume that
the University of California Museum of Anthropol-
ogy suffered a virtual shutdown in the coming years.
And yet, this moment of crisis also created numerous
opportunitiesFboth internally and externally driven
Ffor reorganizing collections, creating original re-
search, and teaching students.
Moving the collections from San Francisco to
Berkeley caused certain aspects of the museum oper-
ations to change, while others remained essentially
the same. Naturally, changing facilities led the cura-
torial staff to think less about permanent exhibition
strategies than before, as the facilities in Berkeley
possessed little space for display. Abandoning per-
manent exhibitions, however, did not expunge
display from the minds of Gifford and Kroeber. In
fact, the museum’s curators may have invested more
time thinking about short-term exhibitions than they
did thinking about permanent exhibitions that could
be left in place for a number of years. While it is clear
that research was their primary goal for the use of the
collection, the museum’s leadership was still also
committed to utilizing the collections for display. The
exhibitions in the new museum were to change yearly
or on a semester-by-semester basis depending on the
available budget. Because both Kroeber and Gifford
held dual appointments as instructors at the univer-
sity, the exhibitions at the museum were arranged to
assist in teaching students in anthropology courses.8
Collections selected for display served the particular
purposes of teaching a variety of audiences, often
through the mediation of a university instructor for
undergraduates, or a student docent for younger au-
diences. Former museum programs aimed at public
outreach were temporarily shelved; a lecture program
for elementary school students was dropped because
of a total lack of budget as well as a chronic lack of
space to host visitors.9
46
Because the museum had a stated policy of not
allowing undergraduates to handle collections main-
tained for permanent preservation, undergraduates
experienced the collections only in the ways in which
the curatorial staff saw fit.10 Graduate students, on
the other hand, could gain experience conducting
anthropological research before entering the field to
conduct the ethnographic fieldwork typically ex-
pected for a dissertation of that era (Buzalijko 1993).
Although graduate students had freer access to col-
lections than did their undergraduate counterparts,
Kroeber very often guided the more advanced students
to study particular collections he felt to be in need of
attention. This process of learning through museum
collections made graduate students particularly im-
portant to the development of the museum during this
period, as they often produced new research on previ-
ously unstudied collections.11 Although this practice
varied by institution, depending on the personality of
the instructors, the Hearst’s policies in this area appear
to have been similar to other university museum poli-
cies of the era.
Despite budgetary constraints and limited storage
space, Kroeber believed that the work of staff and
graduate students was to help the collections become
increasingly well organized. By 1933 he announced,
‘‘The Museum is now one of the most completely in-
ventoried and intensively classified in the country.’’12
Although Kroeber may have exaggerated the success
of the museum’s collections management strategies,
his enthusiasm about the state of the collections
complicates the previously envisioned state of disar-
ray of the institution during this period. The
museum’s collection may have been well organized,
but researchers still faced the cumbersome task of
organizing specific collections by region, culture, or
type, as the museum’s cataloguing systems remained
limited.
Evolving Acquisition Policy
During the interwar period, the Hearst Museum
worked to develop a collections strategy that sought
to address the somewhat haphazard method of col-
lecting the museum had originally adopted. The
reconceptualized strategy emphasized the continued
efforts of professional collectors, including current
and former graduate students and the curatorial
staff, while attempting to fill the gaps left by previous

collectors. The main goal was to build a collection
that was both intellectually and institutionally coher-
ent. Kroeber himself set some of the standards for
professional collecting. Many of his collections, in-
tended to represent the material culture of California
Indians, were built in the first decade of the 20th
century before the publication of his seminal Hand-
book of the Indians of California.13 Analogous to
Kroeber’s massive survey of California Indians, his
collections were broad but lacked serious depth of the
particular tribes he studied. Kroeber’s work as a sal-
vage ethnographer drove his attempts to ‘‘salvage’’ the
language and material culture of California thought
to be disappearing (Jacknis 1993:27). Kroeber’s vision
of a museum grew to include one where not only the
material culture and human remains of rapidly dis-
appearing and changing cultures would be
maintained but also one in which documents and
recordings of language and song would be stored.
Despite the lack of permanent exhibition space,
the museum’s anthropological collection attracted an
increasing number of general inquiries from the
public throughout the Great Depression.14 Museums
during this period received a near constant stream of
letters offering objects of varying significance for
purchase. Even before the Depression, the Hearst
Museum was in no position to buy objects, even if
they were of intellectual interest for teaching or re-
search. In response to one inquiry, Kroeber noted
that the museum was ‘‘interested but impover-
ished.’’15 He responded to another offer by noting
that most public museums were ‘‘doing practically no
buying,’’ but if the inquirer were feeling ‘‘philan-
thropically inclined’’ the museum would be happy to
accept the objects as a donation.16 By the early 1940s,
the curatorial staff of the University of California had
in place an institutional and intellectual policy to re-
ject buying most collections.17 By the Second World
War, Kroeber and Gifford were responding to offers
of sales more firmly, insisting that few public muse-
ums were still purchasing collections, and even then
only select pieces or collections.18
Gifford and Kroeber were keenly aware of the
sections of the collection that were considered weak
in comparison with those in other major anthropol-
ogy museums. Even while purchasing collections was
rare, donations that would fill those cultural and
historical gaps were readily accepted.19 Kroeber, as a
hearst museum of anthropology
fieldworker, preferred to collect objects that had been
used in what he considered a traditional fashion, and
would only collect newer objects as reproductions or
models. With a lack of funding for purchasing
collections and severe budgetary restrictions in
mounting museum-run collecting expeditions, it
might be assumed that this led to a total halt in the
development of collections outside of the aforemen-
tioned type of private donations; yet, this does not
prove to be the case. Although the museum was un-
able to acquire every object or collection on its wish
list, it did embark on a series of low-cost and creative
endeavors that helped the collection both grow and
become more focused. These types of endeavors were
not unique to the Hearst Museum, yet an analysis
of these collections development projects has largely
been nonexistent in the museum studies litera-
ture and the scholarship surrounding the history of
museums.
In 1931, even as the museum made its move
across the San Francisco Bay, it exchanged a moder-
ately large number of objects with other institutions,
including the Peabody Museum at Harvard Univer-
sity, the AMNH, and the University of Utah.20
Although it was in no position to mount expeditions
to Egypt, Peru, or even the American Southwest, such
exchanges allowed it to build upon existing strengths
or improve areas of weakness at little expense. Ex-
changes continued to occur frequently during the
Great Depression and Second World War, allowing
the museum to redress perceived intellectual inco-
herence in its collections. These exchanges were not
limited to transactions with other museums. In 1939,
Gifford collaborated with a California automobile
dealer who discovered on his ranch skeletal material
and ‘‘other artifacts.’’ Once Gifford learned that the
man was interested in archaeology, he offered him a
series of museum publications related to the disci-
pline in exchange for his collection. The man
accepted these with pleasure, and the museum moved
to acquire the collection at virtually no cost.21
In addition to exchanges and private donations, a
number of acquisitions came through the work of
graduate students and faculty members. Graduate
students, including Robert Heizer, who earned a
doctorate in 1941, worked with other archaeologists
to conduct archaeological surveys in California and
Nevada throughout the 1930s. Heizer regularly took
47
hearst museum of anthropology
weekend trips around California during the spring
and fall, building survey collections that were cata-
logued over the winter months. Heizer also spent
several summer field seasons with faculty collecting in
California and Nevada, aided by private sponsor-
ship.22 Heizer joined the University of California, Los
Angeles faculty briefly before returning to Berkeley in
1946. The culmination of his work led to a formalized
University of California Archaeological Survey in
1948.
Heizer’s archaeological surveys reflected the intel-
lectual commitment the museum had made to Cali-
fornia, but they also reflected a limited budget.
Although anthropologists and archaeologists in the
United States managed to conduct some research
abroad during this period, funds were nearly always
meager. In 1940, when another University of California
archaeologist and physical anthropologist, Theodore
McCown, received an unsolicited proposal for funding
from another archaeologist hoping to travel to the
Middle East, he responded by explaining that a lack of
funds kept the Hearst Museum from supporting any
outside proposals, especially those supporting projects
on other continents: ‘‘With minor exceptions, the
general understanding is that [the] University appro-
priation, is to be expended primarily on research
conducted in the state of California and certainly, at
most, not outside of North America.’’23
Purchases, though rare, were not entirely unheard
of. The museum’s limited purchases were typically of
professionally acquired ethnographic or archaeologi-
cal collections that had come up for sale and were
purchased with the support of direct philanthropic
donations. In one example from 1931, University of
California president Robert Gordon Sproul solicited
five donors to contribute US$100 each in order to
purchase a specific collection.24
In a November 1945 memo, Kroeber reflected on
the University of California’s Department of Anthro-
pology’s programs related to the archaeology of
California, Nevada, and Oregon. Limited resources
were again the overriding theme, but Kroeber noted a
number of successes. The museum had managed to
collect ‘‘the largest collection from the area on as-
sembly anywhere,’’ which ‘‘will be basic in all future
intensive studies.’’25 In the midst of the Great De-
pression, the Hearst Museum had thus reframed its
acquisition strategies due to intellectual and eco-
48
nomic changes. These intellectual changes would be
complemented by an infusion of new labor a few
years after the economic crash.
Reorganization and the New Deal
New Deal projects had a major impact on museums
across the United States. Museums embraced labor
from several major work-relief agencies, including
the Civil Works Administration (CWA), Works
Progress Administration (WPA), and the National
Youth Administration (NYA). More specifically,
laborers from relief agencies were put to work on
two major tasks: building new exhibit spaces and or-
ganizing existing collections. A centerpiece of the
relationship between museums and the New Deal was
the WPA’s Museum Extension Project (MEP). The
MEP crafted new works of art, dioramas, and exhi-
bitions for museums throughout the country. The
program worked with a wide range of museums, from
local history museums to major natural history and
art museums. An example of the program’s outreach
was the construction of a large number of new min-
iature dioramas, intended to teach visitors about
subjects ranging from human prehistory and Cliff
Dwellings at Mesa Verde, to the French Revolution.
Many museums considered the dioramas to be an
inexpensive and popular method for refurbishing
portions of outdated exhibitions.26 Although the
small WEP dioramas provided a relatively quick and
inexpensive fix to outdated exhibitions, the most
important aspect of the New Deal for museums in the
United States was the availability of new labor for
larger projects. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York acknowledged the contribution of their
New Deal programs, noting, ‘‘The museum is in-
debted to the Works Projects Administration for the
substantial contribution of WPA employees to the
work of almost all departments’’ (Taylor 1942:164,
emphasis added). Using the Hearst Museum as an
example, it is clear that the impact of New Deal pro-
grams on museums in the United States is vast, yet its
influence in museums is grossly understudied and
therefore widely unappreciated by scholars of the
history of museums.
The Hearst Museum utilized NYA and WPA as-
sistants in a variety of ways between 1936 and 1942.
This included research, laboratory, and clerical work,
as well as work with collections. In completing an

extensive classification of California shell artifacts in
the museum, Gifford utilized a steady flow of teen-
aged NYA assistants; he later published a book as well
as several journal articles on this work (Gifford 1946,
1949). The most important WPA project at the
Hearst Museum, however, began in 1939. During the
two-year project, the museum utilized the WPA em-
ployees to prepare a complete card copy of the
catalogues. The annual report for 1939 outlined
the project’s goal, ‘‘This will permit a grouping of the
specimen records by locality and type, instead of
merely regional and inventory number.’’27 That year
alone, five WPA workers assisted in inventory cata-
loguing while five NYA workers assisted Gifford in his
typological classifications of California archaeology.28
The card catalogue was a valuable addition to the
museum’s resources for researchers. Classifications
and arrangements of objects that modern museum
professionals take for granted were not possible with
the museum’s limited system of paper catalogues.
Although older catalogues grouped objects by region,
and then by accession group or individual catalogue
number, the new catalogue card system allowed re-
searchers to explore classifications made possible in
the past, ‘‘only by physical segregation of objects,
which limitations of space frequently interfere
with.’’29 Within a few years, the new card catalogue
allowed researchers to complete their work with more
rapidity and permitted them to increase the com-
plexity and variety of their studies. In 1939, the
museum’s annual report indicated nine research
projects of various sizes based on museum collections
(as opposed to museum-sponsored field research)
conducted by both external and internal scholars.30
By 1943, the museum reported a dozen projects; in
1945, that number had increased to 14.31 This oc-
curred before the research explosion that took place
after the close of the Second World War and the in-
crease in graduate students as a result of the GI Bill,
and during the period when many graduate students
and young scholars were being pulled into various
kinds of wartime service.
The Hearst Museum’s utilization of New Deal Era
programs was far from unique. The Field Museum
offers an interesting comparison. Between 1930 and
1939, the Field’s Department of Anthropology en-
listed a total of 44 noncuratorial staff members.
During the 1920s, the Field had funds to employ only
hearst museum of anthropology
one noncuratorial staff member. When the New Deal
ended, the department’s staff was again reduced,
having only 14 noncuratorial staff in the 1940s. The
Field did not reach New Deal-levels of anthropology
staff again until the 1990s. In Chicago, as in Berkeley,
New Deal staffers helped catalogue new accessions
and organize information for curatorial publications
(Nash and Feinman 2003:70–80).
The Smithsonian Institution, too, enlisted the
help of New Deal work-relief agencies. Although New
Deal agencies contributed both labor and works of art
to Smithsonian museums, the contributions of work-
relief agencies were perhaps most complete at the
United States National Museum (USNM). While
early incarnations of work-relief agencies contributed
labor to the Smithsonian in the early years of the New
Deal, the arrival of WPA laborers in 1936 provided a
more systematic form of labor The WPA program at
the USNM would eventually grow so large that it re-
quired its own central office, where staff oversaw the
timesheets and recorded the projects of laborers. In
addition to major cataloguing work, the USNM uti-
lized New Deal labor to organize library materials,
mount specimens, and translate foreign documents
(Smithsonian Institution 1936:22). At its peak in 1938,
the Smithsonian possessed 167 workers (Smithsonian
Institution 1938:26), but lost its WPA assistance in
1940 due to budget shortfalls.
When it became clear that funds for WPA assis-
tance at the Smithsonian were running low, curators
in anthropology appealed for the continuation of the
program in their department. In an internal memo-
randum written in 1939 (and typed, no less, by a
WPA stenographer), H. W. Krieger noted that it took
months to fully train a new employee. He explained,
‘‘An incoming W.P.A. worker feels lost. He or she has
had no professional training in ethnology but has
been selected for special intelligence and a more or
less developed mastery of technique along the line of
the proposed assignment of duties.’’32 Once the
worker was trained, however, they became a major
asset to the department. Krieger noted, ‘‘As arrearages
in the cataloguing, classification, and placement of
specimens are caught up with new problems of a
similar nature are constantly brought before the
workers in the form of incoming collections.’’ Not
only were the cataloguing efforts of WPA workers
making new forms of research possible, they were
49
hearst museum of anthropology
preserving data and collections for future genera-
tions. Krieger appealed: ‘‘the work of the individual
W.P.A. workers . . . has a permanent value in that re-
cords of collections are being made in permanent
form and the preservation of specimens has become
a major object of effort.’’ Despite the efforts of
Smithsonian curators, the New Deal program was
terminated.
During the program’s four-year run, the Smith-
sonian received 248,196 person-hours from internal
New Deal laborers. USNM officials lamented the ter-
mination, ‘‘Aside from the care given by the W.P.A.
help in arranging and preserving the study collec-
tions, the cataloguing and number of specimens were
of direct aid to research, for the material thus handled
became readily available for the study by our own
staff and by other technical workers’’ (Smithsonian
Institution 1940:27). In addition to internal museum
work, New Deal programs also contributed to new
archaeological surveys around the country, largely
supervised by the Smithsonian. Laborers from the
CWA, WPA, and the Civilian Conservation Corps
contributed to archaeological projects in 24 states
over the course of nine years. These surveys resulted
in new collections for the Smithsonian as well as nu-
merous other museums around the country. For
example, a USNM survey supervised by archaeologist
William Duncan Strong in the upper San Joaquin
Valley, beginning in 1933, was staffed mainly by CWA
laborers and resulted in the collection of 1,607
archaeological objects that were later donated to the
Hearst Museum.33
The impact of New Deal agencies on museums in
the United States is difficult to overstate, yet depen-
dence on such programs in museums throughout the
country was not entirely universal. The programs did
produce a workforce that was largely efficient and
productive, but the lack of long-term stability pre-
vented the program from having an even larger
impact.34 The WPA, which contributed the largest
number of temporary workers to museums in the
United States, was not even formed until 1935, six
years after the initial economic crash. Although the
bulk of archival material about the New Deal praises
its utility for museums, sporadic complaints appear
about worker laziness and the amount of time needed
to train new laborers.35 Further, the call for WPA-
type labor was not always clear across the entire
50
spectrum of museum anthropology, as not all mu-
seum leaders appear to have agreed with the liberal
ideology of the New Deal.
One year before the formation of the WPA, the
Peabody Museum at Harvard University raised pri-
vate funds to hire student employees. Volunteer
programs at the Peabody Museum were successful
and growing in the early 1930s. The Peabody
Museum even noted the effectiveness of student em-
ployees, arguing that, ‘‘A careful estimate of these
students’ services gave the remarkable result that
though their work was necessarily intermittent and at
first untrained, it was more than eighty per cent as
efficient as that of trained, full-time employees’’
(Harvard University 1933–1934:306). The Peabody
Museum’s wealthy benefactors are seemingly unique,
however. Museums such as the Hearst Museum and
the Field were more typical in experiencing the surge
of activity accompanying the labor of the New Deal.
The Peabody Museum did not emphasize the use of
New Deal agencies in the same manner as did many
of their counterparts, but they did strive to utilize
new labor in order to build more comprehensive
collections. The Peabody Museum, like other muse-
ums concerned with anthropology during this
period, was growing increasingly concerned with ac-
quiring what were believed to be representative
collections, rather than objects believed to be unique
or outstanding. The changing methodology for ac-
quiring collections resulted in a need for more
laborers, be they students or those gaining employ-
ment through work-relief agencies (Harvard Univer-
sity 1936–1937:352).
Between 1939 and 1945, the museum increased
the total number of catalogued objects in its collec-
tions from 153,297 to 168,196. This was due in part
to a continued effort to catalogue existing collections.
During the same period, the museum averaged over
3,200 visitors per year.36 The museum also continued
to publish a steady number of monographs and
scholarly and popular articles. Members of the public
and groups of Berkeley schoolchildren supplemented
the steady number of university students that
visited the temporary exhibitions, each of which typ-
ically lasted about two weeks. In 1940, for instance,
14 classes representing the Anthropology, Art, Clas-
sics, and Decorative Art departments visited the
exhibitions. That same year the number of students

visiting the museum from departments outside
anthropology actually outpaced the number of an-
thropology students who visited the exhibits and for
which records exist.37 Each exhibition throughout the
war steadily filled with visitors, and the number
of visitors regularly increased, with the heaviest at-
tendance being the evening before the close of the
exhibitions.38
With the close of the Second World War in 1945,
the museum saw a notable increase in certain types of
activities, both in terms of practical and intellectual
production. While museums in cities such as Chicago
and Denver were able to capitalize on increased at-
tendance as the war concluded, the Hearst Museum
worked to bolster its research output and collections
acquisitions programs.39 The Hearst Museum’s aver-
age number of acquisitions steadily increased and the
museum saw inflation in the number of loan requests
from other museums, particularly those with more
exhibition space. In 1947, the museum reported at
least 17 visiting researcher projects and 9 graduate
student projects. One year later, the number of grad-
uate students utilizing the collections had doubled.40
The marked growth in collections-based research at
museums was paralleled by the work of scholars
conducting field research, which experienced a simi-
lar, if not more striking, increase.41
Conclusion
A closer look at the history of the Hearst Museum
allows a better understanding of why previous schol-
ars of the history of museums in the United States
overlooked the period between the Great Depression
and Second World War. In surprisingly significant
ways, however, the Hearst Museum witnessed im-
portant developments that led to the aforementioned
explosion in productivity and renewed interest after
the Second World War, perhaps a more complex story
than currently offered in the literature. The signifi-
cance of the New Deal, in particular, has been largely
overlooked. Further, the manner in which New Deal
laborers contributed to heritage preservation and the
production of knowledge has been nearly forgotten in
American cultural history.
Although this case study does not suggest that
U.S. museums remained at the forefront of anthro-
pological knowledge creation at the dawn of the
second half of the 20th century, it does indicate that
hearst museum of anthropology
previous scholars have prematurely envisioned the
Great Depression as a period when museums were on
proverbial life support. The Hearst Museum not only
maintained its pulse through challenging times, it
produced new kinds of work on collections and ex-
hibitions that helped facilitate a postwar explosion of
activity in museums. During perhaps the most chal-
lenging moment for the museum in the United
States, many institutions, including the Hearst Mu-
seum, found ways to expand and better organize their
collections, focus their programming, and conduct
both research and education. An inward focus re-
sulting from the Depression and the war created a
reimagined and reorganized museum that was more
productive immediately following the war.
In 1946, Kroeber penned an eight-page retrospec-
tive of his career. He noted that while the growth of
new collections at the Hearst Museum slowed after
the rapid initial growth under the guidance of Phoebe
Hearst, the rate of growth of the collections between
1936 and 1946 actually outpaced the overall rate of
growth in the course of the museum’s history.42
While the growth and development of collections is
certainly not the sole indicator of the health of any
given museum, the evidence clearly indicates that
museums in the United States were perhaps not
wholly declining as previously envisioned (Conn
1998; Harris 1962; Stocking 1985). Kroeber empha-
sized the use of museum collections in scientific pub-
lications and study by both graduate students and
visiting researchers. He also envisioned the museum
as a space for students at various educational levels.
Although graduate students were capable of handling
the collection and conducting various types of col-
lection-based studies, the undergraduates, like the
Berkeley schoolchildren who visited, were viewed as
passive observers who were supposed to absorb ma-
terial through temporary exhibits.43 This framework
for museum-based research and education solidi-
fied throughout the Great Depression and Second
World War.
Complementing the work of existing staff were
New Deal workers. Specifically, the work of NYA staff
contributed directly to the advancement of Gifford’s
California archaeology projects. Additionally, the
work of WPA workers in creating better finding aids
for the museum’s collections no doubt allowed for
an increase in the accessibility of the collection for
51
hearst museum of anthropology
research, which in turn seems to have contributed to
the explosion in the number of research projects fol-
lowing the Second World War. While the museum
would have seen an increase in scholarship after the
close of the war without a new catalogue system, it
seems apparent that research productivity was as-
sisted by the work of WPA staff only a few years
earlier. The contribution of the New Deal is certainly
not exceptional to the Hearst Museum, and this era
needs to be reassessed in terms of the research
and educational productivity directly related to the
workers.
The Heart Museum, of course, was not without
problems, which Kroeber was quick to recognize in
his retrospective review. He noted that the position of
a museum associated with a university was particu-
larly difficult. His comments are remarkable in light
of the shift of his own work in anthropology, focusing
more on theoretical anthropology than problems of
material culture:
Any university museum faces a specific prob-
lem. This springs from the fact that essentially
such a museum consists of a collection of
physical objects placed in a setting which con-
trariwise operates primarily with ideas, words,
and symbols. Granted that perhaps the largest
fault of formal higher education is over-verbal-
ization, and that the inherently visual museum
approach is as desirable as a corrective, the
museum necessarily tends to be handicapped in
such an environment. It is always likely to be-
come the university’s step-child. [UC Museum
of Anthropology Annual Report 1946:9–10]
Kroeber argued that his museum and the univer-
sity should emulate Harvard’s example. He wrote that
in order to be successful, a museum needed a per-
manent endowment, a building, and some degree of
uninterrupted private support. In comparison with
the Peabody at Harvard, the Hearst Museum lacked
an endowment of sustained private support, in addi-
tion to its chronic problems with facilities. Kroeber
noted of the University of California Museum of
Anthropology, ‘‘Its collections are probably the
only ones of their quality and size in the country kept
wholly in storage on account of lack of facilities to
exhibit any of them.’’44
52
In exploring the history of the Phoebe A. Hearst
Museum of Anthropology, it has become clear that a
call for a broader and more complete history of mu-
seums in the United States is a necessity. Not only
have historians largely neglected to explore this pe-
riod in full, they have often privileged the develop-
ment of major exhibitions or the individual museum
professionals over other, equally significant aspects of
museum history such as collections management,
teaching, and heritage preservation. Taking a more
holistic view of museums during the Great Depres-
sion and Second World War provides us with a more
complex tension between the success and failure of
museums in the United States during the middle of
the 20th century.
Acknowledgments
This article began as a research paper for a graduate
seminar with David Hollinger. In addition to Hollinger,
my advisor, Richard Cándida-Smith, and the members
of my dissertation committeeFRandolph Starn and
Thomas BiolsiFwere extraordinarily helpful in helping
me think through the various ideas contained in this
article. The staff of the Bancroft Library and my friends at
the Hearst Museum were also enormously supportive
throughout the early stages of my research. Joan Knudsen
at the Hearst Museum was especially helpful in helping
me locate historical records at the museum. Ira Jacknis
also took the time to read and comment on the paper.
A special thanks is due to the staff of the National
Anthropological Archives, which has recently become my
archival home. They put in extraordinary effort in helping
me find understudied materials related to the history
of museum anthropology. Finally, I am blessed with un-
iquely supportive friends and family. I simply cannot
thank them enough.
notes
1. 1946 UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report. Hearst
Museum Archives, University of California, Berkeley, CA:
pp. 7–8.
2. Museum Information, An Introduction to the Field Museum.
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/museum_info/default.htm,
accessed February 3, 2010.
3. Penn Museum, Our Building. http://www.penn.museum/
our-building.html, accessed February 3, 2010.
4. American Museum of Natural History, American Museum
of Natural History Timeline. http://www.amnh.org/about/
history.php, accessed February 3, 2010.

5. Kroeber to Sproul, August 14, 1931, Bancroft Library, UC
Berkeley, CU-5 Series 2, University of California, Presi-
dent, 1931, 83-100A, Anthropology.
6. On the subject of the relocation to the Civil Engineering
Building see Hearst Museum Historical Records, Folder:
Museum History, Museum Move from San Francisco to
Berkeley, 1931, Map of Floor Plans of Museum Building
(Old Civil Engineering Building), 1931. On exhibitions,
see, UC Museum of Anthropology Report to President Rob-
ert Gordon Sproul for the Year Ending June 30, 1939,
p. 3 and Hearst Museum Historical Records, Museum His-
tory, Museum History, Move from San Francisco to
Berkeley, 1931, Correspondence and Contents in Each
Room.
7. Letters, E.A. Hugill, ‘‘Note to the Comptroller,’’ May 20,
1931, and C. Derlell Dean of College of Engineering to
Sproul, June 16, 1931, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, CU-5
Series 2, University of California, President, 1931, 83-
100A, Anthropology.
8. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report, 1939, p. 3.
Hearst Museum Historical Records, Folder: Museum His-
tory, Physical Facilities; Request for Annex to Civil
Engineering Bldg for Exhibition Purposes, 1941.
9. A memo in the Kroeber papers at the Bancroft Library out-
lines a number of lecture programs for students in grades
5–8. A. L. Kroeber Papers, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley,
BANC Film 2049, Reel 174, Frame 367, Folder 40, Memos.
BANC MSS. C-B 925 BNEG 1840:173. Frame 63.
10. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report, 1939, p. 3.
11. Many of Kroeber’s published works during this period are
based neither on fieldwork nor museum studies. Rather,
his work became theoretical in nature as he crafted some
of the overarching themes of American anthropology
(Kroeber 1931, 1934).
12. Report on the Department and Museum of Anthropology,
July 1, 1932 to June 30, 1933, p. 2.
13. Kroeber includes an editorial note at the start of his
Handbook of the Indians of California stating that unless
otherwise noted, illustrations of objects in the book are
from the UC Museum of Anthropology. This further rein-
forces the concept of the Hearst Museum as claiming the
role of the official record for indigenous peoples of the
state.
14. University Archives, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, De-
partment of Anthropology, Cu-23, Box 185–186.
15. Kroeber to C. T. Seltman, October 14, 1927, University Ar-
chives, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, Department of
Anthropology, Cu-23, Box 185–186.
hearst museum of anthropology
16. Kroeber to E. Wayne Galliher, October 29, 1931, Univer-
sity Archives, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, Department
of Anthropology, Cu-23, Box 185–186.
17. Several institutional policies appear to have arisen from
casual conversations rather than through written docu-
mentation. Sometimes, the first articulation of policies
appears in external correspondence rather than internal
memoranda. Kroeber probably applied his personal the-
oretical attitudes to the acquisition of collections. He
firmly believed that an ethnographer would do a far bet-
ter job of collecting material than an amateur collector
and, therefore, material from North America offered for
sale was routinely dismissed.
18. Kroeber to Mr. Jack R. Dyson, May 20, 1941, and Kroeber
to G. G. Cobean from A. L. Kroeber, January 26, 1945. Uni-
versity Archives, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, Depart-
ment of Anthropology, Cu-23, Box 185–186.
19. One example is evident in the Ledger Book Series for Cal-
ifornia Collections, Series 1, which shows a significant
number of private donations taking place, even when the
museum was busy cataloguing vast collections from the
region. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Ledger Books,
Series 1, No. 6.
20. Hearst Museum of Anthropology Accession Files 657,
658, and 664.
21. Gifford to E. B. McFarland, October 20, 1939, University
Archives, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, Department of
Anthropology, Cu-23, Box 185–186.
22. Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Accessions
704 and 706.
23. Letter from Theodore D. McCown to Peter B. Cornwell,
April 5, 1940. Papers of Carleton S. Coon, General Corre-
spondence, Box 1, Folder 1940–1945. National Anthropo-
logical Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
24. President Sproul’s efforts can be seen in Hearst Museum
Accession 671.
25. The memo discussed here is entitled, ‘‘Recapitulation
of Archaeological Exploration by the Department
of Anthropology in California, Nevada, Oregon, 1901–
1945.’’ November 15, 1945. A. L. Kroeber Papers, Bancroft
Library, UC Berkeley, BANC Film 2049, Reel 174, Frame
367, Folder 40, Memos. BANC MSS. C-B 925 BNEG
1840:173.
26. The MEP advertised these exhibitions in various publica-
tions, hoping that institutions would continue to
embrace the program. See Box 14. Folder: Diorama. Re-
cords of the Department of Anthropology/U.S. National
Museum/National Museum of Natural History. Series 17:
53
hearst museum of anthropology
Division of Ethnology Manuscript and Pamphlet File. Na-
tional Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
27. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1940, p. 6.
28. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1940, pp. 6–7.
29. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1941, p. 6.
30. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1939, pp. 7–8.
31. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report, 1943, pp. 9–
12 and University of California Museum of Anthropology
Report to President Robert Gordon Sproul for the Year
Ending June 30, 1945, pp. 7–8.
32. This reference concerns all quotes within this paragraph.
Memorandum. Krieger, H. W. ‘‘Report on W.P.A. Assis-
tance, Division of Ethnology, United States National
Museum.’’ June 22, 1939. Box 86. Folder: Works Prog-
ress Administration. Records of the Department of
Anthropology/U.S. National Museum/National Museum
of Natural History, Series 17: Division of Ethnology Manu-
script and Pamphlet File. National Anthropological
Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
33. For more on the Smithsonian’s use of New Deal labor in
archaeology, see Archaeological Reports, 1934–1942.
Box: 86. Folder: Works Progress Administration. Manu-
script 844. Records of the Department of Anthropology/
U.S. National Museum/National Museum of Natural
History, Series 17: Division of Ethnology Manuscript
and Pamphlet File. National Anthropological Archives,
Smithsonian Institution.
34. Museum anthropologists were especially grateful to receive
the temporary assistance of stenographers. New Deal
agencies gave priority to male stenographers, however, fe-
male stenographers were often successful in gaining
temporary employment in museums, where their skills
were utilized to type manuscripts and catalogue cards.
35. Limited records do, in fact, describe employees falling
asleep on the job or mishandling artifacts. Box 86.
Folder: Works Progress Administration. Records of the
Department of Anthropology/U.S. National Museum/Na-
tional Museum of Natural History, Series 17: Division of
Ethnology Manuscript and Pamphlet File. National An-
thropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
36. Statistics based on the UC Museum of Anthropology Re-
port(s) for the years 1939–1946.
37. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1940, p. 3.
38. Hearst Museum Historical Records, Folder: Museum His-
tory, Exhibits, 1935–1941, Anthropology Museum
Exhibits on Primitive Art, Announcements, Mailing Lists
of Local School Teachers, Attendance Figures.
54
39. The press release concerning attendance in 1945 at the
Art Institute of Chicago demonstrates increasing atten-
dance at the museum. The release was circulated on
January 12, 1946. The Art Institute of Chicago maintains a
news release index online at http://www.artic.edu/aic/
libraries/musarchives/pr/index.html, accessed February
3, 2010. See the introductory remarks of C. H. Hanington,
president of what was then the Colorado Museum of Nat-
ural History for the annual reports of both 1945 and 1946
concerning attendance.
40. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1949, p. 11.
41. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1947, pp. 9–15.
42. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1946, pp. 4–5.
43. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1946, pp. 5–6.
44. UC Museum of Anthropology Annual Report 1946, p. 11.
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