Human Remains and the Construction of Race and History, 1897-1945
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Human Remains and the Construction of Race and History, 1897-1945 By Samuel James Redman A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Richard Cándida Smith, Chair Professor Randolph Starn Professor Thomas Biolsi Spring 2012 © 2012 by Samuel James Redman All rights reserved. Abstract Human Remains and the Construction of Race and History, 1897-1945 by Samuel James Redman Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Richard Cándida Smith, Chair This dissertation examines the use of human remains as tools for research and display over the course of a fifty-year span in the United States. It explores the shift away from racial classification toward emerging ideas regarding human prehistory and evolution. This project serves as both an intellectual history of the discourse surrounding these remains and a cultural history of the exhibitions that millions of visitors encountered at museums and fairs throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth century. 1 To Emily i Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1 – Collecting Bodies for Science in the Late Nineteenth Century Chapter 2 – Salvaging Race and Remains: Collecting, Documenting, and Legislating Bones in the Early 20th Century Chapter 3 – The Mütter Museum: The Medical Body on Display Chapter 4 – The Story of Man Through the Ages: Artistry, Anthropology, and Scientific Certainty on Display Chapter 5 – The Rise and Fall of Scientific Racism and the Changing Meaning of Museum Remains Chapter 6 – Human Remains and the Emerging Study of the Human Prehistory Bibliography ii Acknowledgements Writing a dissertation of this kind is a collaborative process. Not only were my advisors and mentors an ongoing influence, my conversations with countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and American Indians scholars and friends shaped my ideas. Equally significant in shaping this project were the wonderful archivists and librarians who helped along the way. My time working at the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution was critical in determining the direction of this project. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Jake Homiak, Robert Leopold, Leanda Gahegan, Jennifer Snyder, Michael Pahn, Alan Bain, Gina Rappaport, Lorain Wang, Stephanie Christensen, and Daisy Njoku. At the National Museum of Natural History I would like to thank David Hunt, Lars Krutak, Bill Billeck, and David Rosenthal. Thanks also to Pamela M. Henson at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. My time at the Smithsonian was critically important in the shaping of this dissertation and my thinking about archives more generally – equally important, I made amazing new friends at the museum. My first summer in the archives at the Smithsonian was made possible by a grant from the Center for Race and Gender at the University of California, Berkeley. At the Mütter Museum I would like to thank Anna Dhody and Robert Hicks. A portion of the research for this dissertation was funded by a grant from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. My time at the Mütter Museum provided me with the tools to better understand the foundation of medical museums in the United States. At the University Museum Archives of the University of Pennsylvania I would like to thank Alessandro Pezzati. At the Hearst Museum I would like to thank especially Ira Jacknis and Joan Knudson. Thanks to Richard Wilshusen and Bridget Ambler, who generously shared ideas and resources on the history of archaeology connected to the Colorado Historical Society, History Colorado. My time in Colorado, as an intern before enrolling in graduate school, set me off on a much deeper path thinking about the historical role of human remains in archaeology. At the San Diego Museum of Man, thanks to Tori Randall. My mentors from the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley included, but were not limited to, my advisors Richard Cándida Smith and Randy Starn. In the Ethnic Studies Department, I owe thanks to Thomas Biolsi. Thanks to all three scholars for their ongoing mentorship, support, and guidance. The Department of History generously funded portions of the research and writing of this dissertation, as did the Graduate Division at UC Berkeley. Thanks also to my undergraduate mentors Roland Guyotte and Julie Pelletier who fostered my interest in this topic from the earliest stages. I owe an enormous debt to my wife Emily, parents Jim and Cindy, sister Elisa, and my other family and friends. This project would not have been possible without you. Much credit is due to my basset hound, Sparkle the Wonder Dog, a steadfast companion curled at my feet during the writing of this dissertation. Most of all, Emily has been with me since the genesis of this project. Not only would this dissertation not have been possible without her highly skilled eye as an editor, my career as a historian would be impossible without her steadfast love and support. From Berkeley, California to cramped apartments in Washington and Philadelphia and back to California – thanks for everything Ems. iii Despite the collaborative nature of this project, the interpretations are my own, and therefore any mistakes in judgment are entirely my own. iv Introduction In May of 1864, as the Civil War raged, a lone American Indian man died at the hands of a pair of U.S. soldiers near a dusty outpost in rural Minnesota. The soldiers shot the man twice. One bullet struck him in the head. A second bullet entered his body through either his mouth or neck.1 Either wound was probably enough to prove fatal, possibly even killing him instantly. Although his body was healthy and strong at the time of his death, his face now lay totally disfigured. In most circumstances, the soldiers would have simply left the body. In this incident, however, the soldiers were compelled to bring the remains of the man back to the fort. That decision would prove critical for the fate of the man’s skeleton. When considered within the context of the long history of settlement in the American West, the circumstances surrounding the death of the single “hostile Sioux,” who died somewhere between the ages of 25 and 28, were common. Frontier violence ebbed and flowed, but was taken for granted as enmeshed within everyday existence in the mid-nineteenth century United States. What happened to the body of this particular young Dakota man after his death, however, was striking. Word of the killing spread quickly and white civilians from the village arrived at the fort to celebrate. After having suffered its ill fate at the hands of American troops, the body was dragged across the grassland to the fort, where it was badly mutilated. Eventually, both soldiers and settlers began beating the body relentlessly. The lower jaw of the corpse, likely already grossly stained and torn due to the gunshot wound, was further shattered into small pieces. The scalp was cut off and carried away as a souvenir—a memento of death. The settlers smashed and cut the once strong bones belonging to the lifeless corpse.2 Once the settlers were finished, they buried the body. The corpse lay below ground, but a short while before being disinterred it was removed in the name of science, several bones going missing in the process.3 A few months later, a medical officer at the fort was gently placing the man’s bones into a box in response to an order to collect human remains for science. The remains were shipped to a museum where they would be studied, displayed, and interpreted by generations of scholars and members of the public over the ensuing 1 New Ulm Post. 20 Mai 1864. New Ulm Historical Society, New Ulm, Minnesota. Historical records of the United States Army corroborate much of the story appearing in the New Ulm Post. Scouting parties of volunteers were ordered to search the region, and firefight broke out when three Native Americans fired upon a pair of soldiers. The soldiers returned fire, with bullets striking the single young man in the head and neck. See, Memorandum. “Inventory and Assessment of Human Remains from the Historic Period Potentially Affiliated with the Eastern Dakota in the National Museum of Natural History.” Stephanie A. Makseyn-Kelley and Erica Bubnaik Jones. Repatriation Office, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. April 24, 1996. 2 While Muller does detail the scalping and removal of specific body parts, it was not until 1996 that physical anthropologists at the Smithsonian determined the extent of the individual’s injuries, which included a broken hip bone, cracked ribs, and cut marks on his right radius (an arm bone). See emorandum. “Inventory and Assessment of Human Remains from the Historic Period Potentially Affiliated with the Eastern Dakota in the National Museum of Natural History.” 3 Letter from Alfred Muller, Acting Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army to Surgeon General, U.S. Army, March 26, 1866. Army Medical Museum Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution. It should be noted that bodies of African-American Union soldiers were mutilated by soldiers of the confederacy, marking bodily mutilation as an obvious sign of harsh racial tensions. Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (New York: Knopf, 2008), 44-45. 1 decades. Eventually transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, the remains became part of a growing project to understand humanity through a changing kaleidoscope of ideas about race and prehistory. Scientists, eager for evidence to support their ideas, helped spur the growth of spaces colloquially known as bone rooms. While the scientists were chiefly responsible for using the bones in the production of ideas about the classification of races and, increasingly, the deep human past, they relied heavily on collectors of all kinds to gather specimens.