The Stockbridge-Munsee Tote at the National Museum of the American Indian
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Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2010 The Stockbridge-Munsee Tote at the National Museum of the American Indian Corinne McVeigh Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons © The Author Downloaded from https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/152 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE STOCKBRIDGE-MUNSEE TOTE AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. by Corinne McVeigh B.A. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2007 Director: Dr. Margaret Lindauer, Associate Professor and Museum Studies Coordinator, Department of Art History Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Virginia December, 2010 ACKNOWLEDGMENT I owe many thanks to my entire thesis committee, Dr. Margaret Lindauer, Dr. James Farmer, and Dr. Eric Garberson. I would like to thank Dr. Margaret Lindauer, my advisor and director, for her continued support and guidance. She challenged and motivated me throughout my studies, and for that, I am sincerely grateful. I would also like to thank Dr. James Farmer, my reader, for his thoughtful advice during the writing of this thesis. Additionally, I’d like to thank the National Museum of the American Indian for allowing me to access its collection. Thanks to Dr. Patricia L. Nietfeld, of NMAI’s Cultural Resources Center, who generously provided her time and assistance. I am also grateful for Ms. Leah J. Miller, of the Arvid E. Miller Memorial Library-Museum, for graciously helping me during my research. Special thanks to my family for all of their love and encouragement, and above all, I would like to thank my husband Josh for his confidence in me and for his endless support and patience. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations………………………………………………………………………..………iv Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………..……..v Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………......1 Chapter 1: History of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band……………………………………..............6 Chapter 2: Indian Arts and Crafts Board and Wisconsin Indian Craft………………..........……15 Chapter 3: The National Museum of the American Indian............................................................28 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................41 Bibliography..................................................................................................................................43 Illustrations....................................................................................................................................46 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Stockbridge-Munsee Tote. Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [25/8619]. Photo by NMAI Photo Services staff ..................................................46 2. Munsee Delaware Pouch. Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [24/1459]. Photo by Corinne McVeigh .................................................................47 3. Stockbridge Mohican Bag. Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [22/4530]. Photo Corinne McVeigh ......................................................................47 4. Stockbridge Mohican Basket. Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [23/1627]. Photo by NMAI Photo Services staff .............................48 5. Stockbridge Mohican Bag. Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [18/5920]. Photo by Corinne McVeigh .................................................................48 6. Mohican Club. Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [20/2196]. Photo by NMAI Photo Services staff ....................................................................49 7. Stockbridge-Munsee Pendant. Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [25/7479]. Photo by Corinne McVeigh ............................................49 8. Stockbridge-Munsee Tote, detail. Courtesy, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution [25/8619]. Photo by Corinne McVeigh ............................................50 iv ABSTRACT THE STOCKBRIDGE-MUNSEE TOTE AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN By Corinne McVeigh, B.A. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. Major Director: Dr. Margaret Lindauer, Associate Professor and Museum Studies Coordinator Department of Art History This thesis constructs the cultural biography of the National Museum of the American Indian’s Stockbridge-Munsee tote, a twentieth-century souvenir craft, in order to examine the tote’s cultural and cross-cultural associated meanings and how these associated meanings shift from one context to another. It follows the tote’s history including its production, purchase, and transfer. This thesis briefly recounts the Stockbridge-Munsee Indians’ history and focuses on a few examples of craft objects produced prior to the 1960s, when the Stockbridge-Munsee tote was made. Wisconsin Indian Craft, a craft cooperative formed in the 1960s, produced objects such as the Stockbridge-Munsee tote. This tote, along with seventeen other Wisconsin Indian Craft souvenirs, was purchased by the Department of the Interior Indian Arts and Crafts Board in v 1964 and transferred to the National Museum of the American Indian’s collection in 2000. This thesis analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the inclusion of the Stockbridge-Munsee tote in the National Museum of the American Indian’s collection. From constructing the Stockbridge-Munsee tote’s cultural biography, this thesis concludes that the tote’s associated meanings do not merely shift from context to context. Rather, these associated meanings build upon one another to create layers of coexisting associated meanings. vi INTRODUCTION This thesis presents the provenance and constructs the cultural biography of the National Museum of the American Indian’s (NMAI) Stockbridge-Munsee tote, a twentieth-century souvenir craft. A cultural biography of an object involves detailed analysis of cultural and historical contexts. A traditional provenance records only ownership and collection history, while a cultural biography of an object discusses associated meanings and shifting associated meanings of an object as it moves from context to context. The phrase “cultural biography” was coined by anthropologist Igor Kopytoff in his essay, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” He explains that “a culturally informed economic biography of an object would look at it as a culturally constructed entity, endowed with culturally specific meanings, and classified and reclassified into culturally constituted categories.”1 Elizabeth Edwards, Chris Gosden, and Ruth B. Phillips reiterate Kopytoff’s approach: “One of the most fertile frameworks for the study of material culture during the late twentieth century has been the idea that objects have a ‘social biography.’”2 This approach analyzes objects “...by tracing the succession of meanings attached to them as they move across space and time.”3 1 Igor Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 68. 2 Elizabeth Edwards, Chris Gosden, and Ruth B. Phillips, Sensible Objects: Colonialism, Museums and Material Culture, (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 13. 3 Edwards, Sensible Objects, 13. 1 This cultural biography of the Stockbridge-Munsee tote follows the tote’s history including its production by members of the Wisconsin Indian Craft cooperative, its purchase by the United States Department of Interior Indian Arts and Crafts Board, and its final transfer to the NMAI. This thesis observes how cross-cultural meaning associated with the tote shifted as the Stockbridge-Munsee tote transferred from one context to another. It also analyzes the tote’s current inclusion in a museum collection. This thesis questions how and why this tote, along with seventeen other Stockbridge-Munsee craft objects created with the intention of being purchased and used, was transferred to the NMAI. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages, to multiple constituents, of the inclusion of the tote in the Museum’s collection. These constituents include the Stockbridge-Munsee Band, Wisconsin Indian Craft, the NMAI, researchers, and the general public. A “craft,” as defined by art historian Howard Risatti, refers to an object created with skill and with intention: “While purpose and practical function instigate the making of craft objects, form, material, and technique are the elements necessary to bring them into being as physical, tangible things.”4 Ruth B. Phillips, art historian and author of Trading Identities: The Souvenir in Native North American Art from the Northeast, 1700-1900, uses the term “art commodity” to describe