Synoptic series of objects in the United States national museum, illustrating the history of inventions / by Walter Hough.

  • Hough, Walter, 1859-1935.
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Synoptic series of objects in the United States national museum, illustrating the history of inventions / by Walter Hough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SYNOPTIC SERIES OF OBJECTS IN THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM ILLUSTRATING TIIE HISTORY OF INVENTIONS. By Walter Hough, Acting Hunt Curator of Anthropology, United States National Museum. HISTORY. Fifty years ago the United States National Museum was being rapidly and steadily enriched by a stream of ethnologic material poured in by explorations and expeditions carried on in the United States and in foreign lands. Among the first results of the classifica¬ tion of the collections was the recognition of similarities and differ¬ ences in the material culture of races. This observation was to bear fruition in the exhibits of the Museum. There also arose at this period the germs of ideas as to the relative, inventiveness of races, which is seen to have been a natural inquiry among a nation of inventors. The study of certain common tools whose use extended among many different tribes was taken in due course. One of the early anthropological works published by the Smithsonian was Dr. Charles Rau’s monograph on Prehistoric Fishing, which was a fore¬ runner of numerous papers on the various industries of the American Indians. These publications form a large and important literature on aboriginal technology. Such works also show that motivated by the earlier studies there arose in the analytic minds of Mason and Holmes conceptions of the distribution and sequence of inventions, and their relative grades, all of which gave an inkling of the progress of development by which series of objects could be arranged in order in historical cate¬ gories from simple to complex. While these studies were ripening almost unconsciously during the handling of the increasing materials coming into the Smithsonian no incentive to present these facts offered till, in preparing plans for the Trans-Mississippi Exposition held in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1898. it was suggested that a synoptic series illustrating the history of In¬ vention should be prepared for exhibit on that occasion. The energies of the staff of anthropology were directed to this end and a series of extraordinary interest and value was prepared. No. 2404-Proceedings U. S. National Museum. Vol. 60. Art. 9.