George T. Emmons
Encyclopedia
George Thornton Emmons was an ethnographic
photographer and a U.S. Navy Lieutenant.
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was George Foster Emmons
.
He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy
in 1874. In 1881, he attained the master rank, (1883) lieutenant j.g. and (1887) lieutenant.
Emmons got stationed in 1882 on the Pinta
in Alaska
and stayed there through the 1880s and 1890s. The navy took largely the responsibility for stability in the region, in those times.
Emmons married Kittie Baker in 1886.
Through his duties, Emmons got in contact with, and interested in, the Alaska Native cultures of the region: particularly the Tlingit and Tahltan
. He began to record information and collect artifacts as he visited them on his leaves. He was dedicated to learning native life traditions, like Chilkat weaving
, bear hunting, feuds, and the potlatch
(a very big ceremonial feast). He was able to understand beliefs and values and recorded, through his ethnographer
's devotion, also the Tlingit terms. He was assigned from 1891–1893 to the World's Columbian Exposition
to accompany the Alaskan exhibit.
Emmons retired in 1899 and took on special projects for the federal government. He was sent to Alaska in 1901 to locate border stone markers between Canada
and the USA. He gave advice in 1902 about Alaskan game and forests and salmon
fishery. In 1904, he gathered information about white settlers and Alaska Natives and asked President Theodore Roosevelt
to investigate in Alaska Native conditions, because of starvation among the Copper River
Indians. He was supported by Roosevelt and presented in 1905 a report to the Congress.
His interests in Alaska Natives got him into close contact with the American Museum of Natural History
, which purchased his first two collections of Alaska Native artifacts in the 1890s and with which Emmons had an exchange of items for the next three decades. (In 1902 the Field Museum of Natural History
purchased a large and varied collection of more than 1,900 Tlingit objects.) F. W. Putnam, curator of the American museum, asked for his help on a report in 1896 and repeated the request to the navy the following year. So Emmons was officially ordered and detached from active service to write the Ethnological report on the Native tribes of Southeast Alaska
, elaborated from the museum collections. He became a regular contributor to The American Museum Journal (forerunner of Natural History
journal) and other scholarly periodicals.
At the recommendation of Franz Boas
, with whom he corresponded regularly and at the request of the president of the American Museum of Natural History, Morris K. Jesup, he began to organize his notes and prepare a manuscript on the Tlingit. When he died in Victoria, British Columbia
in 1945, the encyclopedic book was still unfinished. The work was taken over by Frederica de Laguna
in 1955 and finally published 1991 with the title The Tlingit Indians. It includes topics such as census
data, names of clan
s and houses, species
of plants and their uses, native calendars, and names of gambling sticks
.
Posthumously published books:
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
photographer and a U.S. Navy Lieutenant.
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was George Foster Emmons
George F. Emmons
George Foster Emmons was a rear admiral of the United States Navy, who served in the early to mid 19th century.-Biography:Born in Clarendon, Vermont, Emmons began his distinguished career as a midshipman on 1 April 1828...
.
He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy
United States Naval Academy
The United States Naval Academy is a four-year coeducational federal service academy located in Annapolis, Maryland, United States...
in 1874. In 1881, he attained the master rank, (1883) lieutenant j.g. and (1887) lieutenant.
Emmons got stationed in 1882 on the Pinta
USS Pinta (1864)
USS Pinta was an iron-hulled screw tug of the United States Navy, launched on October 29, 1864, by Reaney, Son & Archbold, Chester, Pennsylvania, completed in October 1865, and commissioned there, Lt. Comdr. Henry H...
in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and stayed there through the 1880s and 1890s. The navy took largely the responsibility for stability in the region, in those times.
Emmons married Kittie Baker in 1886.
Through his duties, Emmons got in contact with, and interested in, the Alaska Native cultures of the region: particularly the Tlingit and Tahltan
Tahltan
Tahltan refers to a Northern Athabaskan people who live in northern British Columbia around Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake, and Iskut.-Social Organization:...
. He began to record information and collect artifacts as he visited them on his leaves. He was dedicated to learning native life traditions, like Chilkat weaving
Chilkat weaving
Chilkat weaving is a traditional form of weaving practiced by Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and other Northwest coastal tribes of Alaska and British Columbia. Chilkat blankets are worn by high-ranking tribal members on civic or ceremonial occasions, including dances.-Background:The name derives from...
, bear hunting, feuds, and the potlatch
Potlatch
A potlatch is a gift-giving festival and primary economic system practiced by indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and United States. This includes Heiltsuk Nation, Haida, Nuxalk, Tlingit, Makah, Tsimshian, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, and Coast Salish cultures...
(a very big ceremonial feast). He was able to understand beliefs and values and recorded, through his ethnographer
Ethnography
Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
's devotion, also the Tlingit terms. He was assigned from 1891–1893 to the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
to accompany the Alaskan exhibit.
Emmons retired in 1899 and took on special projects for the federal government. He was sent to Alaska in 1901 to locate border stone markers between Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and the USA. He gave advice in 1902 about Alaskan game and forests and salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
fishery. In 1904, he gathered information about white settlers and Alaska Natives and asked President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
to investigate in Alaska Native conditions, because of starvation among the Copper River
Copper River (Alaska)
The Copper River or Ahtna River is a 300-mile river in south-central Alaska in the United States. It drains a large region of the Wrangell Mountains and Chugach Mountains into the Gulf of Alaska...
Indians. He was supported by Roosevelt and presented in 1905 a report to the Congress.
His interests in Alaska Natives got him into close contact with the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
, which purchased his first two collections of Alaska Native artifacts in the 1890s and with which Emmons had an exchange of items for the next three decades. (In 1902 the Field Museum of Natural History
Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It sits on Lake Shore Drive next to Lake Michigan, part of a scenic complex known as the Museum Campus Chicago...
purchased a large and varied collection of more than 1,900 Tlingit objects.) F. W. Putnam, curator of the American museum, asked for his help on a report in 1896 and repeated the request to the navy the following year. So Emmons was officially ordered and detached from active service to write the Ethnological report on the Native tribes of Southeast Alaska
Alaska Panhandle
Southeast Alaska, sometimes referred to as the Alaska Panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, which lies west of the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The majority of Southeast Alaska's area is part of the Tongass National Forest, the United...
, elaborated from the museum collections. He became a regular contributor to The American Museum Journal (forerunner of Natural History
Natural History (magazine)
Natural History is an American natural history magazine. The stated mission of the magazine is to promote public understanding and appreciation of nature and science.- History :...
journal) and other scholarly periodicals.
At the recommendation of Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
, with whom he corresponded regularly and at the request of the president of the American Museum of Natural History, Morris K. Jesup, he began to organize his notes and prepare a manuscript on the Tlingit. When he died in Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
in 1945, the encyclopedic book was still unfinished. The work was taken over by Frederica de Laguna
Frederica de Laguna
Frederica de Laguna was an American anthropologist. Her parents, Theodore Lopez de Leo de Laguna and Grace Mead Andrus, were, respectively, Spanish-American and, in Frederica's own words, "Connecticut Yankee". Both received doctorates from Cornell and would later teach philosophy at Bryn...
in 1955 and finally published 1991 with the title The Tlingit Indians. It includes topics such as census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
data, names of clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
s and houses, species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of plants and their uses, native calendars, and names of gambling sticks
Pick-up sticks (Haida)
Haida pick-up sticks exist in two sorts. There were non-decorated thin playing sticks and the other decorated containing three sets of sticks. These were named after animals or birds only known by the owner or his family according to Charles F. Newcombe.The decoration consists of rings and spiral...
.
Writings
Journal articles by Emmons, G. T.:- (1903). The Basketry of the Tlingit. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History 3 (2), 229–277.
- (1907). The Chilkat Blanket. Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History 3 (4), 329–401.
- (1908). Copper Neck-rings of Southern Alaska. American Anthropologist (ns) 10 (4), 644–649.
- (1908). Petroglyphs in Southeastern Alaska. American Anthropologist (ns) 10 (2), 221–230.
- (1909). The Art of the Northwest Coast Indians, Journal of American Museum of Natural History 30 (3).
- (1910). Niska. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 30 (2), 75–76.
- (1911). The Tahltan Indians. Anthropological Publications of the University of Pennsylvania Museum 3. Philadelphia: The University Museum.
- (1912). The Ketselas of British Columbia. American Anthropologist (ns) 14, 467–471.
- (1913). Some Kitksan Totem Poles. American Museum Journal 13. 362–369.
- (1914). Portraiture among the North Pacific Coast Tribes. American Anthropologist (ns) 16, 59–67.
- (1915). Tsimshian Stories in Carved Wood. American Museum Journal 15 (7), 363–366.
- (1921). Slate Mirrors of the Tsimshian. Indian Notes and Monographs (ns) 15, 21.
- (1925). The Kitikshan and Their Totem Poles. Natural History 25, 33–48.
- (1930). The Art of the Northwest Coast Indians: How Ancestral Records Were Preserved in Carvings and Paintings of Mythical or Fabulous Animal Figures. Natural History 30 (3), 282–292. [Reprinted: The Haunted Bookshop, Victoria, BC, 1971.]
Posthumously published books:
- Emmons, George Thornton (reprint 1993). The Basketry of the Tlingit and the Chilkat Blanket. Friends of Sheldon Jackson. ISBN 1-880475-03-0.
- Emmons, George Thornton & (Ed.) de Laguna, Frederica (1991). The Tlingit Indians. Seattle, London, Vancouver: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97008-1
-
- Chapter headings resemble the breadth of the work: The Land and the People; Social Organization; Villages, Houses, Forts, and Other Works; Travel and Transportation; Fishing and Hunting; Food and its Preparation; Arts and Industries: Men’s Work; Arts and Industries: Women’s Work; Dress and Decoration; The Life Cycle; Ceremonies; War and Peace; Illness and Medicine; Shamanism; Witchcraft; Games and Gambling; and Time, Tides, and Winds.
- Emmons, George Thornton; (Ed.) Hope, Andrew; (Ed.) Thornton, Thomas (2001). Will the Time Ever Come?: A Tlingit Source Book. University of Washington Press. ISBN 1-877962-34-1.
- Chapter headings resemble the breadth of the work: The Land and the People; Social Organization; Villages, Houses, Forts, and Other Works; Travel and Transportation; Fishing and Hunting; Food and its Preparation; Arts and Industries: Men’s Work; Arts and Industries: Women’s Work; Dress and Decoration; The Life Cycle; Ceremonies; War and Peace; Illness and Medicine; Shamanism; Witchcraft; Games and Gambling; and Time, Tides, and Winds.
External links
- Emmons Family Papers. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.