Department of Ethnology and Archaeology for the 

 World's Columbian Exposition. His task was to assemble 

 a large anthropological collection for the 1893 world's 

 fair, and for this purpose field parties to various parts of 

 the world were directed to collect ethnographic objects 

 and other materials representing many different cul- 

 tures. One of these parties, an expedition to northwest 

 Greenland, was under the command of Lieutenant 

 Robert Edwin Peary of the United States Navy. 



Lieutenant Peary eventually became a rear admiral 

 and received worldwide recognition for his arctic 

 explorations, particularly his achievement in reaching 

 the North Pole in 1909. In 1891, however, he was serv- 

 ing as chief engineer at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. He 

 received an appointment to lead an arctic expedition for 

 the American Geographical Society and the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. It was during this 

 expedition (1891-92), the first of four to the country of 

 the Polar Eskimo, that Peary made the collection for 

 Putnam and the World's Columbian Exposition. 



Putnam obtained an appropriation of $10,000 from 

 the executive committee of the exposition to be used for 

 the purchase of ethnographic specimens from members 

 of expeditions about to depart for various parts, of North 

 America. The principal goals of Peary's Greenland 

 expedition were to determine the northernmost exten- 



sion of the subcontinent and to collect materials and 

 information of scientific interest. Putnam agreed to pay 

 $2,000 for ethnographic and archaeological materials 

 from the Polar Eskimo and specifically requested that 

 Peary make as complete a collection as possible. 



The North Greenland Expedition, as it came to be 

 called, was originally conceived on a modest scale. 

 Eventually, Peary received more support than he had 

 anticipated and Putnam soon realized that the expedi- 

 tion would not be devoted to the collection of materials 

 exclusively for the world's fair. He became worried that 

 he might not obtain all the materials necessary for his 

 conception of the exhibition if other institutions were to 

 receive a share of the collected objects. After some nego- 

 tiations, a memorandum of agreement between Peary 

 and Putnam was drawn up on June 2, 1891, just three 

 days before the expedition sailed. It read in part as 

 follows: 



Mr. Peary to be appointed by Mr. Putnam as Special Assis- 

 tant in charge of Ethnological and Archaeological work in 

 Greenland for the World's Columbian Exposition, and is to 

 obtain all objects possible, illustrative of the life and cus- 

 toms and the arts of the Arctic Highlanders inhabiting the 

 Whale Sound region, in particular, and such other natives 

 of Greenland as may be practical; also photographs and 

 measurements of the people, and, if possible, moulds of a 

 man, woman, and child, for the purpose of making models 



The Kite in Melville Bay 



19 



