FREDERIC WARD PUTNAM 
By Clark Wissler 
HE founder of anthropological re- 
search in the American Museum, 
Frederic Ward Putnam, died at 
his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
Saturday, August 14, 1915. He was born 
in Salem, Massachusetts, April 16, 1839. 
He attended the Lawrence Scientific 
School of Harvard where he studied 
under the distinguished Agassiz. From 
1857 to 1864 he was Agassiz’s laboratory 
assistant, and later he was curator of 
Vertebrata in the Essex Institute, Salem, 
and also curator of ichthyology in the 
Boston Society of Natural 
Thus at an early age he began an un- 
usual career in that he served a number 
History. 
of institutions simultaneously.! 
Professor Putnam’s interest in anthro- 
pology was a later development and 
seems to have had its origin in his mu- 
seum experience. He was above all a 
genius In museum development and is 
far and away the most conspicuous figure 
1Some of the positions Professor Putnam has 
held in corporations and institutions are as fol- 
lows:— curator of ornithology, Essex Institute, 
Salem, Massachusetts, 1856-1857; assistant to 
Professor Louis Agassiz, Harvard University, 
1857-1864; curator of Vertebrata, Essex Insti- 
tute, 1864-1866; superintendent of the Essex 
Institute Museum, 1866-1871; superintendent 
Museum East Indian Marine Society, 1867-1869; 
director Museum Peabody Academy of Science, 
1869-1873; state commissioner of fish and game, 
Massachusetts, 1882-1889; curator of ichthyol- 
ogy, Boston Society of Natural History, 1859— 
1868; permanent secretary, American Association 
for the Advancement of Science, 1873-1898; 
assistant Kentucky Geological Survey, 1874; 
instructor, Penikese School of Natural History, 
1874; assistant to United States Engineers in 
surveys west of 100th meridian, 1876-1879; 
assistant in ichthyology, Museum of Comparative 
Zoology, 1876-1878; curator of the Peabody 
Museum, 1875-1909; honorary curator, 1909; 
honorary director, 1913; Peabody professor of 
American archeology and ethnology, Harvard 
University, 1886-1909; Peabody professor emeri- 
tus, 1910; chief of department of ethnology, 
World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1891— 
1894; curator of anthropology, American Mu- 
seum, New York, 1894-1903; professor of anthro- 
pology and director of the Anthropological Mu- 
seum of the University of California, 1903-1909; 
professor emeritus of anthropology, 1909. 
in the history of American museums. 
Anthropology as we now use the term 
had scarcely come into existence when 
he took it up. Doubtless he saw in 
America a great undeveloped field for 
research and particularly for the investi- 
gation of the antiquity and the origin 
of man. At that time such museums 
as there were, contented themselves with 
receiving gifts of such random anthro- 
pological specimens as came to their 
doors, but Professor Putnam’s idea was 
to make the museum an instrument of 
field research, to go out with trained men, 
collect, and study the evidences of man’s 
antiquity on the ground. This is the 
modern idea and it can truthfully be said 
that Putnam is the father of municipal 
anthropological research institutions in 
America. 
The Peabody Museum in Cambridge 
as it stands to-day is due to his leader- 
ship; his coming to the American Mu- 
seum resulted in the development of 
anthropology as a department of re- 
search and the beginning of a policy 
of extensive systematic field investiga- 
tion. It was Professor Putnam who 
encouraged the late Marshall Field to 
establish in Chicago a great museum 
which now bears his name, and it was 
Professor Putnam who guided its de- 
partment of anthropology through the 
formative period. Later, he organized 
a department of anthropology and a 
museum at the University of California 
where he was director for several years. 
One of his strongest traits was his genius 
in interesting wealthy men in museum 
development. In almost equal measure 
he had a way of inspiring capable young 
men. Among those whose early anthro- 
pological careers were under his guidance 
are Franz Boas, Roland B. Dixon, 
George A. Dorsey, Alice C. Fletcher, 
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