THE ETHNOGEOGRAPHIC BOARD 



By WENDELL CLARK BENNETT 

 Yale University 



BACKGROUND PROBLEMS 



Wartime Washington 



For the millions who milled around Washington in the first half of 

 1942 no statement about the fabulous confusion could ever be adequate 

 and would never be necessary. In judging many of the service activ- 

 ities of the Ethnogeographic Board, however, the chaotic environment 

 must be kept in mind. This was not a period of calm deliberation. 

 Everyone rushed first, and questioned where he was going afterward. 

 The sudden mass increase of population created a housing shortage, a 

 restaurant shortage, a transportation shortage, a service shortage. 

 All this was added to a day of office frustration. 



New agencies were created overnight and old ones were expanded 

 beyond capacity. Mandates were vague and overlapping. Competition 

 was keen between agencies and within agencies. Experts were rushed 

 from their calm academic security into the maelstrom. The process of 

 "leveling" was elaborated, so that a man in one agency, in order to 

 communicate with a colleague in another, had to send his message up 

 to his top-ranking official, who transferred it to a correspondingly high 

 official in the other agency who in turn let it "level" down to the man 

 who should have received it directly. In the war fervor each agency 

 started a system of classifying its documents — any document — as con- 

 fidential, secret, supersecret. The mad scene was popularly labeled the 

 "War of Washington" and doubtless will become the subject matter 

 of many a roving reporter's personal reminiscences. It was both ironic 

 and pathetic. There were many opportunists, but there were a vastly 

 greater number of the genuinely sincere who wanted to be of service 

 in the prosecution of a war in which V-day was not yet visible on 

 the horizon. 



The Ethnogeographic Board, unlike many other agencies, found 

 operation in wartime Washington a stimulating challenge. Fortu- 

 nately, it had certain concrete advantages over the others. Though a 

 new organization, it was housed in the Smithsonian Institution build- 



SMITHSONIAIM MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 107, NO. 1 



