University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

Froelich G. Rainey was born in Black River Falls, Wisconsin in 1907 and raised on a cattle ranch in Montana. He spent time as a cowboy in his youth and attended the local schools. For his college experience he chose the University of Chicago, graduating in 1929 with a B.A. in English. Rainey spent the next year at the American School in France studying Pre-Historic Archaeology. He completed his graduate wotk at Yale University attaining a Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1935. Rainey taught for a year at the University of Puerto Rico and in 1935 began a six year teaching stay at University of Alaska. While in Alaska, he conducted research which resulted in evidence that humans had migrated from Russia to Alaska centuries ago. Rainey gained museum experience as an Assistant in Archaeology at the Peabody Museum at Harvard and as a representative for Financial Grants in Archaeology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Rainey was appointed Director of the University Museum in 1947 and maintained the position until his retirement in 1976. He also served as a Professor of Anthropology at the University. Among his many accomplishments as Director, Rainey is responsible for the institution of Expedition Magazine. He developed and hosted the television show "What in the World?" which ran either locally or nationally for a total of fifteen years. In 1964, he served as a contributor to the show "Sunday" on NBC reporting the "archaeology news." The Froelich G. Rainey Egypt records reflect his close association with the expeditions sponsored by the University in Egypt. They consist of correspondence related to the Yale-Penn Expedition, the relocation of the Abu Sindel/Nubian sites at the time of the Aswan Dam construction and the American Research Center in Egypt (A.R.C.E.).