University of Pennsylvania Finding Aids

The American Section was one of the first to evolve during the early development of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The University Archaeological Association established in 1887 and later, the American Exploration Society, established in 1892, exhibited several small collections in College Hall before the building campaign for the museum began. Charles Abbott was the first curator of the section succeeded by Henry C. Mercer and then Stewart Culin who was also named Director in 1899. Each succeeding curator was responsible for adding collections, many of them representing their own expeditions in the United States, Alaska, Mexico, Central America and South America. Records in the files are dated from 1826 through the 1980s. The transfer of materials to the Archives took place piecemeal and without a central organization. The current re-processing placed the files into three series, Deaccessions and Loans, Collectors and Collections and Exhibits.

J. Alden Mason, noted archaeological anthropologist and linguist, was born in Orland, Indiana and attended school in Philadelphia attaining his A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1907. He pursued his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley completing his dissertation on the ethnography of the Salinan Indians of California. Mason was influenced by Alfred J. Kroeber while at Berkeley and Edward Sapir of the University of Pennsylvania. The J. Alden Mason curatorial years (1922-1967) produced three archival boxes of correspondence and in-house memos, along with Section reports, research notes and articles and notes for publication. This material, in addition to personal records of Dr. Mason and evidence of his scholarship were arranged into series and placed in chronological order.

The J.Alden Mason Linguistic Expeditions to Mexico consist of six trips to study the languages of the Northern and Southern Tepehuan Indians of the region around Durango and the Nevome of the lower Pima Bajo area. From 1912 to 1954, Mason gathered information on the languages, ceremonial activities, prayers, and botany of the Piman tribes of northern and southern Mexico. Mason took numerous photographs and his second expedition, financed by Percy C. Madeira who accompanied Mason, consisted entirely of aerial photographs of the area. The 1936 Durango Expedition with Robert M. Merrill produced photographs, plates and objects from archaeological sites like Chalchihuites and Zape in the Durango region. The photographs and plates were reproduced in a 1937 article, "Late Archaeological Sites in Durango Mexico." During this trip, Mason shot unedited film showing the indigenous people and the countryside around Durango. Two additional expeditions in 1951 and 1954 resulted in reports of the Northern Tepehuan and Nevome languages and cultures.