Hewett, Edgar L. (Edgar Lee), 1865-1946

Edgar L. Hewett was the founder and first director of the Museum of New Mexico and the School of American Archaeology (which later became the School of American Research), both in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Edgar L. Hewett was a prominent Southwest archaeologist who founded and directed the Museum of New Mexico and the School of American Archaeology (which later became the School of American Research).

Edgar L. Hewett was born in Warren County, Illinois, November 23, 1865. His early life and education were in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, and later in Colorado, where Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier and his work on the Pajarito Plateau influenced him. In 1891 he married Cora Whitford (who passed away in 1905). In 1904 Hewett received a Ph.D. in Geneva, Switzerland. December 31, 1911 Hewett married Donizetta Adalede Jones Wood (1869-1960). All his adult life, Hewett was active in all facets of anthropology, art, and culture of the Southwest, was involved in many organizations, activities, and institutions, and published many books and articles on archaeology. He passed away 1946 and his ashes were placed in a wall niche with a bronze plaque in the Museum of Fine Arts courtyard.

Quite frequently, Hewett headed multiple organizations and institutions at the same time. In 1898 he became the first president of Normal University in Las Vegas, NM, and subsequently in the 1920s taught at San Diego State Teacher's College and at the University of New Mexico. In the early 20th century, Hewett became the head of the newly established Museum of New Mexico (1909), was appointed Director of Exhibits for the 1915/1916 Panama-California Exhibition in San Diego, and led the founding of the Fine Arts Museum. Hewett was active in the Archaeological Society of New Mexico; American Research for the Archaeological Institute of America; the School of American Archaeology (School of American Research); Santa Fe Fiesta activities; and the Laboratory of Anthropology which he opened with funding from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1931).

Hewett spent time on excavations in the Southwest, Mexico and Central and South America. Among places, he worked in Mesa Verde, the Pajarito Plateau, and Quirigua, Guatemala. He was also politically active in the creation of the Antiquity Bill (1905) and the defeat of the Bursum Bill that proposed taking land from the Pueblos. Hewett worked with many locally as well as nationally well-known men and women. In Santa Fe, he fostered and promoted Sylvanus Morley, Alfred Kidder, and John Fletcher, worked with Jesse Nusbaum, Kenneth Chapman, Paul A. F. Walter, Wesley Bradfield, and Ralph Emerson Twitchell. He supported Tsianina, a Native American, who was the featured singer at the Santa Fe Fiesta for many years. Among the many artists he supported and/or worked with were Gerald Cassidy, Carlos Vierra, Frank Applegate and Mary Austin. Through his profession, he became friends with Frank Springer, Alice Cunningham Fletcher, William H. Holmes, Frederick W. Putnam, and Barbara Friere-Marreco, a British researcher involved with Santa Clara Pueblo.