Gilmore, Melvin R. (Melvin Randolph), 1868-1940

Melvin Randolph Gilmore was one of the preeminent ethnobotanists of his generation and served as Curator of Ethnology for the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan from 1929 to 1939.

Melvin Randolph Gilmore was born on March 11, 1868 in Valley, Nebraska. Gilmore's father was a farmer, and as a young man, Gilmore worked the farm with him. He also served as a teacher in a local school, not finishing college until he was in his thirties. He received a bachelor's degree from Cotner College (later Cotner University) in 1904. He received both of his graduate degrees in botany from the University of Nebraska, a master's degree in 1909 and a doctorate in 1914.

Gilmore served as a professor of botany and zoology at Cotner University from 1904 to 1911. He then became curator at the Nebraska State Historical Society from 1911 to 1916. From 1916 to 1923 Gilmore served as curator of the museum at the State Historical Society of North Dakota. He served on the staff of the Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian from 1923 to 1928. After most of the staff at the museum were abruptly let go due to financial difficulties in 1928, Gilmore moved to Michigan and worked as a landscape designer for the Kellogg Nature Preserve in Battle Creek. Gilmore was then hired as the first Curator of Ethnology for the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan in 1929. He was later given the additional title of Director of the Ethnobotanical Laboratory in 1938.

Gilmore was one of the preeminent ethnobotanists of his generation. He was one of the first researchers to recognize the enormous botanical knowledge of Native Americans and to take it as his primary area of study. Much of Gilmore's ethnographic and ethnobotanical field work was done working among the Arikara (also known as the Sahnish), an agricultural Native American tribe based around the upper Missouri River. Gilmore also researched and spent time with a number of other Native American groups on the Prairies and Plains, including the Pawnee and the Omaha. Gilmore's most well-known publication was Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region, first published by the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1919 and considered a classic of the field. Other major publications included Prairie Smoke (Columbia University Press, 1929), a collection of Native American myths, and the pamphlet Indian Lore and Indian Gardens (Slingerland-Comstock Co., 1930).

Gilmore's most significant accomplishment at Michigan was the establishment of the Ethnobotanical Laboratory, which began operation in 1930. Founded with support from the National Research Council, the laboratory served as a national center for the identification of archaeological vegetal material. Unfortunately, Gilmore was in poor health for much of his tenure at the university, and was not able to get very far with the work of the lab. By the mid-1930s he had ceded most of his museum and lab responsibilities to his assistant, Volney Jones, though he retained his museum titles until 1939.

Gilmore died on July 25, 1940 in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Related Resources

Additional Gilmore manuscript materials may be found in the Melvin Randolph Gilmore Papers, Nebraska State Historical Society, and Curator's Correspondence, State Historical Society of North Dakota. The Volney H. Jones Papers, available at the Bentley Library, also include Gilmore materials.

A examination of Gilmore's life and work formed the basis for Melvin Randolph Gilmore, Incipient Cultural Ecologist: A Biographic Analysis by David L. Erickson, unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1971.

For further information about the Ethnobotanical Laboratory, see "The Ethnobotanical Laboratory at the University of Michigan" by Gilmore, published as University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Occasional Contributions, no. 1, as well as the Volney H. Jones Papers.