Putnam, F. W. (Frederic Ward), 1839-1915

It is safe to say that the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology would not be what it is today - a premier research facility with outstanding collections - without Frederic Ward Putnam. A multi-faceted and energetic man (see the chronology below for a selected list of his many and varied appointments), he was appointed the Harvard College Peabody Professor of American Archaeology and Ethnology in 1885. He retained that post until 1909 and was Professor Emeritus from 1910 until 1914. As Director, he was responsible for a variety of museum functions which included not only administrative duties but field collecting, curation of collections, fund raising, and teaching in the Harvard College Department of Anthropology which he helped to establish in 1897. He served on the Committee of the Department of Anthropology from its inception in the same year through 1908. Putnam also served as a Museum Trustee from 1875 through 1896, and became Honorary Curator/Director upon his retirement in 1909, in which capacity he served until his death in 1915.

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Frederic Ward Putnam was born April 16, 1839 in Salem, Massachusetts to Mr. and Mrs. Ebenezer Putnam III. His family includes a long line of New England families (Putnam, Appleton, Fiske, Ward, and Higginson) some of which date to 1640. In 1864, Putnam married Adelaide Martha Edmands; they had three children: Eben Putnam, Alice Edmands Putnam, and Ethel Appleton Fiske Lewis. On March 10, 1879, Mrs. Adelaide Putnam passed away; in 1882, Putnam remarried Esther Orne Clark.

Professor Putnam's early education consisted of home and private schooling, and it was at this time that he expressed an interest in studying nature. Putnam, along with his father, cultivated plants and later began observing the birds in the area. Later, he trained under Henry Wheatland as an intern at the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts. In 1856, at the age of sixteen, he successfully published List of the Birds of Essex County. In that same year, he entered Harvard College where he studied under the tutelage of Professor Louis Agassiz at the Lawrence Scientific School, serving as his assistant from 1857-1864. Putnam also took classes from Asa Gray and Jeffries Wyman, both of whom, along with Agassiz, were highly distinguished natural science scholars.

In 1873, Professor Putnam was elected to the post of permanent secretary of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a position he held until 1898, at which time he was bestowed with the presidency of the Association. In 1875, Professor Putnam was appointed Curator of Harvard's Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology. With Putnam at the helm, the focus of the Peabody Museum shifted from archaeology to physical anthropology and ethnology, earning the Museum the distinction of becoming the first American museum to specialize in these subject areas. Putnam was appointed professor of anthropology in 1885 (the position was authorized in 1887). In 1876, Putnam directed the first major construction of the Peabody Museum building that currently sits on Divinity Avenue in Cambridge. By 1897, Harvard College officially merged with the Peabody Museum thus acknowledging Putnam's place among the faculty.

In addition to these accomplishments, Professor Putnam helped establish the journals American Naturalist, Science, American Anthropologist, and founded organizations, such as Anthropology of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the Archaeological Institute of America, and the American Anthropological Association. He also co-founded the anthropology programs at the American Museum of Natural History, Columbia University, and the University of California, Berkeley. At the age of sixty-four, he became the University of California's first Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Anthropological Museum. In 1909, Putnam retired from the University of California and was later appointed Professor Emeritus there. That same year, he became Professor Emeritus at Harvard College and Curator of the Peabody Museum serving as Honorary Director, in 1913.

Professor Frederic W. Putnam's publications number more than 400, and cover the subjects of natural history, archaeology, anthropology, and scientific administration. His archaeological explorations encompass sites in Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin, Kentucky, New Jersey, and California. Professor Putnam was deeply involved in various associations, academies, and historical societies throughout the United States and abroad, including Edinburgh, Florence, Lima, London, Paris, and Stockholm. Among many of the awards he received, the French Government bestowed upon him the cross of the Legion of Honor, and the University of Pennsylvania honored him with the Drexel Gold Medal and the degree of Sc. D.

Professor Frederic Ward Putnam, whom Edward Morse called "the father of American archaeology", passed away on August 14, 1915 in Cambridge, Massachusetts leaving behind a venerable and memorable legacy.

Sources: Browman, David L. "The Peabody Museum, Frederic W. Putnam, and the Rise of U.S. Anthropology, 1866-1903." American Anthropologist vol. 104, no. 2 (June 2002): 508-19. Kroeber, A.L. "Frederic Ward Putnam." New Series, American Anthropologist vol. 17, no. 4 (October-December 1915): 712-18. Ninth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabodoy Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology 1876, President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1876: 6.

Frederic Ward Putnam (1839-1915) was one of the earliest anthropologists in the United States. He founded institutions for anthropological research at Harvard University and at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked to establish museum collections in anthropology. He taught anthropology, archaeology and ethnology at Harvard University. He directed some of the first field expeditions in the Americas.

It is safe to say that the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology would not be what it is today - a premier research facility with outstanding collections - without Frederic Ward Putnam. A multi-faceted and energetic man (see the chronology below for a selected list of his many and varied appointments), he was appointed the Harvard College Peabody Professor of American Archaeology and Ethnology in 1885. He retained that post until 1909 and was Professor Emeritus from 1910 until 1914. As Director, he was responsible for a variety of museum functions which included not only administrative duties but field collecting, curation of collections, fund raising, and teaching in the Harvard College Department of Anthropology which he helped to establish in 1897. He served on the Committee of the Department of Anthropology from its inception in the same year through 1908. Putnam also served as a Museum Trustee from 1875 through 1896, and became Honorary Curator/Director upon his retirement in 1909, in which capacity he served until his death in 1915.