Henry Ware Eliot, 1879-1947

Henry Ware Eliot Jr. was a writer, archaeologist, brother of poet T. S. Eliot, and the collector of the nucleus of the Eliot Collection at Harvard University. Born in 1879, the son of Henry Ware Eliot, 1843-1919 and Charlotte Champe Stearns. Henry Ware Eliot, Jr. represented the third generation of a New England family that had come to St. Louis in 1834. Eliot's grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, was a Unitarian minister and founder of schools, a university ( Washington University ), and charities. His father became chairman of the board of the Hydraulic Press Brick Company and served the schools and charities his father had helped found, as well as others. In addition to raising a large family, his mother contributed to education and legal protection for the young. She also wrote a biography and some religious poems.

Henry Ware Eliot, Jr. graduated from Harvard College in 1902. In 1929 Eliot resigned from the vice-presidency of a Chicago advertising agency to devote his life to writing and research. From 1937-47 Eliot was a Research Associate and Research Fellow in Near Eastern Archaeology in the Peabody Museum His research commenced with an analysis of the ceramics from Nuzi, Iraq (undertaken with Ruth Sears Chute) . Eliot moved on to a graphic analysis of major archaeological sites in Mesopotamia. At the time of his death in 1947, Eliot had completed 32 charts, presenting in graphic form the essential results of the principal excavated sites in Mesopotamia and southern Iran, including Kish, Al'Ubaid, Jemdet Nasr, Ur, Warka and Susa. His work was published in a limited portfolio edition by the Peabody Museum in 1950.

Sources: Peabody Museum Annual Report for 1946-47.

From the guide to the Eliot, Henry Ware, 1879-1947 Papers, 1933-1946, bulk, (Peabody Museum Archives, Harvard University)