William Henry Holmes
2095363
222595455
2008-06-30T04:42:32Z
CJLL Wright
259138
/* References */ +Swanton's 1936 NAS biog memoir
[[Image:William H Holmes c1918.gif|right|thumb|200px|William Henry Holmes, c.1918]]
'''William Henry Holmes''' ([[December 1]], [[1846]] – [[April 20]], [[1933]]) was an American [[anthropologist]], [[archaeologist]], [[geologist]] and [[museum]] director.
Born in [[Harrison County, Ohio]], Holmes graduated from [[McNeely Normal College]] in [[1870]] and briefly went into teaching. In 1872 he became an artist with the F. V. Hayden survey. After it was absorbed into the [[U.S. Geological Survey]] in 1879, he was assigned to work as a geologist in the southwestern United States. He contributed pioneering reports on the terrain and geologic phenomena of [[Yellowstone Park]], and completed early geological reconnaissance work in [[Colorado]]. As an artist, he was responsible for illustrative material in an [[atlas]] of the [[Grand Canyon]]. Holmes was a noted mountain climber, and peaks in Yellowstone Park and the Henry Mts. of Utah were later named in his honor. In [[1875]], Holmes began studying the remains of the [[Anasazi]] culture in the [[San Juan River (Utah)|San Juan River]] region of [[Utah]]. He became particularly interested in prehistoric [[pottery]] and [[animal shell|shell]] art, producing published works including "''Art in Shell of the American Indians'' (1883)" and "''Pottery of the Ancient Pueblos (1886)''". He expanded these studies into [[textiles]], and became well known as an expert in both ancient and existing arts produced by [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] of the Southwest.
[[Image:Duttonnp000086AAA2.jpg|right|thumb|200px|''Panorama from Point Sublime'', illustration of the [[Grand Canyon]] by Holmes, published in Clarence E. Dutton, ''The Tertiary History of the Grand Cañon District'' (1882), sheet XV.]]
Holmes left the [[United States Geological Survey|Geological Survey]] in 1889 to become an archaeologist with the [[Smithsonian Institution]]'s [[Bureau of American Ethnology]]. He left Washington temporarily, from 1894 to 1897, to serve as curator of anthropology at the Field Columbian Museum. He returned to the Smithsonian in 1897 to serve as head curator of anthropology at the U.S. National Museum. From 1902 to 1909 he served as Chief (i.e. director) of the Bureau of American Ethnology, where he worked directly under Cyrus Thomas; during this period he studied the [[Etowah Indian Mounds]] of the [[Mississippian culture]] in [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], and in 1903, he published his ''Synthesis of Pottery''. In 1910, he became chairman of the Division of Anthropology of the U.S. National Museum. In 1920, Holmes became the director of National Gallery of Art (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum), where he assembled exhibits of Indian arts from the Northwest Coast. He published many works on archæological and anthropological subjects. He edited geological publications including [[Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden|Hayden's]] ''Atlas of Colorado'' and the eleventh and twelfth reports of the [[United States Geological Survey|Geological Survey]]. His books include: "Handbook of Aboriginal American Antiquities" (1919).
==Published works==
Published works by Holmes include:
* Natural History of Flaked Stone Implements. In ''Memoirs of the International Congress of Anthropology'', edited by C. S. Wake, pp. 120-139. Schulte, Chicago, Il. (1894)
* ''Archaeological Studies among the Ancient Cities of Mexico'' (1895)
* Stone Implements of the Potomac-Chesapeake Tidewater Province. In ''Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report'', pp. 13-152. vol. 15. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (1897)
* ''Random Records of a Lifetime, 1846-1931: Cullings, largely personal, from the scrap heap of three score years and ten, devoted to science, literature and art.'' 1932. Description: 21 v. in 22. illus. (mounted, part col.) clippings, letters. 27 cm. Held in the American Art Portrait Gallery Rare Book Collection.
==References==
{{ref indent}}<!-- BEGIN hanging indent style. Pls use a colon (:) instead of asterisk (*) for bullet markers in the references list -->
: {{cite book |author={{aut|Gleach, Frederic W.}} |authorlink=Frederic W. Gleach|year=2002 |chapter=William Henry Holmes, 1909–1910|editor=[[Regna Darnell]] and Frederic W. Gleach (eds.) |title=Celebrating a Century of the American Anthropological Association: Presidential Portraits |location=Arlington, VA |publisher=[[American Anthropological Association]]; Lincoln: [[University of Nebraska Press]] |pages=pp.13–15|isbn=0-8032-1720-X |oclc=49225637}}
: {{cite journal |author={{aut|Hough, Walter}} |authorlink=Walter Hough|year=1933 |month=October-December |title=William Henry Holmes |journal=[[American Anthropologist]] New Series |url=http://www.aaanet.org/sections/gad/history/067Holmesobit.pdf |format=[[PDF]] online reproduction at the AAA |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=pp.752–764|location=Arlington, VA |publisher=[[American Anthropological Association]] and affiliated societies |doi= |issn=0002-7294 |oclc=1479294}}
: {{cite book |author={{aut|Swanton, John R.}} |authorlink=John R. Swanton|year=1936|chapter=Biographical Memoir of William Henry Holmes, 1846–1933 |chapterurl=http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/wholmes.pdf |format=[[PDF]] online facsimile at the NAS |editor=|title=Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, {{nowrap|vol. 17}} - Tenth Memoir |edition=Presented to the Academy at the Autumn meeting, 1935. |others=Bibliography compiled by Ella Leary|location=Washington, DC |publisher=[[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]] |id={{ISSN|0077-2933}} |isbn= |oclc=37424036}}
: {{cite journal |author={{aut|Willey, Gordon R.}} |authorlink=Gordon Willey |year=1994 |month=Spring |title=[Review of] ''The Archaeology of William Henry Holmes'' by David J. Meltzer; Robert C. Dunnell |journal=[[Journal of Field Archaeology]] |url= |format= |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=pp.119–123|location=Boston, MA |publisher=[[Association for Field Archaeology]], [[Boston University]] |doi= |issn=0093-4690 |oclc=8560818}}
{{ref indent-end}}<!-- END hanging indent style -->
==External links==
{{commons}}
* {{gutenberg author| id=Holmes+William+Henry | name=William Henry Holmes}}
* {{worldcat id|lccn-n82-130691}}
* [http://academic.reed.edu/uxmal/galleries/thumbnails/drawings/Drawings-Holmes.htm Holmes' 1895 ''Monuments of Yucatan''], at Reed College website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmes, William Henry}}
[[Category:1846 births]]
[[Category:1933 deaths]]
[[Category:American archaeologists]]
[[Category:American geologists]]
[[Category:American anthropologists]]
[[Category:Mesoamerica scholars]]
[[Category:Pre-Columbian scholars]]
[[Category:American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Smithsonian Institution people]]
[[Category:People from Harrison County, Ohio]]