Frederic W. Putnam, Peabody Museum director records

Frederic Ward Putnam (1839-1915) was one of the earliest anthropologists in the United States. He founded anthropology programs, and worked to establish museum collections in anthropology. He directed some of the first field expeditions in the Americas, including sites in Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, Wisconsin, Kentucky, New Jersey, and California.

Putnam was born April 16, 1839 in Salem, Massachusetts to Mr. and Mrs. Ebenezer Putnam III. 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. 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.

From 1859 to 1878, Putnam worked for several museums as a zoologist, including the Boston Society of Natural History, Museum of the East Indian Marine Society, Essex Institute and the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard University. From 1869 to 1872 he was the Superintendent of the Museum of the Peabody Academy of Sciences. During this time, Putnam became interested in archaeology, and he published a paper on “An Indian Grave and its Contents, on Winter Island, Salem, Massachusetts” in 1865.

In 1875, 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. 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. In 1876, Putnam directed the first major construction of the Peabody Museum building that currently sits on Divinity Avenue in Cambridge. Putnam was appointed professor of anthropology in 1885 (the position was authorized in 1887). He retained that post until 1909 and was then Professor Emeritus and Honorary Director.

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. In 1894 he began devoting half his time to the curatorship in anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, and was influential in dispatching the productive Jesup North Pacific Expedition to northeastern Asia and northwestern North America.

Putnam was active in professional associations. In 1873, 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. He helped establish the journals American Naturalist, Science and 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.

Putnam was appointed the lead curator and head of the anthropology department in 1891 for the World's Columbian Exposition, to be held in Chicago in 1893.

Putnam's publications number more than 400, and cover the subjects of natural history, archaeology, anthropology, and scientific administration.

• 1839, April 16 Born in Salem, MA
• 1856 Curator in ornithology, Essex Institute, Salem, MA
• 1856 Curator in ornithology, Essex Institute, Salem, MA Elected member, Boston Society of Natural History Student, Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard University, under Louis Agassiz
• 1859-1868 Curator of Ichthyology, Boston Society of Natural History (part-time)
• 1862-1864 Special Assistant to Louis Agassiz, Lawrence Scientific School, in fishes and reptiles
• 1864Curator of Vertebrates, Essex Institute, Essex, MA
• 1867 Co-founder, American Naturalist
• 1868 Director, Museum of the Peabody Academy of Science, Salem, MA
• 1873 Elected Permanent Secretary, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• 1873-1874, summers Vertebrate zoology instructor, Anderson School of Natural History, Penikese Island
• 1874 Assistant, Kentucky Geological Survey (part-time)
• 1875-1908 Curator (Director), Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University
• 1876-1878 Assistant in Fish Collection, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, (Part-time)
• 1876-1879 Chief, Anthropology Collections, Wheeler Survey West of the 100th Meridian, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• 1882-1889 Appointed Massachusetts State Commissioner, Inland Fishes and Game
• 1885-1901 Peabody Professor of American Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University
• 1887-1896 Trustee, Peabody Museum, Harvard University
• 1891-1894 Chief, Department of Anthropology, World Columbian Exposition, Chicago, IL
• 1897-1908 Committee Member, Anthropology Department, Harvard University
• 1898 Elected President, AAAS
• 1893-1903 Co-founder & Curator, Department of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY
• 1903-1907 Co-founder, Department of Anthropology Director, Anthropology Museum, University of California at Berkelely
• 1909 Honorary Curator (retired Director), Peabody Museum, Harvard University
• 1901-1915 Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
• 1915 Died August 14, age 76