Frederick Johnson's “River Desert Algonquin” Materials at the University of Pennsylvania Museum: A Collection History

Abstract

AbstractThis paper is a collection history of a relatively unknown assemblage of Algonquin ethnographic materials from the “River Desert” community in Maniwaki, Quebec, Canada—a people now known as the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. The objects were collected by Frederick Johnson, a student of Frank Speck at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1929. My objective is to analyze the Johnson collection within the historical context of Algonquin research during the early 20th century—a time of intensive ethnological field work with Canadian aboriginal communities, of accumulation and sale of objects to finance fieldwork, and of ambitious acquisitions by museums.