On line exhibit of artifacts from the Columbian Exposition

[GarryN]

The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that some 50,000 artifacts from the 1893 Columbian Exposition, including Columbian gold, will be photographed for a permanent on-line exhibit. These are all anthropological exhibits from all over the world. Harvard University professor Harvey Putnam was retained around 1890 by the exposition committee. He hired students Franz Boas and George Dorsey, in their own rights, famous anthropologists. Dorsey earned the first anthropology PhD in the US in 1894. 100 grad students, soldiers, missionaries and sailors fanned out across the globe to visit ruins and tribal cultures and collect certain things of "native manufacture". All these were on exhibit, including humans. Thousands of exhibits were on display in the Anthroplology Building, 157,000 square feet. After the Fair ended and burned down, all the artifacts were put in mothballs at the Field Museum. The museum expects all artifacts to be on-line by 2007. Please Google Field Museum of Natural History Chicago for further information in the future!