User talk:Sbradbeer
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ps. Good luck on your KU assignment. The above is just a handy set of links about aspects of wikipedia in case you're unfamiliar with how things go around here. If you encounter any issues while editing or have any questions on formatting, referencing, naming conventions & styles etc pls feel free to leave a message at my user talkpgage or any of the other active WikiProject Mesoamerica participants, a message left at the project's discussion board will usually do the trick. Best Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 01:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
- Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with your topic. There's an excellent biographical sketch of Lothrop in Portraits in American Archaeology: Remembrances of Some Distinguished Americanists by Gordon Willey (Call No. E175.45 .W55 1988) --Hoopes (talk) 21:48, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
Sbradbeer/LothropDraft[edit]
The anthropologist Samuel Kirkland Lothrop (1892-1965) primarily devoted his career to exploring Central and South America.
Childhood
Samuel Lothrop was on July 6, 1892 in Milton, Massachusetts.
Lothrop was the oldest son of William Sturgis Hooper Lothrop and Alice Putnam Bacon Lothrop. William Lothrop had sugar interests in Puerto Rico (Willey 253). Lothrop was named after his great- grandfather. Lothrop’s great-grandfather was a leading Unitarian minister.
Lothrop spent most of his childhood in Massachusetts and
Puerto Rico (Willey 253). In Massachusetts, Lothrop attended Groton school. At Groton school, Lothrop participated in football and crew. He was also named Senior Prefect (Willey 253). Sometime during his childhood, Lothrop suffered from a severe injury which left him with only 25 percent of vision in one eye (Willey 262).
Education
Samuel Lothrop received his Bachelors of Arts degree from
Harvard in 1915 and his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1921. At Harvard, Lothrop took classes and was advised by Alfred Marston Tozzer. Alfred Tozzer was the Mexican and Central American archaeology and ethnology teacher (Willey 254). Lothrop’s Ph.D. thesis focused on ceramics of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Lothrop’s research for his thesis took approximately two years. In 1926, Lothrop published his thesis in a two-volume work, Pottery of Costa Rica and Nicaragua (Willey 254).
Marriage
Lothrop married his first wife Rachel Warren, from Boston, Mass.,
in 1914, and then he married Eleanor Bachman, from Philadelphia, Penn., in 1929 and finally Joy Mahler, a professional archaeologist, in 1958 (Asplund and Young-Wales 1999). Lothrop had three children with Warren. His children are Samuel K. Jr., Joan and John Warren (Willey 260).
Excavations
After receiving his Bachelors degree, Lothrop joined Alfred V.
Kidder's excavation at Pecos New Mexico. This excavation was lead by the R.S. Peabody Foundation of Andover, Mass. This trip was the first of many to Central and South America. After finishing his doctrine at Harvard, Lothrop did field research in the Yucatan and Guatemala with the Carnegie Institution’s Historical Division (Willey 255). During this research, Lothrop published his first major monograph in 1924. His monograph was titled “Tulum, An Archaeological Study of the East Coast
of Yucatan” (Willey 255). Following his research in the Yucatan, Lothrop
worked with the Museum of the American Indian from 1924 until 1930 (Willey 255). Lothrop excavated in Argentian, Peru and Panama while working for the Museum of the American Indian. Lothrop’s negatives from this period can be found at the National Museum of the Native American Indian’s website at: http://americanindian.si.edu/searchcollections/item .aspx?regid= 98&irn=292363
Other excavations Lothrop lead or participated in included: in Honduras 1915-17;
for the Carnegie Institute of Washington, D.C. in the Yucatan 1923 and Guatemala 1932-1933, for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, in Argentina and Peru 1924-25; Panama 1933, 1940 and 1951; and for the Institute of Andean Research in Peru 1941-44; and for Harvard University in Costa Rica 1948-49 (Asplund and Young-Wales 1999).
Intelligence Agent
During his excavations to Central and South America, Lothrop served
as an intelligence agent for the U.S. Military Intelligence Department during World War I (Asplund and Young-Wales 1996-2001). From 1917-1918, Lothrop served as Second Lieutenant (Willey 254). After the war, Lothrop returned to Harvard to begin his graduate work (Willey 254). According to Lothrop's FBI file, his identity became known well researching in the Caribbean (Price 2000). In 1941, Lothrop was working with the Institute of Andean Research’s program in Peru (Willey 257). From 1941-1944, Lothrop once again became an intelligence agent (Willey 257). During World War II, Lothrop was working with the Special Intelligence Service (SIS), which was created by J. Edgar Hoover. The SIS was a program created within the FBI. This program coordinated all intelligence activity in Central and South America during World War II (Price 2000). During his investigations, Lothrop’s informant learned of Lothrop’s position within the FBI. Lothrop was instructed to tell the informant that he no longer had funds to pay for his information. Instead, Lothrop sent a letter of resignation to Hoover because he refused to believe his informant was lying (Price 2000). Although Lothrop did not participate in any excavations during his government service, he was able to visit various sites and compile field notes for later articles.
Later work and death
From 1916-1917, Lothrop was the Director of the Museum's Central American
Expedition. In 1919, he served as Associate in Anthropology. Lothrop became the Field Director of the Peabody Museum during the 1930s (Willey 256). As Field Director, Lothrop took over the archaeological dig at Sitio Conte, Panama (Willey 256). From 1935-1940 Lothrop was the head Research Associate for the Anthropology for Middle America (Asplund and Young-Wales2007). In 1938, Lothrop was awarded the Loubat Prize for his work on Cocle: An Archaeological Study of Central Panama, Part I. Lothrop won four hundred dollars for his research (Cashburn 2007).
In 1940, Lothrop was promoted to the position of Assistant Curator for Middle America Archaeology and three years later became Curator of the Department. Lothrop also
held the Curator position for Andean Archeology from 1947-1960 (Asplund and Young-Wales 2007). Lothrop retired in 1960. After his retirement, Lothrop used his own money to continue researching Central and South America. Lothrop published his last major field report in 1963 on expeditions to the Diquis delta country in Costa Rica (Willey 258). Lothrop was working on collections from the Canal Zone Venado Beach during the time of his death (Willey 258).
Honors and Awards
Lothrop was a member of the American Anthropological Association, the Society
of American Archaeology, the Societe des Americanistes des Paris (Willey 258), National Academy of Sciences of the United States and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Willey 258). Lothrop was awarded the Loubat Prize in 1938 (Cashburn 2007), the A.V. Kidder for Achievement in Archaeology in 1957, the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1960 and the Wenner-Gren Medal for Archaeology in 1961 (Willey 258).
Publications “The Discovery of Gold in the Graves of Chiriqui, Panama” (1919) “Tulum, An Archaeological Study of the East Coast of Yucatan” (1924) “The Architecture of the Ancient Mayas” (1925) “Pottery of Costa Rica and Nicaragua” (1926) “Stone Sculptures from the Finca Arevalo, Guatemala” (1926) “Pottery Types and Their Sequence in El Salvador” (1927) “The Indians of Tierra del Fuego” (1928) “Diet and Stature in Tierra del Fuego (1928) “A Modern Survival of the Ancient Maya Calendar” (1930) “Golden Relics of an Ancient American People” (1934) “Zacualpa: A Study of Ancient Quiché Artifacts” (1936) Cocle (1937, 1941) “Inca Treasure as Depicted by Spanish Historians” (1938) “Gold Artifacts of Chavín Style” (1951). Chichen Itza (coauthored, 1951) Pre-Columbian Art (1957)
References Asplund, Janelle and Ghyaelaine Young-Wales. "Samuel K. Lothrop and Joy Mahler Lothrop Archive: A Finding Aid." Peabody Museum Archives Harvard University June 1999 http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~pea00035 (September 6, 2009).
Asplund, Janelle and Ghyaelaine Young-Wales. Edited by Sarah Demb, Archivist. “Lothrop, Samuel K. Papers 1915-1962: A Finding Aid.” Peabody Museum Archives. Harvard University. 1996-2001.http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~pea00034 (September 7, 2009).
Asplund, Janelle and Ghyaelaine Young-Wales. “Lothrop, Samuel K., (1892-1965). Harvard University. Collection of Negatives, 1915-1949: A Finding Aid.” Peabody Museum Archives. Harvard University. November 2007. http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~pea00027 (September 5, 2009)
Price, David. “Anthropologists as Spies.” The Nation. November 2, 2000 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20001120/price (September 7, 2009).
Cashburn, Steve. “Loubat Prize.” Wikipedia. February 23, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loubat_Prize (September 5, 2009).
Willey, Gordon R. Biographical Memoirs: V. 48. Office of the Home Secretary and National Academy of Sciences. Jan. 1, 1976.
Further Research
Harvard’s Museum Collections currently houses Samuel K. Lothrop black and white nitrate negatives from the Peabody Museum’s sponsored expeditions to South and Central America, Antigua, and Puerto Rico in 1917-1950. Images can be viewed at the Peabody Museum's Collections Online website at: http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/col/default.cfm Some of Lothrop’s negatives can also be found at the National Museum of the Native American Indian’s website at: http://americanindian.si.edu/searchcollections/item.aspx?regid=98&irn=292363
Sbradbeer (talk) 20:14, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
Sbradbeer (talk)