COLLECTIONS STEWARDSHIP

Recognizing that the Peabody Institute’s collaborative learning offerings at Andover and beyond are anchored in our significant collections in the midst of an ambitious project to improve both physical and intellectual control over our holdings. This includes cataloging of the collections, online access, opportunities for scholars and researchers, and a focus on the Institute’s work duty program.

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Peabody Collections by the Numbers

600,000+ Archaeology Collections

2,200+ Ehtnographic Collections

46,000+ Images

570+ linear feet in Archives

9,000+ books in Library

5,092 Sites and locations in 38 countries, with principal collections from the United States and Canada

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[1] Reasearch, Scholar Visits, and Loans In fiscal year 2020-21, the Peabody hosted 3 research visits and responded to 29 inquiries regarding our collections.

The Peabody archives were the focus of nearly half of the inquiries. Researchers were utilizing the archives to better understand past Peabody sponsored expeditions and contextualize their own work.

Other inquires included: background to develop interpretive signage to document the Native history on the campus of UMass Lowell, conservation on ceramics from Pecos Pueblo, NM, and efforts to understand split and shared collections subject to NAGPRA.

[2] Adopt A Drawer Program In 2013, the Peabody Institute launched a fundraising promotion called Adopt A Drawer that invites donors to support the cataloging of more than 2,100 artifact storage drawers at the Peabody. Work duty students and interns are heavily involved in the cataloging work. Donors receive updates on the cataloging, including before and after photos, as well as acknowledgement in our online catalog.

As of June 30, 2021, generous donors have adopted 108 item storage drawers – 11 during this fiscal year. These drawers hold material ranging from PaleoIndian sites in New England to the Pecos Valley in New Mexico; from Florida to the homestead of a freed Black woman in Andover. As these drawers are inventoried, they will appear in the Peabody’s online catalog.

[3] Volunteers 2020-2021 Volunteers help collections staff with a variety of collections project from inventorying the collection to pest management to preparing artifacts for classes. After a year without them, it was a pleasure to welcome volunteers, both returning and new, to the Peabody again.

Projects include completing pest management evaluation of textiles, assisting with the full inventory of the collection, and processing archives. Volunteer activity is crucial to our success! [4] NAGPRA The Peabody has been in the forefront of Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) compliance since the inception of the act in the 1990s. Peabody collections have included ancestral human remains and funerary objects from over 120 sites in 29 states. Collections have been affiliated with 60 tribes, though the Peabody houses ancestral remains from approximately 40 sites considered to be culturally unidentified under the NAGPRA act and rule.

We published one corrected Notice of Inventory Completion in the Federal Register for ancestors and belongings from Florida this year.

Consultations with tribes have included the Osage Nation, Wabanaki Confederacy, Choctaw Nation, and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Requests for repatriation and consultation with tribes continue today.

[5] Linda S. Cordell Memorial Research Award The award recipients in 2019-20 (rescheduled to 2020-21 due to COVID-19) were Dr. Gabriel Hrynick and Dr. Arthur Anderson.

Drs. Hrynick and Anderson are faculty at the University of New Brunswick and University of New England, respectively. Much of their fieldwork and research are focused in far Down East, Maine on Cobscook Bay, Washington County and they are particularly interested in the collections from the Northeastern Archaeological Survey (NAS) from the late 1940s to the middle 1950s. In addition to better understanding the NAS collection, Drs. Hrynick and Anderson are looking to identify artifacts from the very earliest period of European Interaction with Maine and the Maritime Provinces. Their current project is funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

For more on the Linda S. Cordell Memorial Research Award see our blog.