The Field Letters Homepage
One of the most valuable sources of information on the Jesup Expedition is the field correspondence written by the participants. They describe the conditions of the people they studied, the logistics of their operation, and the frustrations, perils, and pleasures of doing anthropology in the far north 100 years ago. Through their letters, we encounter these early anthropologists as distinctive personalities engaged in the common enterprise of fieldwork in circumstances that are difficult to imagine today.

The Jesup Expedition's correspondence is housed in the archives of the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History. To preserve the now-frail and deteriorating original documents while enhancing public access, all of the field correspondence for the years 1897-1902 has been electronically transcribed. The transcribed letters contain hypertext links to scans of the original documents, as well as links to images of the objects collected on the expedition and biographical information about each participating anthropologist.

For more information about the Jesup Expedition please follow this link to the Drawing Shadows to Stone exhibition.