6. Cushing at Cornell: The Early Years of a Pioneering Anthropologist

If, moreover, I am at times seemingly too personal in style of statement, let it be remembered that well-nigh all anthropology is personal history; that even the things of past man were personal, like as never they are to ourselves now. They must, therefore, be both treated and worked at, not solely according to ordinary methods of procedure or rules of logic, or to any given canons of learning, but in a profoundly personal mood and way.

Cushing 1895:309–310

Frank Hamilton Cushing is one of the best known of American anthropologists, primarily for his work in the American Southwest and the often reproduced portraits of him in his Zuni costume—which have prompted a wide range of responses, favorable and negative, in both professional and Native communities. He also increasingly is remembered for his important work with the Smithsonian Institution in preparing the exhibits for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, his archaeological work in Florida (later in his life), Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania, and the pioneering nature of his research and writing as a kind of humanistic science. Several studies explore his life and work, generally with an emphasis on the Southwest research.¹

Although mentioned in several sources, very little detail has ever been given concerning Cushing's sole experience in higher education: a brief period spent at Cornell University. As curator of the Anthropology Collections at Cornell—a descendant unit of the University Museum, where Cushing briefly worked—I have sought any remaining traces of Cushing's time at Cornell, particularly since he was reported to have collected some artifacts near the campus and given them to Charles Frederick Hartt, the geologist who oversaw the Museum.

Cushing's early life has generally been given summary treatment in recent scholarship, so in order to contextualize his Cornell experience I will begin with a full account of his childhood leading up to that point. We are fortunate in having several manuscript and typescript drafts of Cushing's autobiographical accounts, none of which seem to have been published previously.² A memorial collection published shortly after his death (McGee et al. 1900) also includes numerous biographical details, many clearly derived directly from Cushing himself; Cushing also included biographical details in some of his publications (e.g., Cushing 1895), and there is an extended biographical account published years later by journalist and explorer George Kennan (1923–24), who influenced and helped Cushing when the latter was a young man, lived with him for a time in Washington dc, corresponded and knew him well.

Faced with such a multiplicity of sometimes inconsistent sources, I opted to treat the drafts like transcriptions of interviews to be edited into a single coherent narrative, cross-checked where possible with other sources. All of Cushing's drafts, like the biographical accounts of Kennan and McGee et al., were written in the third person, so they seem more like biography than autobiography; because of the intervening hands in the various pieces, as well as my own, I refer to this product as a mediated autobiography. Where not otherwise identified this narrative is drawn from the manuscript and three typescript drafts; I have regularized spelling, punctuation, and grammar, brought pieces from the different drafts together, and made occasional changes in structure and wording to improve clarity while keeping the sense and feel of the original as much as possible.³ In places the narrative has been supplemented by passages from the memorial collection and the Kennan notes; these published sources are cited in the text. I leave off the narrative when Cushing leaves for the Southwest, as that part of his life is much better known.

The Mediated Autobiography

Frank Hamilton Cushing was born July 22, 1857, in the town of Northeast, Erie County, Pennsylvania. His parents were Dr. Thomas Cushing, son of Enos Cushing, and Sarah Ann Harding Crittenden. Thomas Cushing was a physician, a graduate in the Medical Colleges of Buffalo, New York, and Albany, New York, and a student under Drs. Austin Flint and Frank H. Hamilton, after the latter of whom he named...