A MUSEUM PREHISTORY PHOEBE HEARST AND THE FOUNDING OF THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY, 1891-1901 Ira Jacknis DURING A PERIOD OF FIN-DE-SIECLE, it is natural to look back to events a hundred years ago. At the University of California those were momentous times for the discipline of an- thropology. On September 7, 1901, a group of friends met as an advisory council at the Pleasanton hacienda of Phoebe Apperson Hearst to discuss the founding of a department and museum of anthropology. In addition to Mrs. Hearst, those present included the uni- versity president, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, and three anthropologists: Frederic Ward Putnam, professor of anthropology at Harvard and director of its Peabody Museum, and two of his protégeées, Zelia Nuttall and Alice Fletcher. In the midst of their discussions, the group learned the upsetting news that William McKinley had been shot the day before while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. The president of the United States lingered through- out their meeting, dying on September 14. At its meeting of September 10, the university regents voted to establish the first anthropology department and museum west of Chicago, gratefully accepting the substantial collections and funds donated by Regent Hearst. Just as the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt marked a new era in the country, it was also a new period for American anthropology and for the University of California, This essay traces the dense sequence of interactions leading up to these new beginnings.’ ‘The Making of an Anthropological Philanthropist What had brought Mrs. Hearst to this moment? Education—from kindergarten to graduate research—was at the root of the many philanthropies supported by Phoebe ‘Apperson Hearst (1842-1919). This interest undoubtedly stemmed from her youthful oc- cupation asa school teacher in rural Missouri. Born to a prosperous farming family, Phoebe Apperson herself had a modest education—attending the local one-room school and another year in a nearby church-operated seminary. She began teaching at the age of seventeen, but gave it up in 1862 upon her marriage to forty-two-year-old George Hearst, a mining entre- preneur who had made his fortune in California and Nevada.? She moved with her husband to San Francisco, where her only child, William Randolph Hearst, was born the following year. As the family fortune expanded from mining to real estate, her new wealth allowed Phoebe Hearst to make up for the formal education she never had. Hearst devoted herself increasingly to the arts, an interest that was deepened during a yeat-and-a-half trip to Eu- rope in 1873. She had prepared herself for this grand tour—conducted partly for the edu- cation of her son—by extensive reading, and for the rest of her life Phoebe Hearst remained a passionate traveler. Of her constant “tramping,” as she called it, she wrote: “Had I been a man I should have known my planet pretty thoroughly even if | had to go as a tramp. I so love new scenes, new countries, new people. Indeed I am not sure but the real tramp has a pretty good time of it.”? Hearst did not mind putting up with some discomfort on her ad- ventures. In February 1905, at the age of sixty-three, she spent a month traveling through Egypt by boat, camel, and donkey. “The air is very pure and good at the Pyramids and there 47CHRONICLE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA + Fall 2000 Phoebe A. Hearst on a camel (center), Giza, Egypt, 1899 or 1905 Photographer unknown, Hearst Museum (15-1884) is plenty of it. The views also are fine. It is most interesting to be there, but a bit uncomfort- able at times. I don't at all mind living in mud and stone houses, but the lack of conveniences in such places are a little trying at times. However, it is all very good discipline and makes us appreciate home more than ever.”* Writing to a friend of her visit to the excavation that she had funded, she spoke of her personal enthusiasm in the research: “We saw a tomb opened where they found two statues. If you had seen me hanging over the edge of the place looking down to see the figures as they were uncovered, you might have thought it right to class me with excavators. I was more excited than any one.”? ‘These excursions opened her up toa fascinating world of non-European cultures, such as Egypt, India, and Japan. Of the Japanese princess she met in 1903, she wrote to a friend: “The little Japanese Princess looked very small in European dress. They wore wonderful gowns and jewels. One was extremely pretty but it is dreadful that they should not dress in their own exquisite costumes. The Prince and high officials were gorgeous in gold embroi- dered coats and many decorations.”* Historian Richard Peterson has aptly glossed her at- traction for foreign cultures. While impressed by material embellishment and appreciative of elites, Phoebe Hearst did respond positively to a people whose immigrants to America at the time were subjected to profound discrimination. Upon her return from a second trip to Europe in 1879-80, Phoebe Hearst began to concentrate on public philanthropy, her principal occupation for the remainder of her life. Among her many causes were hospitals, orphanages, libraries, and schools. In 1886, with the appointment of her husband to the U.S. Senate, much of Mrs. Hearst's patronage became centered in Washington, D.C. Of all her areas of interest, the one dearest to her heart, per- 48Ira Jacknis * A MUSEUM PREHISTORY haps, was anthropology, “her favorite subject,” according to her grandson.’ It was on her first trip to Europe that she first encountered a museum of anthropology, and she continued to visit them on succeeding trips, but there is no indication that these had any special appeal to her at the time, beyond her general interests in culture and the arts.* Alter these years of self-education and visits to museums of anthropology and expo- sitions, the foundation for Phoebe Hearst's career as an anthropological patron was set by three events of 1891. On February 28, her husband George Hearst died, leaving her his entire estate. As her first act of independent patronage, on September 28, Phoebe Hearst established five scholarships for female students at the University of California. And it was in Decem- ber of 1891, while she was living in Washington, that Mrs. Hearst met Dr. William Pepper, a Philadelphia physician.’ It was Pepper who launched Phoebe Hearst on her career as a patron of anthropology. Phoebe A. Hearst on an elephant, India, probably 1903. Photographer unknown. — The Bancroft Library (Hearst POR 51). Patronage of Museum Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania (1895-99) Phoebe Hearst began her patronage of anthropology at the University of Pennsylva- nia."° As provost from 1880 to 1894, William Pepper carried out the duties of a university president, but he was also an important financial patron, His favorite project was the anthro- pological museum, of which he was the principal founder in 1889." The museum grew out of an expedition to Babylon, motivated by local interests in Biblical and ancient Near East- 49