The Oberlin College Ethnographic Collection consists of approximately 1000 objects collected mainly by graduates who worked as missionaries during the last half of the 19 th and initial decades of the 20 th century. While in the field, missionaries typically acquired significant amounts of material culture from the peoples with whom they lived. For example, some objects were acquired as souvenirs and gifts, while others seem to have served as markers of successful religious conversion.
Many
missionary alumnae donated materials to Oberlin
College for the benefit of
students and members of the wider community. The bulk of our collection
comes from South East Africa ( Natal and Mozambique ) and especially represents
the collecting activities of Rev. Erwin
Hart Richards (OC’1877) who worked
among Zulu and Tonga peoples from 1880 to 1908.
Richards was somewhat unusual in having a distinct collection strategy that encompassed both anthropological and natural history domains. Over the course of his career in Africa , he acquired a broad range of materials for the Oberlin College Museum which subsequently housed and displayed them. Upon Richards’ death, his survivors donated additional items to the College. When the museum closed its doors in 1959 after 100 years, its contents were distributed to various departments on campus, with the ethnographic materials being placed in the care of Anthropology .
The collection represents an important historical period that can be illuminated in a variety of ways through study of the objects themselves and a wide range of associated research materials. In order to make this resource more accessible to current Oberlin students, scholars elsewhere, and the interested public, Prof. Linda Grimm of the Anthropology Dept. has engaged students in recent museum anthropology courses in a project to place the collections online. Technical support in the production of digital images, the development of metadata, and the design of a web interface for this effort has been provided by Albert Borroni, Director of OCTET .
This is a work in progress and the materials seen here represent our initial efforts in identifying and describing the objects in our collection. We will be expanding the database in the coming months and eventually plan to include a broad range of research materials. We welcome comments from outside experts who can assist us in identifying the objects pictured here. In addition, we hope others will notify us of the existence of comparable collections housed at other institutions. Communications regarding the collection should be directed to Prof. Grimm at Linda.Grimm@Oberlin.edu.
Staff:
The project has been funded by two Oberlin College teaching grants, and Winter Term support in 2004 from the Oberlin Center for Technologically Enhanced Teaching (OCTET). Erin Allen’s work as a research assistant is made possible by McGregor grants and the Jerome Davis fund. We acknowledge the assistance of the Oberlin College Archives, Dr. Roland Baumann, Director; Ohio Wesleyan University Archives of Ohio United Methodism, Carol Holliger, Archivist; and the Department of Anthropology, Royal Ontario Museum , Toronto , CA .
Copyright 2004, 2008: All Images, Data and Program code on this website are the property of Oberlin College affiliates. Images may be downloaded for personal use only. All requests to publish or use this material professionally should be directed to Linda Grimm, Anthropology Dept. Oberlin College Oberlin, OH 44074