Boas returned from Chicago to his family in New York City in the latter part of May 1894 and stayed in the city for one month. Just prior to his departure for Alma Farm, Boas wrote Georg Baur, with a candid reference to his severe depression, “I have long wanted to write, but am so lazy and dispirited that I hardly do anything. I had intended to go to Germany, but had a breakdown as a result of all the excitements of the past year. The doctor forbade me to go and demands that I rest in the country.” To Franz’s parents Marie wrote, “‘After all the stress and excitement, poor Franz is completely kaput.’” Serving as his doctor, Jacobi ordered Boas to sleep ten hours a day, to work only moderately, to eat well, and to nap in the afternoon. The trip to Germany to visit his father, who had been ill, was canceled. Following Jacobi’s instructions, as Boas had written to his parents, “‘I will let my nerves run down and I will await my future in peace.’”1
For Boas, working moderately meant three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. While he expressed pleasure that he was able to sit in the park in the afternoon and “‘do some scientific work again,’” he was still spurred on by his competitive edge and his desire for vindication. “‘When all my things in press appear,’” Boas wrote, “‘enough people will see and understand that no one here has accomplished as much as I have.’” Defiantly, he had told Skiff in Chicago that “‘I am both here and abroad, one of the first in my field and . . . in about two years I will be uncontestably the first.’” Boas’s insistence to Skiff that he would be first in his field was undoubtedly a protestation of rage at having been excluded from what he had regarded as his rightful job as director of the anthropology department of the Columbian Museum in Chicago. Highly regarded in the United States and abroad, nonetheless Boas was without a position. He was, as Douglas Cole characterizes him, “a loose fish in part because he had willed it.” In his relentless efforts to find the perfect position and to avoid compromising his principles, Boas ended up, as Curtis Hinsley and Bill Holm explain, “excluded from the networks of personal and institutional loyalties that largely controlled entrance and advancement in American anthropology in the last years of the century.” Boas did, however, have the support of his two guardian angels, Putnam and Jacobi, and the wind beneath their wings would eventually carry him to joint positions at the AMNH and at Columbia University.2
Donaldson wrote Boas with sympathy, “It does seem that your moves are checked on all sides but I trust that we shall get daylight through the difficulty before too long a time. I am glad that Dr. Jacobi told you what to do and that you are doing it.” He added, “It seems quite remarkable to me that you have been able to hold out the way you have and I do not believe that anything short of training in the Arctic regions would have fitted you for it.” By mid-June Boas was emerging from his depression. He wrote Baur that he was “beginning to feel better.” Boas had traveled to visit AMNH President Morris K. Jesup in his Lenox home. Wealthy banker and philanthropist Jesup was typified by a friend for his “‘ability to make money and the disposition to dispose of it in unostentatious benevolence.’” Jesup expressed his concern to Boas about his health: “It seemed to me last evening that you looked tired and worn. Had you not better take a week off now?” At about the same time, Donaldson had written to Boas, “I trust that your forced leisure will accomplish its purpose and that you will find Lake George as beautiful as ever.” Four days later he wrote, “I was glad to get your letter, but it did not give me the impression that you are resting to any great extent.” Indeed, as Donaldson had surmised, Boas was back at work. In fact, he had not ceased working. From mid-May through June 1894, Boas had written his report for the World’s Columbian Exposition, though he had been convinced for months that those in charge had little interest in the significance of his work.3
Through the influence of Putnam as permanent secretary of the AAAS, Boas had been elected vice president of Section H, the anthropology subsection, for 1893–94. Thus, while in the midst of his challenge to find permanent employment, Boas could take satisfaction in knowing, as George Stocking points out, that “the first eight years of his work in this country had just won him recognition as the presiding officer of what was then the only national organization in his profession—Section H of the American Association for the Advancement of Science—an honor that pleased Boas all the more because some still thought of him as a ‘foreigner.’” By mid-May 1894 Putnam had written Boas to inquire about the title for his address to the annual meeting of the AAAS, to be held in Brooklyn in August 1894. Boas set about writing his talk, “Human Faculty as Determined by Race,” while at Alma Farm with Marie and the children. Boas felt devoid of a “‘special gift for popular presentations,’” and he was frustrated by having to take such a broad and sweeping approach to race. Nonetheless, he was pleased with the reception of his talk, which he delivered on August 21. Cole reports, “Marie and many other friends and relatives were in the audience; he was particularly gratified when Mrs. Jacobi complimented his English.”4
Boas’s 1894 address was an early statement of his approach to the study of race. With logical precision, he dissected assumptions about the supposed superiority of the white race, assumptions based on “the inference . . . that the white race represents the highest type of perfection.” Boas posited, “Furthermore, as the white race is the civilized race, every deviation from the white type is considered a characteristic feature of a lower type.” He continued, “First of all, we must bear in mind that none of these civilizations was the product of the genius of a single people. Ideas and inventions were carried from one to the other; and, although intercommunication was slow, each people which participated in the ancient civilization added to the culture of the others. . . . Ideas have been disseminated as long as people have come into contact with each other and . . . neither race nor language nor distance limits their diffusion.”5
Stocking remarks on the “limits of Boas’ critique in 1894.” Boas anticipated that “some mental differences between races would be found to exist; he accepted the inference his friend, the neurologist Henry Donaldson, made from apparent differences in ‘the capacity for education’ to the cessation of brain growth in the ‘lower races.’” Stocking continues, “In short, he had not achieved a fully developed notion of the cultural determination of behavior as an alternative to the prevailing racial determinism.” However, the seeds to his approach to race were present in 1894; they were logically packaged and promised future development. Here were the shackles of tradition that Boas himself aspired to cast off: “The power with which society holds us and does not give us a chance to step out of its limits cannot have acted as strongly upon them as upon us. On the other hand, the station obtained by many negroes in our civilization seems to me to have just as much weight as the few cases of relapse which have been collected with much care and diligence.” W. E. B. DuBois and other leaders of the black intelligentsia responded with alacrity to Boas’s “Human Faculty as Determined by Race.” Undoubtedly Boas had posited points perilously close to the offensive assumptions about the inferiority of “the races not equally gifted”; at the same time, he put forth the proposition that “many individuals of all races” could be equally gifted.6
Putnam offered encouragement to Boas during the months of his unemployment and then during the even longer months of his temporary employment. In his new position as curator of the Department of Anthropology at the AMNH, Putnam hoped that he might be able to do “something for you by and by.” Putnam continued, “As soon as their new wing is completed, which will be some time this year, there will be a good deal of arranging to be done, and . . . I shall hope to have you with me in New York for some special work which may lead to something more.” Putnam concluded, “Of course my great wish is to have you here in Cambridge, but I see no chance of bringing that about at least for some time. We are all so poor that it is difficult to get a living salary for anyone.” He closed the letter, “However, keep me posted, and believe me, / Ever your sincere friend, / F. W. Putnam.” By mid-May 1894 Putnam was still explaining his new position at the AMNH. “Now as to the New York Museum,” he began, “I have had no ‘plans’ about New York.” Clearly Putnam felt the need to repeat his rationale for taking a second job as curator when Boas had left Chicago unemployed and without the position he thought would be his: “I have taken the position because I believe that I can do much in guiding anthropological research by having the direction of two great institutions. I think much good will come out of cooperation in this way, and I believe it will give me the means of placing some good men in good positions by and by. Unfortunately, at this moment neither the New York Museum nor the Peabody Museum has funds for the employment of additional workers and we are forced to wait for a while.” Putnam held out the tantalizing prospect, that he had “some projects ahead which I hope to work out, and I believe if I do that they will also be to your benefit.” About these projects, he could say no more, but he assured Boas “that you must always think of me as your sincere friend, and one who will help you in any way in his power, and that with the many things I am connected with, something may turn up for your benefit.” In a handwritten postscript, Putnam added, “Of course I shall be pleased to have you make the Museum your scientific headquarters and I can give you a place to work in but unfortunately no salary.”7
Toward the end of June 1894 Putnam wrote Boas that he would be seeing Jesup in July to talk about “the whole question of anthropology at the New York Museum and how it shall be represented.” By July Putnam was hoping that he had “a wedge for you with respect to the New York Museum.” Finally, Putnam had settled on a project, and he had spoken with Jesup about having as complete a collection as possible made of “models illustrating the different tribes of America.” Putnam continued, “These models to be in every respect correct and dressed in the garments of the people, and arranged in groups so as to represent the life history of each tribe represented. I told Mr. Jesup that there was no one better prepared to do this work than you and I thought as you were going to the north-west coast this fall, and as we had so many garments and objects of various kinds from that region, it would be the best region for us to begin with in the preparation of the ethnological groups.” Jesup was enthusiastic about the idea; Putnam asked Boas, “How much of this can you undertake this coming fall?” Putnam continued, “I believe if you could make some models of the people, or if that is impossible, take very accurate measurements, photographs, drawings, etc., so as to have a set of models made illustrating the people and some of their industries, and some phase of their home life with its proper surroundings, that would be a first rate thing for you; and you would then be employed to set up the groups, and in that way you would have your wedge started for a position in the Museum.”8
In November 1894 Putnam wrote his first “brief report upon the Department of Anthropology” for Jesup. He stressed the importance of creating life “groups made of models taken from life among living peoples. . . . Each of these groups should show a family or several members of a tribe, dressed in their native costume and engaged in some characteristic work or art illustrative of their life and particular art or industry.” While Putnam envisioned the life group models “made of all the peoples of the Earth,” he maintained that the initial focus should be on “the native peoples of America, from the Eskimo of the extreme north to the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego.” Skillfully, Putnam maneuvered his discussion from the more general life group models to Boas’s work in the Northwest Coast. He wrote Jesup, “I am glad to be able to report that material for the construction of two such groups as I have described is now being secured for the Museum by Dr. Franz Boas from the tribes living on the Island of Vancouver.”9
Putnam extended messages of hope and Boas’s family despaired. Of the ethnographic work in preparation for the World’s Columbian Exposition, Boas’s brother-in-law Rudolph Lehmann had opined that Boas “had arranged the whole thing; it was all your work and Putnam had pocketed the honors.” While relaying Lehmann’s remarks, it was clear that Boas’s mother, Sophie, was in accord. With her practical and no-nonsense manner, Marie was thoroughly impatient with what she viewed as Putnam’s never-ending promises that yielded few positive results. Boas, however, remained “Your Orphan Boy,” as he had signed his letter to Putnam on January 4, 1893, and held onto Putnam’s optimistic predictions of a positive future. Boas appreciated Putnam’s gifts, for, as Joan Mark writes, “Putnam was an organizer, an energetic and genial man who did not dominate others, for he preferred to work alongside them.” Mark continues, “He gave advice and friendly counsel to nearly everyone who entered the field” of anthropology. This advice and counsel eventually did pay off for Boas.10
Over the summer months and into the following year, Boas began bundling short engagements together, or, as he called it, “‘doing jobs,’” so that with the sum total of payments he might earn enough to support his family. With funding from the BAAS, Boas carried out three months of fieldwork in British Columbia from September to December 1894. Putnam encouraged Boas to submit a grant application directly to him for funding by the AAAS for the restudy of the California Indians at the missions of San Luis Rey and San Juan Capistrano. The anthropometric work, including casts and photographs, needed to be redone because the researchers who had undertaken them for the WCE had made mistakes. By August Putnam had sent Boas two hundred dollars from the AAAS for the California Indian project. Boas was also engaged in another anthropometry project, this one with the Department of the Interior’s Department of Education for two hundred dollars, to write a monograph on “the measurement of children with a view to growth and development in the School period.”11
Putnam was able to obtain three hundred dollars from the AMNH for Boas to prepare northwest coast life model exhibits. Jesup had authorized, as Putnam wrote Boas, “not over $300” for material for the groups. Putnam continued, “While your employment at the museum is held in abeyance, there is little doubt in my mind that you will be employed at the compensation you have stated in order to prepare the groups.” He closed, “So I do not see, my dear fellow, but what things look bright for you ahead, and that after the cloudy days the sunshine is coming.” For a similar but distinct project, Otis Mason had offered Boas a salary of three hundred dollars a month, for the approximately two months that Boas would work at the U.S. National Museum (USNM) on the life figure models of Northwest Coast Indian dancers. When completed, these models would first be displayed at the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, and then would become part of the permanent collection at the Smithsonian’s USNM. Before he departed for the Northwest Coast, Boas visited Mason in Washington DC to discuss this work. Boas was also engaged to conduct a survey of the collections on Northwest Coast artifacts in European museums and to compile a descriptive catalogue of the collection in the USNM.12
Boas suggested the following life groups for the AMNH: “1) woman making a mat or a hat and continually rocking a baby; 2) woodcarving, and painting; 3) the hamatsa returns from the woods.” In these three groupings Boas had, even prior to his 1894 fieldwork in Fort Rupert, identified the life models he wanted to create. Indeed, he had described what would become emblematic of his fieldwork in the Northwest Coast, through the photographs compiled for the construction of the models. Ultimately these photographs would become, as Aaron Glass remarks, “preeminently mobile, traveling between scholars as well as back to indigenous subjects, they [would] . . . play a central role in recursive representation and the creation of generalized cultural emblems.”13
By September 1894 Boas was back in the Northwest Coast. His energy and his exasperation had returned. From North Bend, British Columbia, he wrote his parents, “I could tear my hair that nothing came of the Chicago business. When I think of the $7,000, how nicely I could have helped them, instead of having to count every penny.” He concluded, “Well, something better will come up soon. One cannot always have bad luck in everything one touches.” He worked with a resolve that his research would lead to a job. From Victoria he wrote Marie, “Yesterday afternoon I went with equipment and a photographer to the prison and got photos and one [plaster] cast of an Indian. I hope to get more tomorrow and the day after so that I will have good things for the Museum, so they will hire me to make their groups in case there is nothing better.” He concluded, “At present I am so hopeful, as if all our troubles had been solved. I am so tired of this kind of wandering life I lead.” Gradually Boas adopted a new attitude about his research, one that was less frenetic and obsessive than his approach in previous visits to the Northwest Coast. He wrote Marie, “I am slowly getting into the mood for ‘field work’ again. I don’t let myself worry and just do what I can. If there is no work to be found, I don’t mind and take it easy. You will see how fat and healthy I will return.”14
Boas’s new attitude was directly linked to the expectations of those funding and directing his work. While his first Northwest Coast field trip in 1886 had been self- and family-funded, the research trips of 1888 and 1889 were funded exclusively by the BAAS Committee for the Study of the Northwestern Tribes of Canada. Secretary of the Committee and Research Director Horatio Hale had been emphatic in his instructions about where Boas was to go, what he was to study, and how he was to report it. Boas bridled under Hale’s control, broke loose from the exclusive funding of the BAAS, and obtained support from the BAE for his 1890 and 1891 research, much to the disappointment of members of the BAAS. Committee Chair Sir Daniel Wilson wrote Boas in 1890, “I learn from Mr. Hale, with much regret that we shall not be able to secure your valuable services to the extent that we desire.” In the fall of 1891 Hale quoted Wilson’s remark in his letter to Boas: “‘I note your information about Dr. Franz Boas. . . . I wish it were possible to secure the entire services of the doctor in our Canadian field of research; but it is vain to hope for such good fortune.’” Boas had achieved the autonomy he desired. In 1890 he received support from the BAE for “a trip to Puget Sound for the purpose of conducting linguistic investigations among the Coast Salish and the Chinook of the lower Columbia River” and in 1891 for a field trip to the “Columbia and the Yakima Reservation.” BAE ethnologist Henry W. Henshaw extended only minimal direction as evident in his “hasty word” in response to Boas’s letter of July 1, 1890: “By all means, if possible, obtain a vocabulary of the Cayuse. It will probably be the last opportunity a linguist will ever have. If possible also secure some account of their tribal history, where they formerly lived, the reason for their rupture with their relations to the east.”15
Boas did accept a small amount of funding from the BAAS to collect ethnographic artifacts and to compile anthropometric measurements. Chagrined at the loss of Boas’s full attention to fieldwork for the BAAS, Wilson wrote, “I have full confidence in your judgment, and shall feel much obliged by your formulating a plan of work for yourself—as far as you can give us your valuable services.” Boas’s acceptance of the three-month BAAS support in 1894 hinged on two factors: Boas’s financial need, and Hale’s withdrawal from the Committee for the Study of the Northwestern Tribes of Canada. Boas and Hale ended their tumultuous relationship with gracious words, long in coming for both of them. Hale wrote Boas, “I have thought myself fortunate in being able to assist in carrying forward our investigations. . . . I hope these services to science will be long continued, and that the friendly relations and personal regard between us will be maintained while I live.” With affection and respect, Boas wrote Hale, “Anthropologists are certainly very much indebted to you for your devotion to this work, and it must be a great gratification to you to have helped to continue the work which you inaugurated so excellently during the Wilkes expedition.”16
In 1894 Boas was returning to familiar places and familiar people. In his letter to Marie, written from Glacier, BC, he described his vigorous three-hour hike “up the mountain without a trail.” When he arrived at the top, “I went straight to the glacier, which I knew from my first trip.” The next day, Boas wrote Marie about “the old owner of the Hotel.” He continued, “I recognized him right away.” From Victoria Boas related, “Yesterday I saw the [Indian] woman and the little child who were in Chicago. She had lost her husband, whom you may remember. He was the one with the side whiskers. He suffered from the heat in Chicago.” As he entered the harbor of Fort Rupert on board the Barbara Boskowitz, Boas told Marie, “a few Indians came out in one canoe. Among them was my old friend . . . who had been head of the Chicago group.” Boas described the voyage north: “I stayed on deck the whole time because I was so interested in the country in which I spent some time eight years ago. I know every promontory, every bay, and the legends connected with them. After about two hours the village of Nawette [Nawiti] appeared, and two boats with Indians approached. Among them was Tom, my old . . . interpreter, who was one of those who had been in Chicago. The village is as primitive as it was before. The people still wear nothing but woolen blankets. Their faces are still painted. Everything invoked old memories.”17
Boas described his arrival in Fort Rupert on November 13, 1894: “I was coming down the coast in a small steamer which, as it approached the village in the middle of the night, blew its whistle until a canoe came alongside.” George Hunt was in the canoe and likely had been waiting on shore the whole day for the arrival of the steamer. Hunt took Boas to his one-room house. “Considering the fact that he has six children,” Boas wrote Marie, “two of whom are married and also living there, you can imagine that the house was very crowded.” Hunt was “having another little house” built right next to his place where Boas stayed. Boas continued, “The first morning we discussed what I planned to do, and I invited all the Indians to a feast, which took place in the afternoon. That was a sight! There were about 250 Indians in the house—men, women, and children. They were painted red and black and wore jewelry; each was dressed in his cedar bark cloak.” People crammed into the small, unfinished house where Boas was staying and spilled outside. After the arrival of “members of the secret societies,” when everything went “dead silent,” there were the welcoming speeches, the singing, and the “‘feast’” that Boas provided of “hard tack and molasses.” He explained, “Before we ate I made my speech. I said that I had wanted to come for a long time and that I was glad to be here now.” In “The Indians of British Columbia,” Boas gave a synopsis of his speech and the formulaic response of the Kwakiutl:
Before the biscuits were distributed I had to make the formal speech deprecating my small feast and asking my guests to be happy and to eat to their hearts’ desire. In return I was told that no feast like mine had ever been given and that I was a great chief. The figurative speech of the Kwakiutl Indians has it about like this: “You are the loaded canoe that has anchored in front of our village and is unloading its riches; you are the precipice of a mountain from which wealth is rolling down upon all the people of the whole world; you are the pillar supporting our world.” And all this for a treat of hard tack and molasses.
Boas concluded, “But the gross flattery of this speech must not be taken too seriously, as it is simply a stereotype formula used for expressing the thanks for a feast.” As he wrote to Marie, “Then I spoke to the people who had been in Chicago and gave them their pictures,” which had been taken at the WCE.18
Not only was Boas returning to familiar places and seeing people he had met before, but he was also more relaxed in his work and more patient with the expectation that he attend all the feasts. “I am going to these feasts in a blanket and head ring,” Boas wrote Marie, “and am on very friendly terms with the people.” Of his good fortune he observed, “I am much better off here [in Fort Rupert] than in Alert Bay because there are no white people here.” He wrote Marie, “The salmon were all cooked and placed on platters. These were long flat platters as one can see in the museums. Olachen [fish] oil was poured over them and we started eating. You really should see me in my blanket eating with a spoon out of a platter together with four Indians!” Boas concluded his time in Fort Rupert with an apple feast for the people and went several nights without sleep because the people “will be dancing to bring back the new Hamatsa,” the cannibal spirit.19
Boas took the Barbara Boskowitz to Victoria. From there, as he wrote his parents, “I am on my way again to the interior where I hope to make a few hundred more measurements if possible . . . and then I return via San Francisco to New York.” He added, “The thing I look forward to most in 1895 is the ‘Wiedersehn’ in Berlin.” From South Bend, Washington, Boas wrote his friend Baur, “I must still spend a week at the mouth of the Columbia River, and then go to southern California.” He added, “The results of my trip are fairly good, but not exceptionally so.” At the end of his three months in the Northwest Coast, Boas yearned for home. As he wrote his parents, “The last weeks of work out here are very sour for me.” All that kept him in place was “despicable money.” At the end of his fieldwork, he didn’t remember the positive feelings he had had at the beginning when he had written Marie that “the disagreeable feeling I had that I don’t get along with the Indians is slowly wearing off now, and I am hopeful that I will get good results.”20
Completing his fieldwork, Boas traveled to Southern California to conduct anthropometric work on the Mission Indians. He went to San Francisco on January 13, 1895, and gave a lecture on January 16 to students and professors of Stanford University. Intent on using his time well, Boas was making contact with people at both Stanford and the University of California, for, as he wrote his parents, “‘I must make myself personally known as widely as I can.’”21
Boas returned to his despair about his lack of a permanent job. From Bay Center, Washington, he wrote, “‘What good is the consciousness that I am among the best in my field here in America if I cannot use my ability, but am forced to work, here and there, to earn our living.’” Boas revealed his soul’s torment in his letter to Marie from San Francisco on December 30, 1894. He reflected, “‘It is the second time that I have looked into hell.’” Douglas Cole reflects, “The first had been Baffin Island during the winter of 1884–85.” He continues, quoting Boas, “‘And I hardly know which is worse.’” Boas knew well “‘how to be silent with dignity,’” but he needed at this time “‘for once to cry out before you.’” The mood of despair lifted somewhat when he met with people from Stanford and Berkeley. As he wrote his parents, “‘After almost 5 months of loneliness, human contact did me a lot of good.’”22
While Boas was completing his work in California, Putnam was attempting to gain permission from Jesup to hire Boas. On December 8, 1894, Putnam summarized his conversation with Jesup: “I respectfully make the following suggestions. First—that I be authorized to propose to Dr. Franz Boas that he shall so arrange his plans as to be able to accept a position in the Department as early as possible next Fall, at such a salary as may be agreed upon, but not to exceed the amount stated in our conversation.” A notation, penciled in the margin, read “$3,600 to $4,000 a year.”23
Reaching New York on January 29, 1895—after having travelled through “the villain blizzard”—Boas wrote his parents, “‘Oh, how happy I am to be back with my family!’” He had resolved not to be separated from his family again, “Wherever I go after this, you will go with me. In the event that I have to stay in Washington for two months, you will go with me; or if I should have lectures in Cambridge for four weeks, then we would go there.” True to his word, Boas, Marie, Helene, and Ernst traveled by train from New York to Washington in mid-February 1895. They took up residence in first one boarding house, then another, when the landlady of the first proved to be an alcoholic.24
Boas found the Washington anthropologists “surprisingly sympathetic” to him. He suspected that Mason and McGee felt bad about his situation following the unpleasantness over the Chicago Columbian Museum, when Holmes had been hired and Boas had been fired. In June 1894, one month after Boas had returned home from Chicago, emotionally and mentally exhausted, McGee had written Boas about the prospect of the BAE publishing his anthropometric work. McGee closed the letter, “Trusting that you are rapidly regaining your wonted health and intellectual vigor.” Boas wrote Putnam, “‘The Washington people felt uncomfortable.’” He surmised, “They had ‘participated in the performance,’ but did not anticipate the final outcome. ‘Therefore I know, they will be willing to do for me a good deal that they might otherwise not do.’” Assistant Secretary of the USNM J. Brown Goode had written Boas about the construction of the life models, “We are desirous of having the group (for which you have the materials) mounted, and shall probably wish to exhibit it in Atlanta [at the Cotton States Exposition], and I hope that we may be able to make a satisfactory arrangement with you in regard to superintending its construction and proper labeling.” Goode also wanted to engage Boas for “doing some work upon the collections” of the Northwest Coast material in the USNM, specifically to “identify every object with reference to is geographical and ethnological source, and its use.” Goode continued, “This information, together with the material which I am sure you would be able to supply from your own experience as to the industrial life of these peoples in connection with these objects, would be a valuable contribution to ethnology, and would no doubt serve not only as a basis for the full labeling of this collection, but also for a bulletin which we might well print.” Goode concluded, with emphasis, “The main object after all . . . is to bring under control the collection which we now have.”25
In his initial meeting with Mason at the USNM in July 1894, Boas had agreed that he would “set up a figure of some kind representing a dancer” on his return from the Northwest Coast. Boas explained to Putnam that he would create separate life models for the USNM and the AMNH: “I should select another subject, of course, for Washington and there would be no trouble in finding still another or others for groups to be set up in New York.” Putnam was nonetheless concerned:
Now a word about your present work: I trust the groups you are making will not be anything like those you have planned for the New York Museum, as that would not be at all advisable. Please let me know about this. I trust you will have as little as possible in common in the groups. You can readily see what my trouble would be if after all I have said about my plans for the New York Museum, I should have anything that would look like a copy of what you had done for Washington. It would be bad for both of us.26
Because of his anxiety that Boas’s life groups at the USNM and the AMNH would duplicate themes, Putnam insisted that Boas abandon his plan for the AMNH, to create one of the models of “the hamatsa returns from the woods.” Aaron Glass writes, “This initial suggestion for a Hamat’sa group in New York had the possessed initiate emerging from the woods, a ritual stage prior to that illustrated in Washington.” The model for the USNM was based on the exhibit created for the 1893 WCE—“Chicago Jim as a Hamat’sa” emerging through the mouth of the cannibal spirit that was an opening in a painted ceremonial screen. Instead Boas created models for the AMNH that focused on the technologies of working with cedar bark. Of these life groups, Boas wrote in the 1900 catalogue for the AMNH North Pacific Coast collection, “‘The importance of the yellow and red cedar is illustrated in the group case in the center of the hall. A woman is seen making a cedar-bark mat, rocking her infant, which is bedded in cedar-bark, the cradle being moved by means of a cedar-bark rope attached to her toe. Another woman is shredding cedar-bark, to be used for making aprons.’”27
Boas completed the life group model and his study of the collection. He gave Goode “the result of my examination of the collections from the North Pacific Coast in the United States National Museum.” He had organized the material into “eight groups: Yakutat, Tlingit, Northern British Columbia, Kwakiutl, Nootka, Coast Salish, Chinook, Salish of the Interior,” and he included “an evaluation of the collection and what needs to be done to it.” With the work on the life group models and the catalog completed, Boas, Marie, and the children left for Europe on board the Dania of the Hamburg-America line. Finally, they were able to make the trip to see his father, who had been in ill health. Boas and Marie had had to postpone the trip for ten months, first due to Boas’s mental exhaustion on his return home from Chicago in May 1894, and then to the numerous short-term jobs he had had to complete.28
USNM Curator of Anthropology Otis T. Mason wrote Boas about the preparation of the life group figures for the 1895 Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, “I think our painter has succeeded pretty well in getting the color of faces.” Mason added, “You must be having a good time in Berlin with all the great ethnologists. I hope you will present my kind regards to Dr. [Adolph Bastian], Dr. [Eduard] Seler, Dr. [Albert] Voss, Dr. [Fedor] Jagor and others who may inquire about me.” Boas grew impatient with the view that he was “having a good time.” In a letter to McGee, who was the ethnologist in charge of the BAE, Boas conveyed what he had written to Powell: “It seems to me that you think I am having engagements here in Europe, but all the work I am doing is literary work for American institutions.”29
With the confluence of forces, the two leaders of American anthropology—Putnam of the Peabody Museum and of the AMNH, and Powell of the BAE—began a tug-of-war for Boas. In a letter dated June 7, 1895, Powell had offered Boas a position as editor for the BAE Department of Ethnology. Boas acknowledged receipt of the offer for a position at the BAE in editorial work, with “the remaining part of my time and energies to be expended, continuing my scientific researches, the pay to be $1800 for the coming fiscal year.” McGee wrote Boas of the offer, “Congratulating you on the continued success of your work.” Putnam realized that Powell threatened his plans for bringing Boas to the AMNH. He sent a telegram of “calculated exaggeration” to Boas in Berlin: “jesup joins Columbia to secure you hold Washington off = Putnam.” Suddenly Boas held in his hands one offer and the possibility of another. He had to decide which would be the most beneficial for him and his family. Following Putnam’s advice, Boas maneuvered for time in his response to Powell and attempted to postpone his decision for six months. “I should accept your offer without hesitation,” Boas wrote Powell, “if I had not undertaken a series of obligations which I cannot settle in the short period between now and the first of July. . . . I am unable to withdraw from any portion of the work, which will keep me occupied until the middle of December. If you should be able to keep the position open for me until that time I should be inclined to accept your offer.” Powell responded with regret that Boas couldn’t assume the position immediately. There was, Powell emphasized, “a large amount of proofreading and other editorial work” to be done by August, but, he added, he would “endeavor to hold the position for you until the literary work on which you are now engaged is completed.”30
Putnam was clearly put off his game. In a long letter to Boas, Putnam began, “Your cablegram has put me into a very unhappy state of mind.” He continued, “I wrote to President Low about getting you for Columbia College, after a consultation with Mr. Jesup. Mr. Jesup thought if we could manage to keep you in New York through the winter somehow or other, that next year would open better for us in many ways, and between Columbia College and the Museum we could be pretty sure of giving you a satisfactory position.” Boas read the tentative nature of what Putnam had dressed up as a conditional offer, one which depended on “managing to keep you in New York,” and “somehow or other” having something open up. Depending on the viewpoint, this might well be the pivotal point. Boas’s family thought Putnam had been offering hope but stringing him along, but Putnam maintained he had been trying to open a “wedge” for Boas. The stakes were high: there could be a job in New York, but there was a job in Washington. How could Boas keep both options and maximize his choices? Putnam continued his effort at suasion by quoting President Low, who at that time was in Europe: “‘If Dr. Boas is available in the autumn I shall be glad to do everything in my power to bring about such cooperation as you suggest, but until my return it is impossible for me to say more.’” Marie was exasperated. “‘Putnam is a beast!’” she exclaimed. “‘I know what the delay means—that he has nothing definite and thinks he can regularize things when you go back.’”31
Putnam envisioned having Boas join with William Z. Ripley, “who has been appointed Professor in the Institute of Technology, but who also holds the position of Lecturer in Columbia,” and with Livingston Farrand at Columbia. Putnam added, “If we can keep you in New York we shall have a very strong team there; and I believe that both Mr. Jesup and Mr. Low will be very anxious to see this brought about.” He continued, “I am getting considerable hold on the people in New York, and I think if we can all pull together there we can build up a great anthropological institution which will be worthy of our efforts. Now while I feel very confident that you will be all right and will have a good position in New York next year, if you can manage to take some temporary position for the winter, that is two or three months at the Museum in connection with some good position in the university, and that all will come out well.” Putnam appealed to what he knew to be Boas’s desire for freedom from constraints: “I should hate to have you go to Washington, where I do not believe you would be either as happy or as free as you would be in New York.” Then in a reasonable tone, he queried, “Now is it not possible for you to postpone the consideration of Powell’s offer until you return to this country?” By that time, Putnam thought, “we could determine matters pretty well.” He added, “At the same time, I cannot ask you to give up a certainty for a strong probability.” Finally, he advised Boas how to approach Powell: he should say that he would like to wait to decide until he returned to the United States so that he would be able to talk with him in person, and that he shouldn’t say anything about the New York possibilities because “that would at once make him say ‘now or never’ to you.”32
Boas responded to Putnam, “Your NY scheme suits me in every respect,” he wrote, “and I am indebted to you for broaching it.” He told Putnam, as background, “My name has been suggested to Pres. Low as long as 3 years ago by my friend Dr. A. Jacobi of NY, Professor of Diseases of Children at Col[umbia] College who has also sent him my bibliography.” Boas reflected on the plans for Ripley and Farrand to take on work as anthropologists. He opined that Ripley was “unknown as an Anthropologist,” and that Farrand’s knowledge of anthropology was limited. “These two young men,” Boas acknowledged, might become “good Anthropologists and . . . may build a Dept., and such a gradual development may suit President Low best.” Nonetheless, while Boas considered “the outcome of the plan in regard to Columbia College doubtful,” he was “willing to run the risk, if you can offer me anything definite in connection with the Museum.” Boas followed Putnam’s advice. He had written Powell that he was endeavoring to bring all of his “present engagements to a close as rapidly as possible.” Fulfilling part of his obligations to the BAE from his fieldwork conducted “in the summers of 1890 and 1891 and in December 1894,” Boas enclosed “the first half of Kathlamet Texts,” which would be published by the BAE in 1901.33
In a loquacious, seven-page letter, Putnam cajoled Boas not to give up hope: “You may be sure that it is not any falling off of interest in you or in the great work I wish to accomplish with your assistance that has delayed my writing to you.” He told Boas about his two-day visit “with Mr. Jesup at his country place in Lenox where I had a splendid opportunity to talk to him about the great scheme I wish to carry out for the New York Museum.” Jesup was “thoroughly interested,” Putnam conveyed, and was “pretty confident” that arrangements could be made with Columbia College so that Boas could split his time between the museum and the college. Jesup “seems to think,” Putnam opined, “that President Low’s letter to me was favorable and that we could bring about that connection.” Putnam couched the tenuous nature of the possible joint employment with the AMNH and Columbia College with the certainty of the museum work in the fall on the life group models for three hundred dollars. Appealing to what he knew was Boas’s sensitivity about status and position, Putnam explained that Boas would be “Assistant in charge of the divisions of Ethnography and Physical Anthropology.” Then he described the plans to construct the wing of the museum to be devoted to the anthropology department with a half-million-dollar appropriation. Concluding the overview of his plans, Putnam admonished, “You also must have faith enough in me to believe that I will probably succeed in what I have undertaken to do.” Putnam had also “passed a few hours with Professor Goode,” and they had spoken about Boas. Goode related that the BAE was trying to hire Boas and that he hoped to have Boas’s services through this connection with the National Museum. “Then he asked,” Putnam wrote, “if I was trying to get you for New York and suggested the idea of a division of time between New York and Washington.” With characteristic optimism, Putnam surmised, “So I think you have the reins decidedly in your own hands, and if you postpone Powell’s offer until you get over in the fall and can look your ground over, everything will come out to your satisfaction. The result will be, I believe, that you will settle in New York.” Putnam concluded, “Now my dear friend I cannot urge you to give up a sure thing for a position that you feel may be uncertain. I can only reiterate that I think you would make a great mistake to bind yourself irrevocably to Washington while there [are] so much better prospects ahead for you in New York; and I believe you can hold Washington in abeyance until you return and see how things are to be in New York.”34
While Putnam thought Boas had the reins in his hands, Boas felt in a quandary. “I am at a loss to know what to do,” he admitted to Putnam. While he could understand that Jesup wanted to delay a decision until the work on the life groups had been completed, Boas would have “to give Powell a definite answer” on his return. He hoped that Jesup and Low would have “at least a first statement . . . as to what they are willing to do.” Boas received a less-than-patient communication from Washington. McGee requested that Boas “report in this office at the earliest date consistent with your convenience.” Boas replied that he desired “to arrange matters” in person, and that he was finishing up and returning soon.35
In the midst of the correspondence with Putnam in New York, and with McGee and Powell in Washington, Boas quietly pursued possible employment at Stanford University. He wrote a letter “to President D. S. Jordan, Palo Alto,” on June 19, 1895, about his research “among the Indians of the Pacific Coast” with whom he had worked for “a number of summers.” Boas admitted that “the conditions under which I am working are not satisfactory. The long distance at which I live from the field of my researches makes the work unnecessarily expensive and often prohibitive to add necessary data.” He continued, “Furthermore, the field is too wide for me and I need helpers, which I can only obtain by means of training students for fieldwork.” He was inquiring about a position at Stanford because he had received “an offer of Major Powell to enter the B[ureau] of Ethnology.” Boas said his “objections which I have to that plan are based on” his desire to be located on the west coast, and his need to train student assistants.36
Boas’s letter landed on Jordan’s desk at a troubled time. The U.S. government was suing the Stanford estate in 1894 for fifteen million dollars. While Stanford did, indeed, win the case, this new university was under threat. Keen to have Boas on campus, Jordan asked if “[you] could make Palo Alto your headquarters for work while retaining funds from other sources for the purpose of carrying it on,” and, at the same time, “training students and otherwise using your time in research?” Boas had asked Powell if he could be stationed “on the Pacific Coast,” while he worked for the Bureau, “so that I might be able to act at the same time as professor at a college.” Powell thought that “such an arrangement might be advantageous to all concerned.”37
Just prior to Boas’s return, Putnam had written of his fatigue and of his planned vacation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He thought everything would work out in New York. Then, as if in proof of his fatigue, Putnam misspelled the names of the two key players: “I have seen Dr. Jacoby [sic] and President Lowe [sic], and Dr. Jacoby [sic] has also seen President Lowe [sic].” Low wanted to have Boas “connected to Columbia” but didn’t know where the money would come from since the budget for the fiscal year had already been determined. Putman said that Low would let him know by the middle of October. Putnam wrote that he thought it likely “that you will be appointed lecturer this year with a professorship another year, but I draw that from the general tone of Mr. Lowe’s [sic] conversation, and not from any definite promise he has made me.” At this same time, Nicholas Murray Butler, who was a member of the faculty of philosophy, wrote to Columbia College President Seth Low in response to his letter “of the 4th regarding Dr. Boaz [sic].” Butler reviewed Boas’s background: “I take pleasure in saying that he is one of the most competent Anthropologists now living. He is by birth and education a German.” Butler continued, “His reputation is secure,” and he had held “important chairs.” Butler conceded, “For [a] year or more I have been strongly urged by some of our own officers and interested outsiders, to suggest to you that Dr. Boaz [sic] be permanently attached to Columbia as Professor of Anthropology.” Butler conveyed to Low that he had not done so because “the financial situation” was such as to “make the suggestion inexpedient.” Instead, Butler suggested that Boas be secured to deliver “a series of lectures in connection with the Museum of Natural History.” Butler intimated that this might lead to a “more permanent connection with Columbia” for Boas.38
Finally, on December 6, 1895, Putnam offered Boas a position at the AMNH as “Assistant in the Department of Anthropology of Natural History.” Astonishingly, Boas declined the offer. In an incomplete and unsigned draft of his response, Boas wrote, “In reply I beg to say that I cannot accept such a position in the museum because I consider that my place among American Anthropologists entitles me to more than a third class position, and because for that reason I am not inclined to accept directions from anyone except from yourself as Curator of the Museum. The organization of the Museum is such that in the absence of the Curator, the Assistant Curator [Mesoamericanist Marshall Saville] becomes Acting Curator and I cannot accept a position which would in any conceivable way place me under his direction.” Boas wrote that he would be “willing to accept the task of taking charge of the Departments of Ethnology and Somatology for the year 1896, . . . as a Special Assistant,” to oversee “the material from the North Pacific Coast, from the Eskimo and from the Islands of the North Pacific Ocean so far as possible and to implement the making of groups illustrating primitive life and also to take charge during that period of the somatological collection.” He stipulated that the work he undertook “be carried out on a definite plan” agreed upon in advance, and “it must be understood that the work contracted for is done entirely under your personal supervision, not under that of another person who might be charged with the duties of the Curator of the Museum.”39
In his letter to Putnam on December 9, 1895, Boas referenced conversations of “yesterday and the day before yesterday.” Putnam had offered him the “charge of the Ethnographical and Somatological Collection of” the AMNH during 1896 as special assistant. After these conversations, Boas said he was “ready to accept such a contract,” with certain stipulations, most particularly that he would be working only “under your personal supervision.” The next day Putnam wrote Boas, “President Jesup at my request has appointed you special assistant in charge of the Sections of Ethnology and Somatology in the Department of Anthropology for the year 1896.” Putnam closed the letter, “I could have no one better qualified than you to take charge of these important sections of my department and help me to make the department all that our loved science demands it should be.” Without a doubt, Putnam had been working just as concertedly to convince Jesup of the wisdom of hiring Boas. Jesup finally “decided to ‘take a chance and hire the young man.’” Boas had his break: he was in the employ of the AMNH. At that time in 1895, this was a modest undertaking. As Boas later recalled, “The whole space available for the Department at that period consisted of one hall on the top floor of the Museum, and I believe a gallery in the old building.”40
Boas’s guardian angels, Jacobi and Putnam, had been working persistently for years, and often in confidence, on his behalf. Jacobi had written President Low of Columbia College in 1892 inquiring about a position for Boas and again two years later. In both instances he had received negative responses. Putnam was more visible and more voluble than Jacobi in the role of mentor and supporter of Boas. A combination macher—Marie had judged him “‘lackadaisical and unreliable’”—and kingmaker, ultimately for Boas he was a kingmaker. While Marie likely missed it, Boas undoubtedly felt it: Putnam cared deeply about Boas. On August 9, 1895, Putnam wrote his daughter Alice, “‘You know I have deep affection for Dr. Boas and there is no man for whom I have a greater respect and whose learning I most greatly admire.’” Putnam had been absolutely crucial for Boas’s success in obtaining the positions at the AMNH and Columbia College. He wrote Boas in February 1896, “I am very much pleased with the way things have turned out in regard to your appointment. I was so firmly convinced that everything would come out to your satisfaction that I simply urged patience on your part. I am delighted with the results. You see it was worth waiting for.” With the hire of Boas, Putnam also felt vindicated for the humiliations he had suffered at the WCE. He wrote his daughter, “‘I regard getting Boas as a grand thing, for Boas and myself make a pretty strong team and with [Marshall] Saville, [Harlan] Smith and [George] Pepper to help, you see I have the best equipment of any anthropological museum in the country and I’ll show Chicago I can go them one better.’”41
In May 1896 President Seth Low wrote Boas, “I am authorized to say that you have been appointed Lecturer in Physical Anthropology in this University. The appointment extends from July 1st, 1896 to June 30th, 1897, when it expires without further notice, unless definitely renewed.” President Low concluded, “The allowance is $1,500 per annum.” The next day Low sent Boas official notification that the trustees had appointed him Lecturer in Physical Anthropology. Once Boas signed the letter, Low said he would arrange for Boas to meet with “several officers of the University whose work touches the domain of Anthropology in different parts.” He referred to Farrand’s lectures on anthropology and to Ripley in the Faculty of Political Science. Low continued,
You have yourself been appointed under the Faculty of Pure Science. It is evidently necessary that there should be perfect coordination in the treatment of the subject from these different points of view. To that end I have constituted Prof. Cattell, Prof. Giddings, Prof. Woodward, and Prof. Peck a Committee on Anthropology, under whose directions all of the work in Anthropology in Columbia University should be carried on until we are prepared to create such a Department by the appointment of a professor in charge. The gentlemen giving lectures upon this subject in any of its aspects will naturally be connected with the Committee.
Low had also sent Putnam a copy of the letter. Putnam wrote Boas, “I congratulate you on the appointment.” This was a success for Putnam and Boas, as well as for Jacobi, behind the scenes as he was. With his never-ending support, Jacobi, and possibly also Boas’s Uncle Kobus, had confidentially donated the funding for Boas’s first-year salary at Columbia. Putnam informed Jesup that “‘a friend of the Museum, of the College & of the Doctor’s’” was willing “to donate $1,500 toward Boas’s salary, until Columbia could commit itself. . . . Jesup accepted Jacobi’s confidential guarantee as a bridge to Columbia’s share. Boas had no inkling beyond knowing that Jacobi was lobbying on his behalf. Indeed, he never learned that, without Jacobi’s guarantee, he might have missed the offer.”42
Franz Boas had found his way to Columbia University and the faculty took note. Professor of Psychology James McKeen Cattell wrote, “I congratulate you and the university most sincerely on the appointment,” and he invited Boas to dine with him to talk over the courses that he would offer the next year. Pioneer of Iranian studies Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson wrote Cattell, “The idea of Dr. Boas’ giving a seminar next year on North American Languages is delightful. It will be a valuable acquisition in connection with the introductory course on the Study of Language with which I have been so closely associated during these past three years. I hope that a number of students may be able to take advantage of so good an opportunity.” Jackson asked Cattell to convey to Boas how much he would like to meet him “and talk over the subjects for I want the language students to have the opportunity of profiting by this opening.” He regretted that he hadn’t known about Boas’s hire in time to “announce it in connection with our Oriental Division Circular in which the language course is regularly included.” In a handwritten note at the top of the letter, Cattell asked Boas if he could write Professor Jackson “regarding work on languages.” Boas wrote Jackson and Jackson replied that he was delighted to know “that Columbia next year will have the advantage of your seminar on North American Languages.” Jackson concluded, “As soon as the pressure of examinations is over I hope to have the pleasure of calling upon you to say in person as I have in my hand, I am glad of the offer you are making to our linguistic students.”43
With relief Boas had written Baur, “At last we have found a house at 123 West 82 St. and hope to move in soon. May I count on your help in getting my things shipped from Chicago from the storage warehouse? We shall also need the furniture that we lent you.” Months later Boas wrote Baur again: “I do not know whether I wrote you that I am appointed lecturer at Columbia College. That, of course, is only the beginning,” he continued, “and I hope that something will come out of it so that I can gradually obtain a sensible position in New York.” Boas was poised to marshal his gifts and to draw on his accomplishments. Esteemed by leading anthropologists and ethnologists, Boas had been lauded for his work in physical anthropology, ethnography, fieldwork, and for the courses he would develop. The French physical anthropologist Paul Topinard had written Boas in assessment of his work in anthropometry, “I find that you are the man, the anthropologist I wished for the United States. Your country has plenty of Ethnologists and Prehistoric men, but few real anthropologists. Anthropometry is a hard thing but with great skill of labour gives positive results.” At the same time, Frank Hamilton Cushing lauded his ethnographic work as being “more scientific and more significant not only with each new installment, but also, as compared with other current articles than anything I have lately seen in ethnographic lines.” For fieldwork, Putnam identified Boas as the person to send to Central America to undertake “the study of the living tribes with the hope of finding some clue to the interpretation of hieroglyphs.” Boas was, Putnam asserted, “the right sort of a man, one who has tact to get along with the natives, and one who would thoroughly appreciate the work he is to undertake and the opportunity for ethnological study in an almost unknown region.” Putnam continued, “There is no one in the country so well qualified for this work as yourself.” J. Walter Fewkes wrote, “I hope your courses . . . will be successful, as I have no doubt they will, and that in at least one of our Universities there will be given that Ethnological and Archaeological training so much needed in America.”44
The leading nineteenth-century anthropologist E. B. Tylor bestowed the greatest praise on Boas. In 1889 he had written, “You must allow me to say from conversation with you & reading your writings that I have seldom known anyone better qualified for all-round work in Anthropology. If we are to get the native religions & other ideas of the North-West thoroughly investigated, I think you are the anthropologist to carry through this task.” In a letter to Boas, Hale quoted Tylor, “Dr. Tylor’s last letter has a passage which will gratify you. He writes, ‘I was just reading Dr. Boas on the Central Eskimo, published by the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, a most valuable account and which makes me feel jealous at its being published in the United States and not in Canada or England.’”45
Boas’s recurrent research on the Northwest Coast—1886, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, and 1894—marked him as preeminent in the field of ethnography and also yielded a change in his work. The shift in his approach resulted from the following three factors: his increasing autonomy in determining the territorial and thematic scope of his study; his increasing knowledge of the peoples, languages, and cultures of the area; and his increasing expertise in conducting fieldwork. By 1890 Boas had begun dividing his fieldwork into three categories: linguistic, ethnological, and anthropometric. Illustrative of this tripartite division of his research, Boas wrote in a letter to his parents in 1890, “I finished what I wanted in the linguistic and ethnological fields, and measured ninety-eight persons.” Boas’s study of languages led him to an appreciation of narratives, though like a snake swallowing its tail, the narratives led back to the language: “The Bella Coolas tell me the most beautiful stories in their own language. The stories themselves are not worth much, but on the other hand the language is very worthwhile.” Boas’s interest in narratives increased as his knowledge of the complexity of languages and of groups (or what he referred to as “tribes”) expanded. He wrote Powell in 1892 of his proposed plans to write up his study of Chinook “in such a form, as to give an ethnographical description of the tribe for use of the Annual Reports of the Bureau.” Boas continued, “The most important part of this paper would be a careful discussion of the origin of the Chinook mythology, based on a geographical study of the distribution of myths on the Pacific Coast. The material for this comparison has been largely collected by myself on my previous journeys to the North Pacific Coast, but it will also be necessary to compare material collected in upper Oregon, southern Oregon and northern California.” Boas’s emphasis on the comparative approach to the study of narrative appeared in an 1890 letter to his parents “about an important legend which has its origin on Lake Superior or thereabouts. Here on the coast it is known only in Bella Coola in this place. It throws a peculiar light on the way legends get around.”46
Still, Boas was so focused on what he selectively saw as his work that he missed rich opportunities, as is apparent in his note to Marie in 1894: “The chief told me that he was descended from many great chiefs and that the Indians wanted to make him chief when his father died but that he did not want to be chief because he wanted to be humble. In all matters he had to ask the advice of the old people who helped him, and this he had to do in my case too.” As an “example of his humility,” the chief told Boas about how the government had offered all of the Indians, “saddles, bridles, and tools for farming,” but that he did not accept them because “he wanted to have only things which he had earned on his own property with his own hands and with the help of the dear God.” Boas concluded, “It is interesting to learn how these people think, but this does not help my work.”47
Boas had established his reputation in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. With copious assistance from Putnam and Jacobi, Boas had obtained positions at the American Museum of Natural History and at Columbia College. He moved forward in both positions and drew on each to strengthen the other. Boas also endeavored to obtain more security than the year-to-year contract, such as he had with Columbia. His struggle for firm footing and job security was not over, though the shape of the struggle had changed.