Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

NUMBER 30 45
came Jack's extensive previous experience in muscology
enabled him to make important contributions
in that direction.
Although early in fiscal year 1947 Jack was
settled behind a desk at a great distance from the
Plains, as in Waldo's case, his continuation of
fieldwork was not out of the question. The record
shows that during the fiscal year Jack spent three
months at several reservations in the Northern
Plains. Just then, fortunately, he could avoid
conflict with Krieger's absences on field trips,
because the latter's interests had turned from the
Northwest Coast to the Carribean where the best
time for work is in our winter months.
Figure 5 shows Jack in the cluttered room that
served as his office during his early years in
Washington. None of the Indian pictures that
hung on the walls of that office appear in this
photograph, unfortunately. Indian pictures, and
especially those by Catlin, are among the Smithsonian's
greatest historical treasures. Incidentally,
the Catlins are now housed in a Smithsonian art
gallery built in 1840, the date they were first
shown in Europe. Noteworthy, too, is the fact
that the National Gallery of Art, that great gift
to the Nation mentioned earlier, has acquired
some other Catlins. Less conspicuous, but no less
important as historical treasures are the records
of early Indian visitors to Washington. Many
such records, formerly in the Bureau's archives,
are now a part of the National Anthropological
Archives in the Natural History Building. Doubtless
the opportunities to work with these treasures
at first hand was another part of the climate of
science at the Smithsonian that kept Jack in the
Division of Ethnology beyond the three-year limit
of his immediate predecessor and later brought
him back after he was lured away for a few years
to help design and open the Institution's new
History and Technology Building (now the National
Museum of American History).
In conclusion, it should be noted that Waldo
FIGURE 5.—^Jack amid the storage cases in the first office he
occupied in the Natural History Museum.
and Jack are now enjoying a traditional part of
the climate of science at the Smithsonian;
namely, the privilege of continuing to occupy the
same, or equivalent, office after retirement. Abbot
stayed past the age of 100; Wetmore finished his
reports on the birds of Panama while he was in
his nineties; Judd stayed on long enough to finish
his Pueblo Bonito reports; and here I am, busier
than ever eight years after retirement. All of this
should be encouragement to Waldo and Jack to
carry on as long as they can.