The University of Arizona Press
May 8, 2024
The University of Arizona Press is thrilled to feature a new collection on our open access platform Open Arizona, featuring new and previously published works on the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition.
In the fall of 1886, Boston philanthropist Mary Tileston Hemenway sponsored an archaeological expedition to the American Southwest. Directed by anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing, the Hemenway Expedition sought to trace the ancestors of the Zuñis with an eye toward establishing a museum for the study of American Indians. In the third year of fieldwork, Hemenway’s overseeing board fired Cushing based on doubts concerning his physical health and mental stability, and much of the expedition’s work went unpublished. Today, however, it is recognized as a critical base for research for southwestern archaeology.
The volumes in this collection examine the expedition through the diaries and writings of those who participated. These books are part of the Southwest Center Series, an ongoing partnership between the University of Arizona Press and the Southwest Center, which is a research unit of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Arizona.
The titles in this new featured collection are available for online reading or downloading from Open Arizona, the press’s OA portal. Learn more about each title:
On a Trail of Southwest Discovery
Edited by Curtis M. Hinsley and David R. Wilcox, print publication April 2024
This final volume examines the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition, directed by Frank Hamilton Cushing, through the diaries of two participants who fell in love on the expedition: the field secretary, Fred Hodge—who became a major figure in early twentieth-century anthropology—and the expedition artist, Margaret Magill. Divided into three parts, the book’s first two sections chronicle the field operations of the expedition, while the third part describes the anthropological career of Hodge after the end of the expedition.
The Lost Itinerary of Frank Hamilton Cushing
Edited by Curtis M. Hinsley and David R. Wilcox, print publication May 2002
This second installment of a multivolume work on the Hemenway Expedition focuses on a report written by Cushing—at the request of the expedition’s board of directors—to serve as vindication for the expedition, the worst personal and professional failure of his life. Reconstructed between 1891 and 1893 by Cushing from field notes, diaries, jottings, and memories, it provides an account of the origins and early months of the expedition. Hidden in several archives for a century, the Itinerary is assembled and presented here for the first time.
The Southwest in the American Imagination
Edited by Curtis M. Hinsley and David R. Wilcox, print publication May 1996
This work is the first installment of this multivolume work, which presents a cultural history of the Hemenway Expedition and early anthropology in the American Southwest, told in the voices of its participants and interpreted by contemporary scholars.
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About the authors
Curtis M. Hinsley is Regents’ Professor Emeritus of history at Northern Arizona University. He has written widely on American cultural history and the history of American anthropology.
David R. Wilcox was a senior research archaeologist and special assistant to the deputy director at the Museum of Northern Arizona.
