Scope and arrangement
The Melville J. and Frances S. Herskovits Photograph Collection consists of some personal photographs and documentation of Melville's professional activities. Documentation of Frances' anthropological career is combined with Melville's research.
Personal photographs include studio and candid portraits and snapshots of family, friends and acquaintances. Images of Melville and Francis Herskovits document their personal lives from childhood to later life (1890s-1963); photographs of their daughter Jean document her youth and young adulthood (1935-1950s). Images of family, friends and acquaintances document family gatherings and social activities. Depictions of colleagues include Elizabeth Dearmin Furbay and L.S.B. (Louis) Leakey. A carte de visite album that belonged to Herman Herskovits, Melville's father, contains images of possible family members and friends from various Eastern European countries (1860s-1910s).
Also included in the personal series are views of the Mexican Revolution (1911) and views of New Mexico and Arizona (n.d.). Images relating to the Mexican Revolution were taken by Melville Herskovits and contained in a scrapbook, kept by Herskovits, which documents insurrection activities around Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (April-May 1911), depicting Mexican President Francisco I. Madero and his followers, the Insurrectos, and their encampments, as well as barricades, battlefields, and the insurrecto hospital. Images also include Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, General Navarro, views of the Battle of Bauche (March 1911), and several group shots of war correspondents from a number of major U.S. newspapers. Some postcard views of the Insurrectos are included. The views of New Mexico and Arizona, which are undated, include landscapes, ruins of Native American cliff-dwellings, a Native American blanket weaver and her children, a young Native American shepherdess with her herd, interior and exterior views of the Thunderbird Ranch in Chin Lee, Arizona, and portraits of Melville and Frances with an unidentified third person.
The research and academic activities series documents Melville's anthropological field trips, his research and fact finding trips, some of his Northwestern University activities, and his attendance at professional conferences. Images record village life and customs, such as agricultural activities, religious ceremonies and rituals, housing (dwellings), dress, village markets, etc., and documents his field research in Suriname (Dutch Guiana) (1928); Dahomey (Benin), Ghana (Gold Coast) and Nigeria (1931); Haiti (1934); Trinidad (1939); and Brazil, mainly Bahia (1941-1942).
Other research photographs document trips to Africa, including a fact finding journey in 1957, the results of which were presented in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Research photos are similar to field trip images and record the daily life and customs of various African peoples. Images include Zaire (Belgian Congo) (1951, 1953); Kenya and Uganda (1952-1953); Liberia (1953, 1957); Lesotho (Basutoland) and Ghana (1957); Nigeria (1957, 1960); Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia (Northern Rhodesia), and Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) (n.d.).
Northwestern University images depict some of Melville's academic and administrative activities at the University, as well as faculty and students involved in the Institute of Contemporary Africa (1950s). Images also document a special program to host African heads of states, including President Ahmed S'ekou Tour'e of Guinea (1959); Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto, Nigeria (1960); Nigerian Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa (n.d.); and President William V.S. Tubman of Liberia (n.d.).
Conference images record Melville's paricipation in various conferences including, the First International Conference of Africanists (Accra, Ghana, December, 1962), the XXXI Congresso Internacional de Americanistas (Sao Paulo, Brazil, August 23-28, 1954), a UNESCO Conference (Ibadan, Nigeria, 1960), the Americanist Congress (Paris, 1960), and a meeting of the Program Committee for Anthropological Reasearch (Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1962). Additional images include conference activities in Belgium and Vienna during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The general series consists of views of art and architecture, field trips conducted by other anthropologists, and postcard collections. Art and architecture images depict antiquities, artifacts, and structures from different countries, primarily African. Included are photos of masks, busts, statues, and drawings, possibly from West Africa; views of modern buildings constructed in Rio de Janiero and Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1954; views of rock antiquities in Nigeria; and photos of miscellaneous European art work. Some art objects depicted may belong to the Herskovits Collection. Images gathered from other anthropologists include some single portraits, group portraits, and views of activities that were photographed by Katherine Dunham in Guadaloupe, Martinique, Trinidad, Jamaica, and the Virgin Islands. Also included are some views of Cuban ethnologist Fernando Ortiz, in Havana, giving a lecture on the subject of Afro-Cuban music (1938).
The postcard collections consist of images of various African, Caribbean, and South American peoples, as well as views of Moscow. Some of the postcards, as well as a group of greeting cards included here, are from friends and colleagues. The group of postcards that are not annotated were probably collected by the Herskovitses during field trips or other research work. These images document various African peoples, depicting an array of hair styles, body marking and body piercing, adornment, ceremonial and daily dress, dwellings, village life, wild animals, and landscapes. The majority of these unannotated postcards are part of a postcard series titled "L'Afrique qui Disparait" by photographer Casimir Ostoja Zagourski (ca. 1924-1941).