Captured Heritage: the Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts

Vancouver & Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 1985. Appears unread. Near Fine condition in a Near Fine dust jacket. Spine of jacket is sunned (as often), but uniformly so. NO chips, tears or creases. The jacket is protected by a removable clear-plastic sleeve. Square and tight. NO owner's name or bookplate. NOT a library discard. NOT a remainder. Pages are crisp, clean and unmarked. NO underlining. NO highlighting. NO margin notes. Illustrated with maps and b/w photos. List of chapter notes/bibliographical reference. Index. Bound in the original gilt-stamped biege boards. From the dust jacket: "The heyday of anthropological collecting on the Northwest Coast took place between 1875, when James Swan was collecting for the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and the Great Depression, when publicand private funds largely collaped. The scramble for skulls and skeletons, poles, canoes, baskets, feast bowls, and masks went on until it seemed that almost everything not nailed down or hidden was gone…The period of most intense collecting on the coast coincided with the growth of anthropological museums. This development had a special impetus behind it: the realization that time was running out, that civilization was everywhere pushing the primitive to the wall, destroying his material culture and even extinguishing the native stock itself. Historian Douglas Cole has examined the process of collecting in the context of the development of museums and anthropology. The principal North American museums with Northwest Coast collections - the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History, Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, the Royal British Columbia Museum, and the National Museum of Man in Ottawa - were intense rivals in the race against time…". First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine condition/Near Fine dust jacket. Illus. by NOT a library discard. 8vo. xvi, 373pp. Great Packaging, Fast Shipping.