On Friday, October 21st, 2016, we opened our newest exhibit, Northern Horizons, Global Visions: J. Louis Giddings and the Invention of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. Northern Horizons, Global Visions. This exhibit examines the legacy of J. Louis Giddings, a pioneering archaeologist and scholar of Arctic and Native American cultures. He came to Brown University in 1956 when there was no anthropology department to be the first director of the Haffenreffer Museum, one year after the Haffenreffer family’s gift to the university of Rudolf Haffenreffer’s King Philip Museum. In just eight years, Giddings transformed it into a university teaching institution with a global vision, fundamentally transformed Arctic archaeology, made Brown a globally recognized leader in Northern research, and founded Brown’s anthropology program. Northern Horizons, Global Visions looks not only at Giddings’ work as an anthropologist, but also at the ways he established the Museum’s mission, and the contributions he, his colleagues, his Indigenous partners, his peers, his students, and his successors made to Northern anthropology, itself, and to the development of anthropology at Brown.

The opening, on Friday, October 21st, was well-attended, with opening remarks by Brown University’s Chancellor, Samuel Mencoff (Brown ‘78, Anthropology); Robert Preucel, the museum’s director and professor of Anthropology; and deputy director and chief curator, Kevin P. Smith, who curated the exhibit. Each offered their thoughts on Giddings’ impacts, legacies, and influences on the continuing mission of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. James Giddings, J. Louis Giddings’ eldest son, also spoke briefly on behalf of the members of the Giddings family who attended the opening (Ann Giddings Lightner, Alexa Lightner, Russell Giddings, and Katie Giddings Leone) about the Museum’s role in their lives.

Highlights of the exhibit include archaeological specimens from Giddings’ work at Cape Krusenstern, Alaska, and the only existing bark-covered Kobuk River kayak – an extremely rare hybrid vessel combining kayak design with the lightweight, maneuverability, and materials of a birch-bark canoe. Such kayaks were only memories by the 1940s, when Giddings’ Iñupiat Eskimo informants described them to him. In 1966, two years after Giddings’ death, Douglas Anderson – his student and successor as professor of anthropology at Brown – and his wife, Wanni Anderson – commissioned the creation of this boat, which was built for the Haffenreffer Museum by two Kobuk Iñupiat elders, Nelson Greist and Mark Cleveland.

Giddings’ evocative photographs, spanning 24 years of Northern fieldwork, contextualize his field work, documenting the lifeways of the Kobuk River Iñupiat in the mid-20th century and situating his work within the northern horizons that constantly beckoned him and two succeeding generations of Brown University graduate and undergraduate students.

Northern Horizons, Global Visions can be currently be viewed in Manning Hall Gallery along with our Student Group’s exhibit, Brewed for Thought: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of Beer and Brewing. Although these two presentations may appear vastly different, they highlight different aspects of the Haffenreffer Museum’s unique history and contribute to our celebration of the museum’s 60th anniversary.

You can read The Brown Daily Herald''s review of the exibit and opening here: "Haffenreffer honors Arctic archaeologist's legacy: Former U. professor’s work with indigenous Alaskans showcased in 60th anniversary exhibit."