One of the nation's largest collections of Southeast Asian archaeology and ethnology. Extensive collections and several online exhibits on the Philippines, Thailand, Sumatra, and New Guinea.
In the early 20th century, U-M Professor Harley Harris Bartlett (1886-1960) traveled to Sumatra, Indonesia to conduct botanical research and collect specimens for the U-M Herbarium and Smithsonian Institution. 155 of the approximate 2,000 Batak manuscripts are in the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology collections and are described in an online exhibit.
From 1890 to 1913, Dean Conant Worcester took thousands of photographs of people and places throughout the Philippines. The majority was taken while Worcester served as the controversial Secretary of Interior in the U.S. colonial government from 1901-1913. Simultaneously disturbing and beautiful, these photographs portray the perspectives and emphases of a leading proponent of the colonial mission. This exhibition features a subset of the nearly 5,000 glass negatives and lantern slides in the Museum of Anthropology’s Worcester Collection. Thanks to Carla Sinopoli, professor and director of the Museum of Anthropology, Julia Falkovitch-Khain, web designer, and the Museum of Anthropology, owner of the Worcester collection. The exhibit was developed with funds from the Center for Southeast Asian Studies..
The Digital photographs archive consists of over 2,100 images taken from the following Special Collections Library photograph collections. In general, the images depict Filipinos, buildings, dwellings, and monuments in and around Manila, Filipino political and military leaders, members of American commissions and military units based in the Philippines, and numerous landscape scenes, particularly on Mindanao and in Lanoa Province.
