History of the National Anthropological Archives In 1879, John
Wesley Powell gained control of government anthropological
research formerly in the hands of several federal geological
surveys and brought it into the Smithsonian Institution. In
appropriating funds to continue Powell's anthropological work,
Congress required him to receive documents concerning American
Indians collected by the geological surveys mainly those led by
Powell, Ferdinand V. Hayden, and George M. Wheeler. Thus began
the collection that would become the National Anthropological
Archives. Although it is doubtful that Congress intended a
continuing research organization, that was Powell's aim in
organizing the Bureau of Ethnology (later the Bureau of American
Ethnology) with the declared purpose "to organize anthropologic
research in America." As part of the BAE, the archives fared
well. Not only did it receive the anthropological fruits of the
geological surveys manuscripts at first but ultimately
photographs as well it also gained mate