//Kushay telling Laurence, Ledimo, and John that //Ao has gone to the farms, 2001.29.621
In June of 1950, Laurence K. Marshall, former chairperson of Raytheon Company, and his 17-year-old son John trekked into the deserts of Southern Africa seeking the famed “Lost City of the Kalahari.” They did not find a lost city, but this expedition began a life-long relationship between the Marshall Family and people of the Kalahari Desert. Ten years, eight expeditions, and close to 40,000 images resulted in one of the most significant anthropological field projects of the twentieth century.
The relationship between the Marshalls and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology started at the onset of the expeditions. Laurence and John met with J.O. Brew, then director of the Peabody, to request institutional backing for their trip. Brew agreed and set up an advisory committee, minor financial support, and permit sponsorships. In 2001 Lorna Marshall, the family matriarch, donated the expedition slides and photographs to the Museum.
Robert Dyson (standing), Laurence Marshall, Elizabeth Marshall, Lorna Marshall, and several unidentified Ju/’hoansi, 2001.29.876.
Fast forward to 2020 when the Peabody Museum received an Institute of Museum and Library Science (IMLS) grant to digitize and make the collection available through its public database. To complete this work, a team in the Peabody’s Archives department was formed (see bios below). By the end of the project, the archives team will create close to 50,000 new media files from the negatives, prints, slides, stereoscopic transparencies, and paper records.
We work to scan high resolution images, edit database records, and create culturally sensitive and accurate descriptions of the expedition negatives and prints. We chose to start in the middle of the collection, working with the materials from the 1955 expedition, which generated a prolific amount of published work from films, articles, and books including Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ 1959 publication, The Harmless People. The team also meets regularly to discuss best practices for describing photographed individuals from the Kalahari and their cultural objects.
The Marshall Family Archives Digitization Project will not only support the preservation and ethically responsible stewardship of this unique collection, but will also allow us to form new partnerships across the globe, including in Southern Africa. The Peabody will be providing support for a permanent exhibition of Marshall Family photographs at the !Khwattu San Heritage Centre in Yzerfontein, South Africa, as well as an exhibition component at Tsumkwe, Namibia, where the Marshalls worked and where some of the Ju/’hoansi they photographed are still living. The Museum is also working to collaborate with universities in South Africa and Botswana to disseminate the newly digitized material among the Kalahari peoples whose photographs are part of the collection.
Meet the team working on the project!
Kim Allegretto, Assistant Archivist
I have a PhD in Anthropology from Brandeis University, and worked as a student assistant in the archives when I was there. I graduated from Simmons University in May 2013 with a master’s degree in Library and Information Science, concentration in Archives Management. I started working at the Peabody in August 2013, digitizing the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphics Inscriptions negatives collection.
Elise Riley, Archives Scanning Assistant
I am from Philadelphia, PA and have lived in Boston for the past three years. I have a BA in Linguistics from Haverford College and graduated from Simmons University with an MA in History and an MLIS with a concentration in Archival Management. Before coming to the Peabody Museum, I interned with the Cambridge Historical Commission and the Boston Red Sox and worked at MIT’s Distinctive Collections and Harvard Business School’s Baker Library. My archival interests lie in anti-oppressive description, open access, and collection outreach.
Angela (Kyung Ah) Lee, Scanning Technician
I am from South Korea. As a scanning technician for the Marshall Project, my responsibility includes the digitization of the Marshall Family Archives in line with increasing public awareness of the collection. As a recent graduate of Simmons University Graduate School of Library and Information Science (LIS) with an Archives Management Concentration, I have valuable experience in academic libraries and institutional archives. I have always been interested in archives as a powerful social asset that connects the past and the present in addressing issues of accountability, social justice, and diversity. My professional goals lie in the documentation of cultural heritage and collective memory, making archival materials more accessible. In that regard, I am more than thrilled to be able to contribute to unearth the voices of Kalahari peoples through digitization.
Gloria Shin, Scanning Technician
I am from Philadelphia, PA and I have a B.A. in Anthropology and Political Science. I will be graduating from Simmons University in May with my master’s degree in Library and Information Science. I have previously worked in archives at the Andy Warhol Museum, the Arnold Arboretum, and Boston Children’s Museum. My work at the Peabody includes scanning black and white negatives and creating records for these negatives in our database, TMS (The Museum System).
This project [MA-245387- OMS-20] was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Author: Elise Riley