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Abstract

I am interested in detailing two aspects linked to the issue of several archaeologists working for the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) during the First World War. These spying activities were part of the controversy surrounding the censure of Franz Boas by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) for his published letter of October 1919, in which Boas claimed that four unnamed researchers were involved in espionage activities using archaeological research as a front. As they were unnamed, who were these four archaeologists?
Spying by American Archaeologists in World War I
(with a minor linkage to the development of the Society
for American Archaeology)
David L. Browman*
I am interested in detailing two aspects linked to the is-
sue of several archaeologists working for the U.S. Office of
Naval Intelligence (ONI) during the First World War. These
spying activities were part of the controversy surrounding
the censure of Franz Boas by the American Anthropologi-
cal Association (AAA) for his published letter of October
1919, in which Boas claimed that four unnamed research-
ers were involved in espionage activities using archaeolog-
ical research as a front. As they were unnamed, who were
these four archaeologists?
A recent work by Charles Harris and Louis Sadler list-
ing ONI agents during the war includes nine individuals
(2003: 371–379) who conducted archaeological research
as a ‘cover’ while simultaneously carrying out intelligence
gathering for the ONI. All potential candidates for these
four unnamed agents comprise: Theodoor de Booy (Agent
141), Thomas Gann (Agent 242), John Held (Agent 154),
Samuel Lothrop (Agent 173), J. Alden Mason (Agent 157),
William Mechling (Agent 52), Sylvanus Morley (Agent
53), Wilson Popenoe (Agent 219), and H. Joseph Spinden
(Agent 56). As well, in addition to the spying issue, I also
want to follow one nearly fortuitous thread to do with this
event, that contributed to the formation of the Society for
American Archaeology.
World War I and American Archaeological Espio-
nage
While Boas did not publish the names of the four archae-
ologists, we can make a reasonable guess about who they
were. The following is a very brief summary of the field
activities, during the First World War, of all of the nine ar-
chaeologists listed as ONI agents, with the four most likely
to be those accused of spying by Boas discussed first.
William Hubbs Mechling (1888–1953) received his A.M.
from the University of Pennsylvania in 1910. He went as
the Hispanic Society of America ‘Fellow’, as one of the
half-dozen student researchers to participate in the Inter-
national School of American Archaeology and Ethnology
in México City, in its second year of operation in 1911–12,
when Boas served as its director. Mechling received his
Ph.D. from Harvard in 1917, and was then hired by the
Field Museum in Chicago. Because of his ‘reserve officer’
status, he was called up to satisfy various wartime obli-
gations before he assumed his duties at the museum.
Mechling was commissioned as an ONI agent and quickly
recruited his friend J. Alden Mason.
John Alden Mason (1885–1967) received his Ph.D. from
the University of California – Berkeley in 1911. Mason was
also a University of Pennsylvania ‘Fellow’, during its sec-
ond year, at the International School in México City, where
he became friends with Mexican archaeologist Manuel
Gamio. Mason met Mechling first at Pennsylvania, then
collaborated with him at the International School, and the
following year both continued research in eastern Canada.
Mason accepted the job offer of Curator at the Field Mu-
seum in 1917, and in April, Mechling telegraphed Mason
in Chicago, requesting that he come to Washington D.C.
and join him at the ONI.
Mechling and Mason then went to Mexico and request-
ed permits to work in the Yucatan, ostensibly to collect
for the Field Museum. Utilizing the cover of doing archae-
ology, they began espionage work for ONI. But Mechling
was not cut out for the spying business. He immediately
ran into trouble, was arrested, and thrown in jail. Mason
contacted Gamio and they managed to get Mechling re-
leased from jail. But because Mason blew his cover by get-
ting help from Gamio, the ONI recalled and disenrolled
Mechling and Mason in September, so the pair had less
than six months of disastrous careers as spies (Harris and
Sadler, 2003: 50–53).
Manuel Gamio was Boas’s first Ph.D. student in archae-
ology. In addition to being a colleague from the Interna-
tional School, he was then working for the National Mu-
seum of Mexico. Based on materials published by Harris
and Sadler (2003), Rutsch (1997) and Stocking (1968,
1974), I have reconstructed the following correspond-
ence sequence between Gamio, Boas, and others, in the
summer of 1917. In July, Gamio wrote to Boas about the
arrest, noting that Mason and Mechling had applied for
permission to conduct archaeological work in the Yuca-
tan. Gamio thought that they were working for both the
Field Museum in Chicago and the Peabody Museum at
Harvard. Boas wrote to Berthold Laufer at the Field Mu-
seum to ask what Mason was doing. Laufer replied that
Mason had been granted leave from the Field Museum
to work on a political mission for the government. Laufer
indicated that the archaeological project was an intelli-
gence cover, but asked Boas not to tell Gamio. Boas wrote
Alfred Tozzer to find out how the Peabody Museum was
involved, but Tozzer replied that because of confidential-
ity, he could not comment. Later in August, Laufer told
Boas that Mechling had been hired to begin work in July,
but had contacted Laufer saying that he had to delay the
start of his position because of previous military commit-
ments. Laufer also indicated his intention to pass these
details on to Gamio. Whether Laufer did so is unclear,
Bulletin of the History of Archaeology
Vol. 21, No. 2, 2011, 10-17 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bha.2123
* Washington University, St. Louis.
Email: dlbrowma@artsci.wustl.edu
Browman: Spying by American Archaeologists in World War I 11
but Boas wrote Gamio, saying that Mason and Mechling
were not working for the Field Museum, but were acting
as government agents. Gamio replied, indicating surprise,
and noted that he had offered Mechling a job at the Na-
tional Museum in Mexico City when he had come in April,
but Mechling had declined, and Mechling and Mason had
then gone to the Yucatan.
In addition to corresponding with Gamio, Boas wrote
to Ezekiel A. Chavez, a Mexican colleague and an official
working high up in the Mexican government, and who
had been involved with him in the formation of the In-
ternational School, to denounce the espionage activities
of Mason and Mechling. Chavez wrote back in September,
asking Boas to return to Mexico, to help stop this kind of
endeavor by U.S. researchers. Boas wrote to Aurelio M. Es-
pinoza, Snr., who was a Mexican folklore specialist then at
Stanford University, who had advised Boas and Mason on
folklore research in Oaxaca for the International School
and on their later project in Puerto Rico. And Boas also
complained to other colleagues around the country, for
example, writing to Robert H. Lowie at Berkeley in De-
cember 1917, saying that he had determined that in addi-
tion to Mechling and Mason, Sylvanus Morley and Joseph
Spinden were spying for the American war effort in Latin
America (Harris and Sadler, 2003: 285–287).
Sylvanus Griswold Morley (1883–1948) completed his
A.M. at Harvard in 1908, and continued graduate work
through 1909, but never finished his Ph.D. Morley was
hired by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) in
1914 to head their new program on Mayan archaeology.
He was a member of the Cosmos Club in Washington D.C.
and when the war began, he was approached by fellow
club associate Charles Alexander Sheldon, Chief of Naval
Operations, to provide a list of anthropologists who pos-
sibly could be recruited as agents (Harris and Sadler, 2003:
46, 48). Morley was commissioned as an officer in the Na-
val Reserves, and was in charge of searching for German
submarine bases, combating pro-German activities, and
organizing an intelligence network to cover the coast of
Central America.
Herbert Joseph Spinden (1879–1967) obtained his
Ph.D. in 1909 at Harvard. Following graduation, he took
a position at the American Museum of Natural History
(AMNH), where in 1915 he began a five-year project in
Central America. Morley wrote to the AMNH in April 1917,
asking them to send Spinden to work with him. Spinden
continued his archaeological explorations while working
for the ONI. The AMNH was pleased with his activities, and
in March 1918 they instructed him to continue working
for Morley and the ONI for another year (Harris and Sadler,
2003: 109). When Central America was divided into five
information gathering sections by the ONI in April 1918,
Spinden was assigned Section 3, El Salvador and the Pa-
cific coast of Honduras and Nicaragua. In November his
area was expanded to cover Panama and Colombia as well
(Harris and Sadler, 2003: 270), suggesting that Spinden
was an effective agent and informant.
The research institutions to which these archaeolo-
gists were associated knew of the collaboration of their
personnel with the ONI. CIW paid Morley the difference
between his ONI and Carnegie salaries (Brunhouse, 1971:
115), and the AMNH and Field Museum did the same for
their personnel. Neither Morley’s nor Spinden’s associa-
tions with the military were secret, both having been pub-
lically, and often, seen wearing Naval uniforms, and their
participation was well-known to the stateside anthropo-
logical community. For example, during the summer and
fall of 1918, when Morley was back in the U.S. recovering
from malaria, he visited anthropologists in Boston, New
York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City, and
Santa Fe, and a ‘noteworthy aspect of this journey was
that Morley traveled in uniform’ (Harris and Sadler, 2003:
266). However when he was in Central America, ‘Morley
conspicuously maintained his archaeological cover’ (Har-
ris and Sadler, 2003: 240). The ONI ultimately deployed
about three dozen agents and sub-agents in Central
America, and a close reading of Harris and Sadler suggests
that Morley may have recruited over two dozen of them,
accomplishing his ONI orders to organize an espionage
network. The field ‘cover’, along with the fact that Morley
recruited so many of his fellow archaeologists, no doubt
contributed to Harris and Sadler’s hyperbole (2003: xiii,
315) that ‘Morley was arguably the finest American spy of
World War I’, and that he ran ‘arguably the best American
intelligence network in World War I’.
There has been considerable confusion about the ex-
act number, and the identity, of the archaeological ONI
agents in past discussions. Because Boas reported that he
knew of four such individuals, most discipline historians
have only sought to identify four archaeologists as agents.
But because there were more than four archaeologists so
involved, as can be seen from the list made by Harris and
Sadler, it is not surprising that the particular archaeolo-
gist identified as being one of the four has varied depend-
ing on the author. Morley and Spinden are almost always
named. Mason and Mechling are usually, but not always,
included as the other two. While there is no overarching
uniformity among the identification of the others, one
noted expert, David Price, who has written extensively on
anthropologists spying during the latter part of the twen-
tieth century, included Samuel Lothrop along with Morley
and Spinden, in a list of three individuals (Price, 2000: 24,
2003: 33).
Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, Jr. (1892–1965) alternated
between living in Massachusetts and in Puerto Rico as
a child, because his father had business interests in Pu-
erto Rico. Lothrop entered graduate school at Harvard in
1915, and was named the Peabody Museum research as-
sociate for Central America, getting to know Morley from
his fieldwork there, as well as from his membership in the
Cosmos Club. Morley sent Lothrop a telegram in Hondu-
ras in April 1917 asking Lothrop to leave his field project
and meet in him in Washington D.C., where Lothrop then
was commissioned and joined John Held as one of Mor-
ley’s first civilian agents (Harris and Sadler, 2003: 60, 63).
His wife, Rachel Warren Lothrop, was also commissioned
as a civilian agent (Agent S-32), and was ONI’s only female
overseas field agent (Harris and Sadler, 2003: 189, 201).
Browman: Spying by American Archaeologists in World War I 12
When Central America was divided into five ONI informa-
tion gathering sections, Lothrop was assigned Section 2,
the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, although he was soon
transferred to Section 1, Costa Rica. Interestingly, Lothrop
employed Mayan hieroglyphs to encode his espionage
materials. Later in 1918, Lothrop resigned his position
as civilian agent and joined military intelligence (Harris
and Sadler, 2003: 180–181, 212). Archaeological survey
and collecting was part of the cover used not only by the
ONI agent employees from the CIW and AMNH, but the
Lothrops also continued archaeological fieldwork while
functioning as agents, part of which was included by Sam
in his 1921 Ph.D.
John Held, Jr., (1889–1958) was a museum artist from
Salt Lake City who came to New York City in 1912, and
became friends with Spinden through archaeological il-
lustration work at the AMNH. In 1916 Held met Morley at
the Archaeological Institute of America’s school in Santa
Fe. Morley offered Held a position as archaeological art-
ist on the CIW’s 1917 expedition to Central America, and
when Morley moved over to work for the ONI, he brought
Held with him as one of his civilian sub-agents (Harris and
Sadler, 2003: 51, 62). Held purportedly was hired by the
CIW to study Maya art forms, but his real job was to sketch
the coastline and scout for military operations. Held and
Morley were given responsibility for ONI Section 4, the
Caribbean coast of Honduras (Harris and Sadler, 2003:
180).
Thomas Francis William Gann (1867–1938) was ap-
pointed as British district medical officer in British Hon-
duras (Belize) in 1894, and served for next three decades,
retiring in 1923. He began exploring Maya ruins as soon
as he arrived in Central America. As an amateur archaeolo-
gist, he also worked with Morley, accompanying him on
several expeditions (Wallace, 2010: 25). During the war, he
became one of Morley’s most important ONI sub-agents,
and he conducted his intelligence work while using the
cover of being an archaeologist with research funds from
both the Heye Foundation and the CIW. During this pe-
riod he was employed as an agent by both the American
and British governments (Harris and Sadler, 2003: 37, 162,
240).
The ethnobotanist Frederick Wilson Popenoe (1892–
1975) met Morley at the Cosmos Club in Washington
D.C., where they were both members. He began his ONI
stint as an associate of the Peabody Museum, ostensibly
working on the evaluation of archaeological resources on
their behalf as an ‘Agricultural Explorer’, first under the
official aegis of the Department of Agriculture, and then
for the University of California, Berkeley. He collected in-
telligence in the Andean republics as well as throughout
Central America (Harris and Sadler, 2003: 136, 302).
The espionage activities of Theodoor de Booy (1881–
1919) have been overlooked by previous discipline histo-
rians. De Booy began archaeological explorations in the
Caribbean islands in 1909. He secured a position with
the Museum of the American Indian (MAI), continuing
this work in 1912, and returned to New York frequently
to consult with Franz Boas, Marshall Saville, and other
anthropologists at the MAI, AMNH, and Columbia Uni-
versity. In early 1918 de Booy began archaeological work
in Venezuela for the University Museum at Pennsylvania,
concomitantly working for the ONI. While in Venezuela,
he utilized his archaeological credentials as a cover iden-
tity for his espionage activities. When Saville wrote of de
Booy’s death in 1919, he referred to this work under the
official Department of State ‘Inquiry Force’ listing, rather
than the actual ONI association (Saville, 1919: 182–183).
In addition to these nine ONI agents with archaeologi-
cal associations, Robert Brunhouse (1971: 113), David
Price (2008: 9) and Paul Sullivan (1989: 132) list another
Mesoamerican archaeologist, Arthur Wiltse Carpenter
(1890–1954), as an American spy. However, I do not be-
lieve Carpenter was an American agent, even though
Morley and Carpenter were both Harvard and Peabody
Museum graduate alumni and also ran a joint CIW/Pea-
body Museum archaeological project in Central America
in 1915–16. Harris and Sadler (2003: 370–380) provide
the official list of 257 agents recruited by the ONI in the
war, and Carpenter’s name is not on that list. Indeed, Har-
ris and Sadler (2003: 138–140) say Carpenter was delib-
erately not recruited because of his pro-German feelings,
and observe that some expatriate Americans in Guate-
mala complained that Carpenter might be a German spy
because of his explicit German sympathies.
At one point I thought George Amos Dorsey (1868–
1931), former curator at the Field Museum, and with ex-
tensive Latin American archaeological interests, might be
added to this list. Dorsey received his Ph.D. from Harvard
in 1894. After working for two decades as a curator at
the Field Museum, he resigned in 1915 to become an of-
ficer in the U.S. Navy, and later Assistant Naval Attaché in
Spain and Portugal in 1917–21. Dorsey became involved
with the ONI through Lt. Commander Edward Breck,
Agent 61. Breck had started in the espionage business
for the U.S. during the Spanish-American War, spying in
Spain. In World War I, Breck was ordered to infiltrate the
German community in Brazil and Argentina in 1917–18,
and ‘succeeded spectacularly’ (Dorwart, 1979: 130). Breck
then was sent to Portugal, where he worked with Dorsey,
continuing espionage activities. However, Dorsey was op-
erating there as an embassy official, not as an archaeolo-
gist.
There were other archaeologists like Dorsey involved in
intelligence gathering in the war who did so as members
of the armed services and did not utilize their professional
backgrounds as ‘covers’. For example, archaeologists Wil-
liam C. Farabee of the University of Pennsylvania, and Mar-
shall H. Saville of Columbia University, both served in U.S.
Army Intelligence in Europe. We should note that the use
of archaeology as a cover in World War I was not unique
to Yankees working in Latin America. Thus the British em-
ployed Thomas E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and Sir
C. Leonard Woolley in Syria, and Gertrude L. Bell in Egypt
and Iraq, as agents to gather intelligence of German ac-
tivities, while these three utilized their archaeological re-
searches as covers.
Browman: Spying by American Archaeologists in World War I 13
The Censure Controversy at the AAA, and the
NRC Actions
Boas’s letter (see quote below) charging four archae-
ologists with spying resulted in his censure by the AAA.
Among the factors contributing to this action was the level
of patriotism being exhibited by the anthropological com-
munity. For example, at the Peabody Museum at Harvard,
the top floor of the museum had been converted to a mili-
tary radio school during the war, and part of the first floor
had been taken over as classrooms for the Army Training
Corps. Nearly the entire museum staff was involved in
the war effort: Oric Bates died while training to become
an artillery officer; Roland Dixon was working on ‘special
investigations’ through the State Department (a cover for
intelligence work); Alfred Kidder was serving as an officer
in the infantry in France; Charles Peabody was commis-
sioned as an officer to teach ROTC military science; and
Alfred Tozzer was an officer in the aviation section (Wil-
loughby, 1919: 238–240). And this same level of patriotic
fervor was seen at other U.S. anthropology departments.
In addition, the United States was undergoing a politi-
cal spasm, with the populace becoming nearly jingoist
about recent foreign immigrants, expressed in part in the
‘Red Scare’ of 1919–20. In the century prior to 1890, im-
migration was mainly from northern and western Europe,
and less than two percent of that group was Jewish. But
in the quarter century from 1890 to 1914, immigration
came primarily from southern and eastern Europe, and
more than ten percent of the new immigrants were Jew-
ish. Leonard Dinnerstein (1994: 58, 77) argues that the
Jewish component of the new immigrants were particu-
larly discriminated against during the ‘Red Scare’ because
of their presumed association with Bolshevism, due to the
popularity of socialist ideologies in eastern Europe.
Into this context we have the letter by Franz Boas, ‘Sci-
entists as Spies’, dated October 16, 1919, and published in
The Nation. Most relevant to our discussion, Boas wrote
(1919b: 797):
A person, however, who uses science as a cover for po-
litical spying, who demeans himself to pose before a
foreign government as an investigator and asks for as-
sistance in his alleged researches in order to carry on,
under this cloak, his political machinations, prostitutes
sciences in an unpardonable way and forfeits the right to
be classed as a scientist.’
‘By accident, incontrovertible proof has come to my
hands that at least four men, who carry on anthropo-
logical work, while employed as government agents,
introduced themselves to foreign governments as repre-
sentatives of scientific institutions in the United States,
and as sent out for the purpose of carrying on scientific
researches. They have not only shaken the belief in the
truthfulness of science, but they have also done the
greatest possible disservice to scientific inquiry. In con-
sequence of their acts every nation will look with distrust
upon the visiting foreign investigator who wants to do
honest work, suspecting sinister designs.’
The American anthropological community already knew
about the activities that Boas was describing here. The
accused archaeologists had contributed to the successful
war effort, and were viewed by many as patriots and he-
roes for having helped win the war. They were friends and
colleagues from the AMNH, CIW, Field Museum, Peabody
Museum, University Museum, and academic departments.
As noted above, Boas had known about this ‘spying’ and
he had communicated his feelings about it to various an-
thropologists, for more than two years prior to this fateful
letter, so it might appear disingenuous of him to write in
October 1919 implying this had just come to his atten-
tion – if we ignore the possible political strategy related
to disciplinary conflicts. Boas had made no secret about
his own vigorous German sympathies during the war – for
example, see his strongly pro-German letter in the New
York Times (Boas, 1916). In fact, as Harris and Sadler argue
(2003: 287):
‘What is clear is that Franz Boas did everything he could
to blow Mason and Mechling’s cover, which, along with
their own indiscretion, helps to explain why their mis-
sion failed so miserably. But Boas by no means confined
himself to exposing Mason and Mechling.’
Harris and Sadler then provide details of Boas’s other ac-
tions in 1917 trying to derail this aspect of the American
government’s war effort, such as writing about it to Mexi-
can colleagues and officials as well as to U.S. anthropolo-
gists.
Thus in 1919, few if any of Boas’s colleagues would have
been surprised by the charges in his letter, but they would
have most likely seen them in terms of the anthropologi-
cal political battles (more below) of the day. They would
have viewed this letter in the context of their knowledge
of Boas’s German sympathies during the war, his two years
prior involvement in this spying controversy, and his dis-
tress at having researchers previously associated with him
at the International School in Mexico City using archaeo-
logical covers while conducting intelligence activities
against Germany in Central America. And those who knew
Boas personally knew that his very active participation in
pro-German groups in the U.S., such as in the Germanistic
Society of America, seemed contrary to the actions of even
his own sons, Ernst and Henry (Heine), both of whom
served in the American armed forces. Ernst joined the U.S.
Army as a captain and was sent to France, where he was in
charge of a medical division at a base hospital; and Henry
apparently was a combat soldier (Boas, 2004: 196, 215).
The question of whether some official response to Bo-
as’s letter should be made was discussed among the U.S.
anthropological community, with an eye to possible ac-
tion at the upcoming AAA meetings in December in Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts. For example, archaeologist Wil-
liam H. Holmes, who had tangled with Boas before, over
securing a position at the Field Museum, denounced the
letter as ‘traitorous’ and ‘reprehensible’ and called for a
concerted effort to end Boas’s control of U.S. anthropol-
ogy (Meltzer and Dunnell, 1992: xxiv).
Three archaeologists related to the ‘spying’ accusations
– Lothrop, Morley, and Spinden – were members of the
AAA Executive Council that was considering Boas’s letter.
Browman: Spying by American Archaeologists in World War I 14
If he had named them, the three might well have excused
themselves. Two other archaeologists on the council also
had been involved in intelligence operations with the U.S.
Army – Farabee and Saville. And a sixth, Dixon, had just
finished working on ‘special investigations’ for the State
Department, another cover for intelligence work. Hence
at least half a dozen members of the Executive Council,
who were being asked to consider Boas’s letter attacking
intelligence gathering by anthropologists, had themselves
only just been mustered out of various U.S. intelligence
operations. A resolution was introduced by Neil Judd to
censure Boas. Voting in favour were Roland B. Dixon, Wil-
liam J. Farabee, J. Walter Fewkes, William E. Gates, George
B. Gordon, Samuel J. Guernsey, Carl E. Guthe, Stansbury
Hagar, Frederick W. Hodge, Earnest A. Hooton, Benjamin
Talbot B. Hyde, Neil M. Judd, Alfred V. Kidder, Samuel K.
Lothrop, George G. MacCurdy, Sylvanus G. Morley, Mar-
shall H. Saville, H. Joseph Spinden, Harriet N. Wardle, and
Harris H. Wilder. Voting against were Pliny E. Goddard,
Alfred J. Kroeber, Robert H. Lowie, Nels C. Nelson, Elsie
Clews Parson, Charles Peabody, Frank G. Speck, Leslie Spi-
er, Louis R. Sullivan, and Alfred M. Tozzer (Tozzer, 1920:
93–94). The AAA Executive Council thus voted to censure
Boas by a vote of 20 to 10, an action that also resulted
in stripping Boas of his National Research Council (NRC)
council membership.
Some discipline historians have seen this response as
unexpected, because Boas was one of the founders of
the AAA. But he actually may have expected worse conse-
quences. Boas was friends with former Columbia Univer-
sity psychology professor John McKeen Cattell, who was
then the editor of the journal Science. Cattell had opposed
several of the initiatives of President Nicholas M. Butler at
Columbia University, and Butler had unsuccessfully tried
to force him into retirement in 1913. Butler had been
obliged to back down when the faculty led by John Dewey
and Franz Boas strongly supported Cattell. However, when
Cattell wrote several congressmen in 1917 on Columbia
University letterhead asking them to ‘support a measure
against sending conscripts to Europe against their will’,
the war-time patriotic atmosphere allowed Butler and the
trustees to fire Cattell on October 4, 1917 (Bender, 1987:
287). Boas initially sent his letter to Science, but Cattell re-
fused to publish it explicitly because of its content (Lesser,
1981: 18). Thus, if his former campus colleague and ally
Cattell had rejected his letter, Boas certainly knew he was
likely to stir up adverse reactions when he then resubmit-
ted it to The Nation.
The reaction to Boas’s letter needs to be seen in terms
of the broader war fervour, as well as within the nar-
rower context of the anthropological milieu. I have
touched upon the broader context already, in terms of
the patriotism that was rampant, the fact that many of
the anthropologists had been actively involved in the
war, and the general xenophobic isolationism that was
building in the country in the late teens and early twen-
ties of the twentieth century. For a pro-German, Jew-
ish immigrant, to attack respected U.S. anthropologists
for supporting the Allied war effort to defeat Germany,
would surely bring an adverse reaction from both the
public and AAA.
Of often overlooked significance, one of the specific
charges included in the AAA executive council’s censure
action, was that Boas had ‘abused’ his professional posi-
tion by employing this letter for his own political ends.
There were on-going battles for the control of the AAA by
archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and socio-cultur-
al anthropologists. During the first decades of the twenti-
eth century, the majority of officers of the then three main
anthropological groups – the American Anthropological
Association; Section H, American Association for the Ad-
vancement Science; and the American Folk-Lore Society
– comprised mainly archaeologists and physical anthro-
pologists associated with the government (through the
Bureau of American Ethnology, the Smithsonian Institu-
tion, and the United States National Museum) or trained
at Harvard. In the second decade, with Harvard program
founder Frederic W. Putnam having died in 1915, and with
the emergence of many new programs, Boas saw his op-
portunity to try to remake American anthropology more
to his own views. The period from the mid-teens to the
mid-twenties of the early twentieth century saw a compe-
tition for the realignment of power bases within the disci-
pline, and Boas was in the middle of the fray.
Hence there was a clear subtext to the censure, an on-
going battle for control of the direction of anthropology.
George Stocking (1968: 276) suggested the vote was along
sub-disciplinary lines – archaeologists and physical an-
thropologist for censure, and socio-cultural anthropolo-
gists against censure. The problem with this characteri-
zation is that there were four archaeologists who voted
against censure, comprising forty percent of the total vote
against censure, and similarly there were at least four eth-
nologists who voted for censure.
However other events indicate that we cannot wholly
ignore a sub-disciplinary component. Stocking (1968:
285) argued that Boas remained aloof from the AAA un-
til about 1911, because he saw it as being controlled by
government physical anthropologists and Southwestern
archaeologists. But by the mid–teens, Boas had decided
that the AAA could not be overlooked and sought to influ-
ence its direction. He and other socio-cultural colleagues
were viewed as attempting to take over control of the
AAA, and the World War I period brought one component
of this power struggle to a head. Thus there is support for
the partial explanation of the censure vote as an effort to
thwart Boas and his colleagues’ attempt to seize institu-
tional control and reorganize the discipline.
While there are many aspects to explore, one I wish to
highlight was that the shortage of funds was a major ob-
stacle to conducting field research. In the spring of 1916,
when it appeared that the U.S. would become involved in
World War I, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) took
the lead in developing the NRC to aid in the impending
conflict. Contributions from the NRC were very significant
to the organization of science and technology during the
war effort. Thus President Woodrow Wilson requested the
NAS to extend the NRC post-war. Plans included a new Di-
Browman: Spying by American Archaeologists in World War I 15
vision of Anthropology and Psychology, which was estab-
lished as one of seven divisions when the NRC was reor-
ganized in 1919. This division was viewed as an important
potential source for anthropological funding. Anthropolo-
gists are political animals and a protracted struggle broke
out to get individuals friendly to one’s viewpoint named
to the NRC council and to exclude competing factions.
Because of Boas’s previous conflict with Charles Doolit-
tle Walcott at the SI/BAE, it is not surprising that when
the executive committee of NRC asked Walcott to suggest
knowledgeable individuals to nominate anthropologists
for the new division’s council, Walcott recommended
the government anthropologists William Holmes and
Aleš Hrdlička, and ignored Boas, who was lobbying quite
strongly to be appointed. Based on advice from Holmes
and Hrdlička, among those suggested to represent anthro-
pology in the first draft version of the division in 1918 were
the eugenicists Charles B. Davenport and Madison Grant.
After the NRC received protests from several anthropolo-
gists regarding these two nominees, the NRC asked the
AAA instead to nominate candidates for the next draft.
The AAA appointed a subcommittee, comprising Franz
Boas, Aleš Hrdlička and Alfred Tozzer, to name this new
slate. But because Boas and his socio-cultural colleagues
feared that physical anthropologists might get control of
the NRC, they then by-passed this AAA subcommittee’s
recommendations of March 1919, and instead arranged
for the AAA executive council to provide yet another list
which excluded Holmes and Hrdlička.
The Washington anthropologists were furious when
they learned of this stratagem (Stocking, 1968: 292). After
a confrontation, Hrdlička was put back on an alternate list
of anthropologists-at-large. Thus when the Division of An-
thropology and Psychology of the NRC was organized on
October 20, 1919, the AAA nominees included Boas, Dix-
on, Fewkes, Kroeber, Laufer, and Wissler. But there were
also three anthropologists-at-large nominated separately
– Goddard, Hrdlička, and Tozzer. The Executive Commit-
tee of this new NRC division was composed of three psy-
chologists – Walter V. Bingham, Walter D. Scott, and Carl E.
Seashore – and three anthropologists – Boas, Fewkes, and
Wissler. So by early October 1919, not only were Boas and
his colleagues seemingly in control of the anthropological
component of the NRC committee, but they had exclud-
ed the archaeologist Holmes. And even though Boas was
not able to keep physical anthropologist Hrdlička off the
NRC committee, he continued to fight him by opposing
Hrdlička’s election to NAS in 1919 (Stocking, 1968: 292).
Holmes did not go quietly. He was incensed and looking
for payback and Boas’s letter provided him with an oppor-
tunity. In two notes to Hodge, just before the December
AAA council meeting, Holmes argued there were quite
a few ‘who do not favour Prussian control of anthropol-
ogy in this country that we are determined now to end
the Hun regime’ and stated that ‘the Prussian regime, the
vicious, scheming, minority of the association has ruled
long enough’ (Holmes to Frederick Hodge, December 20
& 24, 1919, quoted in Sturtevant, 1975: 4–5). Holmes
also wrote Lothrop, asking that he ensure that Boas was
stripped of his NRC position (Holmes to Samuel Lothrop,
December 26, 1919, quoted in Harris and Sadler, 2003:
288). All these issues were an integral part of the climate
and context of the AAA council meeting that considered
Boas’s letter.
There is another extremely important but altogether
overlooked linkage in the conflict between Boas and the
Washington researchers, in terms of anthropologists spy-
ing in the war. A Dutch-born ethnologist friend of Boas,
Herman Marie Bernelot-Moens (1875–1938) (whose
name is often anglicized to just Moens), was accused in
1918 by the Department of Justice of being a German spy
working in the U.S. using anthropology as a cover. Notably
Boas (1919a) was in communication with Bernelot-Moens
on November 25, 1919, just before the AAA considered his
letter, to continue providing Bernelot-Moens with advice
on the appeal of the court verdict.
The story about Bernelot-Moens’s original trial in The
Washington Post provides some details (Anonymous, 1919:
9):
‘No secret is made now that Moens was under surveil-
lance of secret agents of the United States almost from
the hour he landed in 1914 with a passport for the Unit-
ed States, Mexico and Japan. It is frankly admitted now
that he was suspected of being a German spy.’
Continuing, the article reports:
‘It was while ‘shadowing’ Moens with a view to ascertain-
ing his exact mission to this country and his proposed
trips to Mexico and Japan that the government agents
came into contact with the various phases of the pro-
fessor’s labors in the field of anthropology. In fact, his
arrest on the charge of having improper photographs
in his possession rather interrupted the main investiga-
tions, which is understood not to be complete even at
this date.’
Bernelot-Moens, writing in defense of his actions in 1922,
provided additional information on the charges made
under the Espionage Act of 1917, reporting that Bureau
of Investigation (BOI, later reorganized as the FBI) agents
stated (Bernelot-Moens, 1922: 40):
‘That colored teachers under his influence openly incul-
cated enemy principles and caused pupils to write on the
blackboard un-American sentiments, that incitement
of civil war between the blacks and whites in order to
help the Germans was in his program, that he had been
spreading such propaganda in this country since 1914,
and that he was a German spy on the payroll of the Impe-
rial government at $300 a month.’
The espionage charges apparently lacked adequate legally
definitive evidence to be readily pursued. However while
detaining Bernelot-Moens in October 1918, BOI agents
searched his belongings, and a collection of up to 200
photographs of eight different young, naked, black wom-
en was found (Herzog, 1921: 18). As a result, in addition to
espionage charges, a separate charge relating to pornog-
raphy was added (Bernelot-Moens, 1922: 35). In the court
Browman: Spying by American Archaeologists in World War I 16
documents for the defense, Bernelot-Moens’s photo-
graphs were said to be typical of the kind of nude pictures
that Boas and other anthropologists were collecting in an
attempt to define the physical attributes of geographic
human variation. Boas was one of several individuals who
provided written support in a December 1918 affidavit for
Bernolot-Moens’ legal defense, testifying that they found
‘these pictures to be of scientific and artistic value’.
Hrdlička was a prime witness for the prosecution in this
case. The prosecution proved that Bernelot-Moens had
lied about his credentials, and had no university degrees.
Hrdlička testified that despite Boas’s support, that Ber-
nelot-Moens was an ‘imposter’, who possessed no schol-
arly credibility, and that Bernelot-Moens had neither the
credentials, nor knowledge of a genuine scientist (Korn-
weibel, 1998: 199, 213, 216). While the evidence for espio-
nage was apparently indeterminate, Bernelot-Moens was
found guilty on the pornography charge in April 1919. A
bitter Bernelot-Moens later wrote (1922: 41):
‘Hrdlička of the Smithsonian Institution, who, through
political pull had been transformed from a good cigar-
maker into an anthropologist, succeeded in persuading a
jury which saw not a scientist in Mr. Moens but a German
spy, that the pictures were without any scientific value.’
In Bernelot-Moens’ subsequent appeal of his case, the
court found that the prosecution had failed to prove that
he intended to sell these photographs, and in March 1920,
thus reversed the conviction for pornography (Moens v.
United States, 50 App. D.C. 15; 267 F.317).
The prominence of Hrdlička for the prosecution vs. Boas
for the defense in the Bernelot-Moens spy trial makes it
clear that this case must be considered as another compo-
nent of the Boasian vs. Washington anthropologists politi-
cal battles, including the AAA censure vote. Certainly the
fact that in late 1919 Boas was actively supporting a Euro-
pean colleague who was using anthropology as a ‘cover’
while allegedly spying for Germany in the U.S., while at
the same time Boas was complaining about Yankee an-
thropologists allegedly using the discipline as a ‘cover’
while spying for the U.S. in Latin America, rendered the
ethical aspect of his complaint moot for many of the AAA
Executive Council members.
An Aspect of the Subsequent NRC Funding Impact
on U.S. Archaeologists
One significant component of these political conflicts
among the U.S. anthropologists was that in the battle for
controlling distribution of funds from the new Division
of Anthropology and Psychology of the NRC, with Boas
now removed due to the AAA censure, the socio-cultural
faction ultimately lost out to the Washington group and
its allies. This power shift was graphically evident later
when the division initiated its research grant program in
1929. Between 1929 and 1933, the division made awards
to 25 anthropologists and 20 psychologists, and tellingly
the great majority of anthropology grants went to archae-
ologists (Poffenberger, 1933: 43). Some significant further
details on the involvement of the division and NRC with
the development of U.S. archaeology at this period are
covered in Setting the Agenda for American Archaeology:
The National Research Council Archaeological Conferences
of 1929, 1932, and 1935 (O’Brien and Lyman, 1998).
Actions of the division’s personnel also were significant
in the establishment of the Society for American Archae-
ology (SAA) in 1934. Concrete action about forming a na-
tional association exclusively for American archaeology
was discussed by the Committee of State Archaeological
Surveys (CSAS), an active component of the Division of
Anthropology and Psychology of the NRC. This culmi-
nated in December of 1933 when CSAS board members
met to formally consider establishing such a national level
organization. Carl E. Guthe, as CSAS chairman, agreed to
oversee promulgating the venture, and in the spring of
1934, he sent out a prospectus detailing the suggested
national society to a list of about 200 amateur and pro-
fessional archaeologists. After incorporating their sugges-
tions for changes, he submitted the revised prospectus to
the CSAS, which accepted it on May 10, 1934. A CSAS com-
mittee was then set up to draft a constitution, bylaws, and
articles of incorporation, and to select candidates and pre-
pare a ballot for election of officers. After the legal docu-
ments were approved, and with the subsequent election
of officers, the official organizational meeting for this new
national archaeological society, developed by the CSAS of
the NRC, was held December 28, 1934, and the Society
for American Archaeology came into existence (Browman,
2010).
While the issues relating to archaeologists spying in
World War I were not initially and explicitly linked to ar-
chaeological institutional development, the political ac-
tions resulting from the disciplinary skirmishes included
in the censure of Boas, and in the fight for control of the
direction of anthropological research, as well as research
funding, had the unintended consequences of providing
an arena, and an institutional base for the formation of
the Society for American Archaeology.
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