The Frederick Stanton Perkins Collection: Determining Provenience for Wisconsin Archaeological Items in a Foundational Legacy Collection at the Milwaukee Public Museum

Abstract

This thesis explores the previously unknown provenance and provenience of the Milwaukee Public Museum’s (MPM) Frederick Stanton Perkins collection of Wisconsin archaeological lithic and copper material. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Perkins, a local avocational collector, traveled across southeastern Wisconsin purchasing archaeological specimens for his growing collection. For over twenty years he placed ads in local newspapers requesting potential material and amassing the largest collection of Wisconsin archeological items in the state at that time. Perkins also recorded from whom he received material and any known provenance in a ledger. Unbeknownst to the MPM, the ledger was acquired by the Logan Museum of Anthropology (LMA) at Beloit College after his death in 1899 and has been separated from the MPM material until recently. Besides the MPM and the Logan Museum, Perkins also sold material to the Wisconsin Historical Society, Burlington Historical Society, and the Smithsonian Institution. The MPM Perkins collection contains about 1,081 objects that have little to no provenance information other than Wisconsin, and only 476 objects have the name of the source recorded in the museum documentation. Due to the lack of provenance, no research has been conducted on this collection since it came to the MPM in 1885. The primary focus of this thesis project was to correlate information in the Perkins ledger book with items in the MPM Perkins collection so that provenance for this material could be assigned and determined, known sites identified, and NAGPRA compliance and interpretation of this collection improved. Historical documentation and plat maps have been used to further determine possible provenance of objects in the MPM Perkins collection. The larger goals for this thesis project are to transform the MPM Perkins collection into a useable research collection, better integrate the material into the larger MPM collection based on geographical provenance and type, and to illustrate how legacy collections can contribute to our understanding and knowledge of Wisconsin archaeology.