S. A. Barrett (1879–1965)

Dr. Samuel Alfred Barrett, a noted anthropologist, archaeologist, and ethnologist, was born in 1879. He came to the Milwaukee Public Museum in Wisconsin 1909 as curator of anthropology and developed his special field of expertise, Native Americans of Wisconsin. He was the director of the museum show more from 1920 to 1940. As director Dr. Barrett was well known for his executive abilities, for his scholarship, and for the promotion of museums through a Works Progress Administration project. In 1919 Barrett began the archaeological excavations of the Aztalan Indians. His book Certain Mounds and Village Sites of Shawano and Oconto Counties, Wisconsin (1932) was based on the state's Native Americans. In 1933 he wrote Ancient Aztalan, a scholarly chronicle of the diggings and their impact of the study of Wisconsin's Native Americans. His work has become a classic in the field. Barrett was also an authority on the Native Americans of California. He wrote more than ten books on this subject including Pomo Myths and The Geography and Dialects of the Miwok Indians. In 1906, one of his archaeological discoveries, a Miwok granary, was donated to the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley. (Bowker Author Biography) show less