 He was employed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as an assistant (1886–1894), as assistant curator of ethnology (1896–1910), and as curator from 1910 until his death in 1935.Though Hough's work revolved around cataloging the museum's collections, he also spent time doing archaeological field work in the American Southwest.In 1905, Hough unearthed preserved cobs of maize in a cave in New Mexico that helped subsequent archaeologists determine that the Mogollon ethnic group inhabited the area before the Anasazi Puebloans, who were previously considered to be the area's earliest inhabitants.