John C. Ewers

John Canfield Ewers (July 21, 1909 – May 7, 1997) was an American ethnologist and museum curator. Known for his studies on the art and history of the American Plains Indians, he was described by The New York Times as one of his country's "foremost interpreters of American Indian culture."

He was instrumental in establishing the National Museum of American History and became its Director in 1964. At the time of his death he was Ethnologist Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the first recipient of the Smithsonian's Exceptional Service Award. In addition, he received the Western History Association's Oscar O. Winther Award and the American Alliance of Museums's Distinguished Service Award.

Biography

John C. Ewers was born in Cleveland, Ohio on July 21, 1909 to Mary Alice and John Ray Ewers. He was delivered by his maternal grandmother, Dr. Martha Ann Canfield, who was among the earliest women to practice medicine in Northern Ohio. He attended local schools.

He studied at Dartmouth College as an undergraduate, receiving his B.A. in 1931. Following graduation, he studied painting and drawing for a year at the Art Students League of New York before beginning post-graduate studies at Yale University in 1932. There, he studied the art and culture of the American Plains Indians under Clark Wissler; he received his master's degree with Honors in 1934. His Masters thesis formed the basis of his 1939 book, Plains Indian Painting: A Description of an Aboriginal American Art, the first of his many books and monographs on this subject.

After earning his master's at Yale, Ewers took courses at Columbia University while studying the collections at the Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He was selected as a Field Curator with the National Park Service in 1935. During his time with the National Park Service, he worked at Vicksburg National Military Park and Yosemite National Park, where he helped with renovation of the Indian Room. In 1941 he was hired by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to design and establish the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana. He combined this work with his own extensive field work on the art, culture, and history of the Blackfeet Tribe.

In 1946, after two years of service with the US Navy in the Pacific during World War II, Ewers joined the Smithsonian Institution as Associate Curator of Ethnology. At first he developed museum exhibits and worked on the Smithsonian's modernization program. He became Planning Officer for the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History) in 1956, was appointed its Assistant Director in 1959, and was named the museum's Director shortly after it opened in 1964. Ewers retired in 1979 as the Smithsonian's senior research anthropologist with the title Enthnologist Emeritus.

He continued to research, write, and attend conferences up until his death. He also taught at Texas Christian University in 1981. During the 1970s he had served as a trustee and research associate of the Museum of the American Indian in New York.

Personal life

Ewers met Margaret Elizabeth Dumville in summer 1932. He had finished the first year of his post-graduate studies at Yale and she was a student at Columbia. They married in 1935 and had two daughters, Jane Ewers Robinson born in 1938, and Diane Ewers Peterson born in 1944. Margaret collaborated closely with Ewers in his field work with the Blackfeet in Montana. She directed the newly established Museum of the Plains Indian during the two years he served in the Navy. Their 53-year marriage ended with her death in June 1988.

John Ewers spent his last years in Arlington, Virginia, where he died on May 7, 1997 at the age of 87. A memorial service was held for him on June 17, 1997 at the Carmichael Auditorium in the National Museum of American History.

After his death, the Western History Association established the John C. Ewers Prize, awarded biennially for the best book on the North American Indian ethnohistory. In 2003, The People of the Buffalo: Essays in Honor of John C. Ewers, was published by Tatanka Press. In 2011, The University of Oklahoma Press published Plains Indian Art: The Pioneering Work of John C. Ewers. The latter book, edited by his daughter Jane Ewers Robinson, is a collection of her father's writings that were originally published in American Indian Art Magazine and other periodicals between 1968 and 1992.

Publications

During his career, Ewers wrote many scholarly articles, monographs, and books, as well as articles for general interest magazines such as American Heritage. He also edited and wrote the introductions to 19th-century accounts of American Indian culture by Zenas Leonard, Edwin Thompson Denig, George Catlin, and Jean-Louis Berlandier.

Ewers's publications include:
{'source': 's3_pilev2/enwiki_20221006_lmdataformat.jsonl.zst'}