The Pitt Rivers Museum, part of the University of Oxford, is a museum of global ethnography and archaeology. It has large holdings of photographs and manuscripts pertaining to object collections. Displays are organized by object type, rather than by geographical region or time period.

The Museum has an established program of working with researchers from communities of origin for the collections, including Indigenous groups, and has created innovative forms of access for North American Indigenous communities to heritage items in the collections. Staff are keen to foster new partnerships with Indigenous individuals and communities, to facilitate research visits and to provide access to the collections.

Learn more about all items in the Museum’s collections.

Collections

All information known about every object in the collections can be found at: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/databases. Photographs are being added to online databases.

Regions Included in North American Collections

Collection Highlights

Haida:

300 objects including important works by Charles Edenshaw, Albert Edward Edenshaw, Simeon Stilhda. Much of the Haida collection is available online at https://www.flickr.com/photos/haida_prm/sets/72157616623968971 as well as on the Museum’s online catalogue at: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/databases. See also https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/haida for information on the Haida collections and PRM work with Haida people.

Northern Plains, especially Blackfoot:

Collections include items acquired by the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Sir George Simpson, and his secretary Edward Hopkins in 1841-42 including an important group of quilled Blackfoot shirts; the Pope collection including items sourced through the American Fur Company and the Choteau family; coats of unknown provenance c.1820-1850. See also http://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/blackfootshirts/ for further information on the Blackfoot shirts in the Hopkins collection. 

Southwest:

Barbara Freire-Marreco’s fieldwork c.1910-1914 produced well documented object and photographic collections from the Tewa, Santa Clara and other communities.

Great Lakes and Northeast:

Parts of the 17thC Tradescant collections which founded the Ashmolean museum were transferred to the PRM in 1886 including an early wampum strip and bird quill garters with rolled copper jingle cones. Late18thC/early 19thC moccasins and ornamented bags from the Great Lakes/Northeastern region and several Innu (Naskapi) coats are a strength of this collection. 

Arctic:

Collections include Copper Inuit material donated by Diamond Jenness, who was trained at the Pitt Rivers Museum, from his work on the Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913-1916; Inupiat items from the 1826 Beechey-Belcher expedition through the Northwest Passage.

 The Museum’s North American photographic collection is one of the most significant in the UK, including a series of early portraits of chiefs who visited Washington DC in 1856-7 by the James E. McClees studio, portraits by C.M. Bell before 1884 and J. Hillers’ photographs from the US Geological Survey to the southwest in 1878. 

Resources

• Explore Pitt River's Museum Online Databases

• More information about the Museum’s photographic holdings is available online:

  • The Collection of Native American Photographs

  • The 1857-8 Delegation Portraits: Native American Photographs by Vannerson and Cohner

QUESTIONS AND INQUIRIES

For Research Questions about Collections

objects.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk or ms-photo.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk

Arrange a Research Visit

Requests should be made at least 1 month in advance of a proposed research visit to: objects.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk or ms-photo.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk

• Photographs of collections may also be ordered via these email addresses

• Support for research visits: occasional funding for research visits by members of Indigenous communities of origin may be available from the PRM Origins and Futures/YVR Foundation scholarships. For information please contact: objects.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk or ms-photo.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk

• Practical information about research visits available at: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/researchnotes

Additional Information

• Support for research visits: occasional funding for research visits by members of Indigenous communities of origin may be available from the PRM Origins and Futures/YVR Foundation scholarships. For information please contact: objects.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk

• Practical information about research visits is available at: https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/researchnotes

Loan/Borrow

The Pitt Rivers Museum lends items. Please contact objects.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk or ms-photo.colls@prm.ox.ac.uk to discuss loan policies and terms.

Partnerships

PRM has currently active partnerships with the Haida Nation and is a member of GRASAC [the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures] and the Reciprocal Research Network at UBC.

Contact