Stewart Culin

Stewart Culin (July 13, 1858 - 1929) was an ethnographer interested in games, art and author. He believed that the similarity in gaming was proof of a worldwide contact between cultures. He was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Pennsylvania. His parents were John Culin and Mina Barrett. Culin had no formal education in anthropology. In 1889 Culin published his first report about Chinese games (of laborers in America); in 1890 an article about Italian Marionettes inspired by a visit in a marionette theater in New York. He worked in 1891 for the World Fair World's Columbian Exposition on a theme "games of the world", and also published two papers about street games of city boys, Chinese gambling games (explanation of Fan Tan, Pak Kop Pin). He also met at the exposition Frank Hamilton Cushing. They became friends and endeavored to create the first cumulative documentation on world's games. In 1892 Culin became Director of the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology. He reported in 1893 about the games exhibit on the Columbian Exposition. He married Helen Bunker on March 18, 1893. In 1894 he wrote a paper about Mancala games. Culin published his first book in 1895 about Korean games inspired by Cushing, of the Bureau of American Ethnology of Washington. Culin got interested in chess and card games and wrote a paper in 1886. He worked together with Cushing on "Arrow games and their variants in America and the Orient" but Cushing got ill and so Culin took on and published the work on three inter-related papers: "American Indian Games" in 1898, "Hawaiian Games" in 1899 and "Philippine Games" in 1900. Cushing died in 1900. As the work on the papers changed Culins views he publised in 1903 a revised paper about "American Indian Games". In 1903 Culin resigned from the University of Pennsylvania and became curator of Ethnology at the Institute of Arts and Sciences of the Brooklyn Museum in New York. He began a series of collection expeditions to study Native Americans on the Northwest, Southwest coast and California, later on he went to Asian and Eastern Europe countries. One acquisition were paintings from the manuscript "Hamza nama"(also known as "Qissa i Amir Hamza"). The collected items were meticulously described with "the maker, use of the object, social position of the seller, the circumstances of purchase, the provenance". He had also a letter exchange with Franz Boas and George Dorsey. In 1907 Culin unified his 14 years of theories and ideas in the major book "Games of North American Indians" split up by category games of skill and games of chance. After the publication of the book he changed and got interested in decorative art like costume, fashion, furniture and wrote articles about. This may be seen as Culin wanted the museum to be a place for people to study. Together with Women's Wear magazine he displayed contemporary fashion and changed museum rooms to study textiles and design. He also created traveling exhibits. In the 1920s he wrote 4 more papers about Asian games, retired from the Brooklyn Museum. He also became well known in the fashion industry. Culin died in 1929.

Writings

journal articles by Culin, Steward: books:
  • Culin, Stewart; University of Pennsylvania Press(1895). Korean Games With Notes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan. (Ed. 1958/1960) Games of The Orient. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company. 177 pages. (Ed. 1991) Korean Games With Notes on the Corresponding Games of China and Japan. Dover Publications. 256 pp. ISBN 0-48-626593-5.
  • Culin, Stewart (1907). 24th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology: Games of North American Indians. Washington DC: US gov Printing Office. 846 pp. (rev. ed. 1975 ) Dover Publications. 867 pp. ISBN 0-48-623125-9. (1994) University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-80-326357-0
biographies:
  • Bronner Simon J. (1986). A Biography of Stewart Culin, 1858-1929. National Endowment for the Humanities, Travel to Collections Program.
  • Bronner Simon J. (1989) Object Lessons: The Work of Ethnological Museums and Collections. 227-254
  • Lawrence, Deirdre E. (1989 July). Culin: Collector and Documentor of the World he saw

External links

Stuart Culin page at Univ of Waterloo Culin, Stewart Culin, Stewart

 

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