William B. Van Valin Papers, MSS.2655

• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: University Libraries Division of Special Collections, The University of Alabama
• Subjects: Eskimos; Barrow; eskimo*; Point Barrow; Alaska
• Online Access: http://purl.lib.ua.edu/19144

Abstract: Contains materials related to William B. Van Valin's work with the Eskimos in western Alaska in the early twentieth century and includes letters written by his students. Scope and Content Note: This collection contains materials related to William B. Van Valin's work with the Eskimos in western Alaska in the early twentieth century. It includes correspondence from several of his Eskimo students and friends and newspaper clippings regarding his work there, as well as correspondence between Van Valin and Dr. G.B. Gordon of the University of Pennsylvania Museum and other related correspondence.Also included are lists of the reels of motion picture film Van Valin took while in Alaska and the handwritten description of a child's hide-and-seek type game called "He-mo, He-mo." There are photocopied excerpts from Van Valin's book, Eskimoland Speaks and an article appearing in The Smithsonian in 1982 about Edward W. Nelson and the Bearing Sea Eskimos [Michael Olmert, "The true face of Eskimo life stares out from the primal past." v.13, n.2, May 1982].The collections ends with an unidentified person's handwritten and typed pages of notes on the University Museum Collection (University of Pennsylvania) and a few other miscellaneous documents. Biographical/Historical Note: William B. Van Valin was a teacher, ethnologist ,and amateur archaeologist in the early twentieth century. He worked first as a teacher for the Alaska Division of the United States Bureau of Education in the Alaskan village of Wainwright between 1914 and 1915. After a falling out with the Bureau, Van Valin lived for several years with his family in and around Point Barrow, Alaska, collecting artifacts, photographs, and motion pictures of the native Eskimo culture and life for the University of Pennsylvania's university museum.