George G. Heye Papers

George Gustav Heye is considered one of the most prolific collectors of Native American artifacts during the early 20th century. He was born September 16, 1874 in New York City to parents Carl Friedrich Gustav Heye and Marie Antoinette Lawrence. Heye graduated Columbia in 1896 with a degree in Electrical Engineering and found employment at the White-Crosby Company for the next eight years. Much of Heye's work required travel across the United States and it was on these trips that he developed the hobby of collecting Native American materials that would become his life's work and passion.

Around 1899, Heye began to make the acquaintance of archaeologists and ethnologists with whom he would continue to develop relationships as his hobby of collecting grew into a more serious commitment. Heye began collecting on a small scale, however this changed in 1903 with his purchase of hundreds of Southwest pottery pieces. In 1904 Heye financed expeditions to Mexico and Puerto Rico, and then to Ecuador in 1906. Benefiting from his family's fortune, made by his father in the oil industry, Heye was able to finance his collecting with ease, acquiring specimens from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Heye's early collection was housed at various locations across New York City between 1904 and 1906, but was eventually united on several floors of a building at 10 East 33rd street in 1907. It was at this location that the collection began being referred to as the "Heye Museum." The collection quickly outgrew this space and in 1908 Heye made an agreement with the Penn Museum through which a large portion of his collection was relocated on loan to the institution. In addition to his collection, Heye brought his own curatorial assistants George Pepper and Mark Raymond Harrington, both formerly from the American Museum of Natural History.

This long term loan was mutually beneficial to both the museum and George Heye. The Penn Museum's American collection was greatly improved by the addition of Heye's material, and Heye's collection received better care, storage and cataloging than it had at its previous home. Once at the museum, Heye was named vice president and member of the museum's Board of Managers, and president-chairman of the Committee on the American Section. A staff for the section was hired, with Heye paying all or part of each of their salaries. On February 12, 1910 the new Heye collection was displayed at the museum in three exhibit halls with an accompanying guidebook. The exhibit remained on view until 1917.

During his time at Penn, George Heye developed a strong relationship with George Byron Gordon, museum director. Heye helped to fund expeditions across the country and build up the collections of both the Heye Museum and the American Section of the Penn Museum. The first joint expedition between Heye and the museum took place in 1907 in Alaska before Heye officially joined Penn. Each institution focused on collecting from different regions, but would often purchase duplicate items when available. While both parties collected furiously, Heye's collection remained the core of the museum's American inventory, as Gordon assumed that Heye would eventually leave his collection to the Penn Museum. In addition to the use of Heye's collection, the museum, with Heye's financial assistance, was able to purchase Native American items as they came up for sale and could afford more frequent expeditions where both institutions could grow their collections. Items purchased by Heye were always catalogued separately despite the fact that they were housed at the museum.

In 1915, with the death of Heye's mother and his inheritance of 10 million dollars, Heye purchased land for a museum of his own on Upper Broadway in Manhattan. This museum was called the Heye Foundation's Museum of the American Indian. Heye removed his collection from the Penn Museum in 1917 much to the dismay of Gordon. As the loss of the Heye collection was great, Gordon asked Heye for compensation in the form of artifacts. Heye agreed, but said that an official exchange would have to take place as the Museum of the American Indian had a board of trustees and Heye was no longer in direct control of his collection. In addition to his collection, Heye also took his staff members to his new museum. The Museum of the American Indian opened its doors to the public in 1922.

Heye maintained a relationship with the Penn Museum through the various exchanges that took place after he pulled his collection and he and Gordon often corresponded regarding artifacts or collections that were for sale. When Gordon died 1927, Heye continued a relationship with new director Horace H. F. Jayne. Heye continued to collect specimens for his new museum and organize expeditions. In 1954 Heye's health began to suffer and after a series of strokes he died on January 20, 1957 in New York City. In 1989 the museum was absorbed by the Smithsonian, and moved to Washington D.C. in 2004 where Heye's collection became the core of the present day National Museum of the American Indian.

The Heye Papers were transferred to the Archives in 1978. They were originally housed with the American Section records, but were moved to a separate record group in 2004. The Heye Papers span from 1912 to 1940 and consist of five series in 47 folders and one bound volume of letters. The correspondence is predominantly written by George G. Heye to George B. Gordon of the Penn Museum. A majority of the letters were written in New York and sent to Philadelphia, although several letters were written on location during expeditions to Canada, Ecuador, Mexico, Alaska, Maine and the Northern Great Plains region of the United States. Letters were sent with consistency between 1907 and 1922, with a gap between 1922 and 1925, and another gap during 1934. Subjects range from collection concerns, acquisitions, administrative matters, and expeditions. This collection reveals details of early museum collecting practices at the Penn Museum. Other series in this collection concern administrative records such as catalog cards, inventory check lists generated through acquisition or exchange, loan agreements and expedition materials. The series are arranged chronologically. A bound volume of letters penned by Mark Raymond Harrington is also included in this collection. Mark Raymond Harrington left the American Museum of Natural History to join the Penn Museum with George Heye, and left Penn with Heye when he started his own museum in 1917.

Publication Information: University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives,

Finding Aid Author:

Use Restrictions:

Archives of the National Museum of the American Indian

Form(s)/Genre(s)

• Correspondence

Geographic Name(s)

• New York (State)
• Philadelphia (Pa.)

Personal Name(s)

• Gordon, G. B. (George Byron)
• Heye, George Gustav
• Harrington, Mark Raymond
• Pepper, George H.

Subject(s)

• Anthropological museums and collections
• Indians of North America
• National Museum of the American Indian
• Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation