Tracing the history of East African artefacts in the Smithsonian

William Louis Abbott, a medical doctor sent to East Africa to gather artefacts for the Smithsonian in 1887, collected hundreds of pieces of art, craft and culture from across the region. Professor Amy Stambach of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has undertaken extensive research on this collections history, and just how these items came to Washington D.C.. Read more about Prof Stambachs work in the following articles:Ethnology Unboxed: The Making of Culture Through Its Performative (Un)doing. Ethnologies, https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1687687Sourcing and shipping museum objects from East Africa to the Smithsonian, 1887–1891, Business History, https://doi.org/10.7202/1056386ar