Logan Museum of Anthropology

A.H. Whiteford Curatorial Center

The Andrew H. Whiteford Curatorial Center is the centerpiece of the lower level. The two-story, glass-enclosed facility is the main storage area for ceramics and baskets, as well as the center for curatorial activities in the museum. This workspace is used by museum studies students cataloging artifacts and preparing exhibits. At the north end are Pre-Columbian ceramics from Central and South America. The south end holds the museum's extensive collection of basketry. The mezzanine houses North American ethnographic objects in movable storage, as well as larger North American ceramics. Visitors are free to walk around the perimeter of the facility, viewing the extensive collections and the curatorial staff at work.

"History of Man" Murals - J.W. Norton

Around the perimeter of the Shaw Gallery, above the display cases, is a series of twelve mural paintings. Entitled "The History of Man", these murals were created between 1924 and 1926 by Chicago artist John Warner Norton (1876-1934) and were commissioned by the Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan specifically for the museum. They depict various periods in human history relating to the composition of the Museum collections. The Museum also possesses study paintings for the murals, and a marvelous watercolor study by Norton for a mural in Loyola University's Elizabeth M. Cudahy Memorial Library entitled "Map of Jesuit Missionary Activity in the Northwest Territories", seen here.

Beloit College Field School Artifacts

William Simpson Godfrey once noted that "you can't learn about digging in the basement of a museum". That statement rings true even today. There are limitations to what students of anthropology can learn without leaving the classroom and doing anthropology. In 1918 George Collie sent class of 1918 member Alonzo Pond to study and purchase paleolithic artifacts in Europe. Since then, Beloit College anthropology students and professors have been involved in field work in many different regions of the world:

1928 - Central Asiatic Expedition
1926, 1927, 1929, 1930 - North Africa
1930-1945 - Ten investigations of Anasazi and Mogollon sites
1930 - The Dakotas, Mandan archaeology and ethnography
1937 - Field methods in Shirland, Illinois
1948 - Diamond Bluff, Wisconsin burial mounds
1950 - Popayan, Colombia
1950s and 1960s - La Magdalena, Mexico
1966 - Taiwan ethnography
1967 and 1969 - Costa Rica, conical and effigy mounds
late 1960s - Northern Lakes area, Wisconsin; Cahokia ancient city, Southern Illinois; Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Wisconsin.
1978 - Antofagasta, Chile
1990 - Arizona
Ongoing - Gottshall Rock Shelter, Muscoda, Wisconsin
Ongoing - Atacama Desert, Chile

Further explorations have been undertaken in West Africa, Barbados and Brazil throughout the years. Artifacts from all of these expositions form a large portion of the Logan Museum collections, with some of the more prized finds being displayed along the east wall of the lower level of the museum.