Administrative Information

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open to all researchers.

Conditions Governing Use

Before publishing quotations or excerpts from any materials, permission must be obtained from the Manuscripts and Rare Books Librarian, and the holder of the copyright, if not Swem Library.

Preferred Citation

David Ives Bushnell, Jr. Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary.

Acquisition Information

The materials were acquired by Special Collections Research Center from Mrs. David I. Bushnell, Sr. on 02/23/1942.

Biographical Note

David Ives Bushnell was born 28 April 1875 in St. Louis, Mo. He was educated in St. Louis schools and in Europe. He worked as an assistant archaeologist at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University from 1901-1904. Bushnell contributed to the Handbook of American Indians and wrote numerous books on Native American Indians, including Native villages and village sites east of the Mississippi, (1919), Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan, and Caddoan tribes west of the Mississippi (1922), The Manahoac tribes in Virginia, 1608 (1932), and Virginia before Jamestown (1940). He did much research in Virginia and in the Midwestern United States. He died on 4 June 1941. Further information about this individual or organization may be available in the Special Collections Research Center Wiki

Scope and Contents

Papers, chiefly 1917-1941, of anthropologist David Ives Bushnell, Jr., including correspondence concerning his research on Indians in North America; diaries, address lists, specimen lists, photographs, magazines, pamphlets, and maps pertaining to his work. Also includes correspondence of his mother, Belle Johnston Bushnell.

The collection also contains a typescript of the journal of Rudolph Friederich Kurz; letters written by William Cullen Bryant (concerning Thanatopsis), William Henry Harrison (one concerning the death of Tecumseh), Horace Greeley (concerning Uncle Tom's Cabin), and Thomas Say; and includes two letters, 1798-1799, written to Rene Auguste Chouteau.

Index Terms

Genre/Form of Material:

• Art (sketches)
• Correspondence
• Diaries
• Maps
• Photographs
• Publications
• Watercolors (drawings)

Personal Name:

• Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief, 1768-1813.

Topical Term:

• Indians of North America
• Oregon--History--19th century.
• Washington (D.C.)--History--19th century.

Adjunct Descriptive Data

Other Finding Aid

Bushnell Papers Finding Aid