Existing comment:
1915 Reconstructions of Ancient Humans:
Ten sculptured reconstructions of human evolution, as known in 1915, were displayed at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. They were modeled by the Belgian sculptor Louis Mascre, under the direction of Professor A. Rutot of the Natural History Museum of Brussels. The busts were sculpted in Belgium and then shipped to America during the opening days of World War I. This may be the only complete set in existence, as some of the original molds were destroyed during the war.
Perceptions of Early Hominids:
In 1915, the public perceived early humans as fantasy figures or "cave men" who walked with a stopped and shuffling fate. Only a few human fossils had been discovered, and Mascre's reconstruction of their heads and faces was based on fragmentary skeletons. For example, he worked from a skull cap to reconstruct Java Man, and Heidelberg Man was based on a lower jaw. The weapons, tools, and ornaments seen with the busts are reproductions of those found with the bones or are appropriate for the cultural period.
At the time, the customary view of human evolution was a linear one, where hominids were thought to have evolved in a single-line progression. Researchers believed that only one species of ancient humans lived at a time. Today, we recognize that human evolution was, and is, much more complex. Several species existed at the same time; some became extinct, and others flourishing for thousands of years. We now have nearly a century of scientific discoveries upon which to base our view of early humans.
The 1915 Panama-California Exposition:
In 1909, San Diego announced it would celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal in 1915 with a world's fair.
The county's population was only 61,000, but with the first deep-water port on the West Coast north of Mexico, many thought the publicity would increase local business and population. San Diego was the smallest city to propose a world's fair, and six months after it presented its plans, San Francisco, a city with over 400,000 people, announced a federally approved, official exposition. The citizens of San Diego did not waver and courageously continued toward their goal. San Francisco planned a commercial and industrial fair; thus San Diego proposed an artistic and educational exposition. The 1400-acre City Park, future site of the Exposition, was renamed Balboa Park in 1910 and a magnificent city of Spanish Colonial architecture arose.
The Smithsonian Connection:
The Exposition committee assigned Edgar L. Hewett, of the School of American Archeology, to put together a comprehensive exhibition called "The Story of Man Through the Ages." He enlisted the help of the Smithsonian Institution and two of its staff members: William H. Holmes for the ethnographic and archeological content, and Alex Hrdlicka for the physical anthropology component. Hrdlicka was instructed to mount the largest physical anthropology exhibit ever assembled.
Hrdlicka sent field workers to Africa, the Ukraine, Alaska, and the Philippines, which he traveled to Peru, Europe, Mongolia, and Siberia to collect skeletal material, casts, and photographs for the exhibition. The result was a five-room gallery in which one of the rooms was devoted entirely to human evolution. Its centerpiece was a series of ten large plaster reconstructions of early fossil humans.
The Exposition was a great success and was extended through 1916. The San Diego Museum Association (which later became the Museum of man) was incorporated and became the owner of the collections. |