Rauner Special Collections Finding Aids

INTRODUCTION

Charles Wellington Furlong was the first American and the second white man to explore the interior of Tierra del Fuego. In 1907-08, when Furlong made his first expedition in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, he lived among the primitive tribes of Onas and Yahgans, the southernmost people of the world. These tribes have long since disintegrated and the Indians are now almost extinct; but Furlong observed much of their way of life, and in this collection he has left a record that can be found nowhere else. Material here about the Fuegian tribes includes phonograph records of speech and song, dermatoglyphs (handprints and footprints), notes, published works, correspondence, and hundreds of photographs, including negatives and lantern slides, which describe in detail the Indians and their society. The artifacts he collected can be found in many American museums.

The books that were an important part of Furlong's collection are now to be found both in the Stefansson Collection and the general collection of the college. Noteworthy are Thomas Bridges's Yamana-English Dictionary, a proof copy of E. Lucas Bridges's Uttermost Part of the Earth, and an almost complete collection of the South American Missionary Magazine. From the latter, Furlong extracted a thousand cards of notes, which are arranged by subject and are included here.

Furlong returned to South America several times, and this collection includes material about the Tehuelches of Patagonia, hunting treasure in Bolivia, the penal colony in French Guiana, and expeditions in Surinam and Venezuela, as well as photographs and notes from his travels in other South American countries. There are also a few photographs and papers from his explorations in Africa, which he first visited in 1904, and the Near East, where in 1954 he was honored by the Turkish government for long service in that area.

In addition to being an explorer and anthropologist, Furlong was a painter, teacher, writer, lecturer, and soldier. Although most of the papers relating to his personal life and writing are held by the University of Oregon, and most of those about his career as a soldier and diplomatic aide are in the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, there are some papers in this collection relating to almost every aspect of his life and careers. One of his interests, represented here by correspondence, notes, and publications, is the controversy over whether Frederick A. Cook or Robert E. Peary reached the North Pole. Furlong believed that Cook tried to take credit for the work done by Thomas Bridges in compiling his Yahgan-English dictionary, which Cook, returning from the Antarctic, carried to Europe. Consequently, Furlong was always a strong supporter of Peary's claim, and some interesting correspondence resulted.

Furlong and Vilhjalmur Stefansson began a long friendship in 1908, when they both became members of the Explorers Club. Stefansson was, of course, interested in Furlong's work in the Sub-Antarctic, and in 1960 the Fuegian collection became a part of the Stefansson Collection in the Dartmouth College Library through the gift of William E. Clark. Clark's support also allowed Furlong to devote his time to arranging and annotating his photographs, and in 1962 Furlong was appointed Consultant to the Stefansson Collection.

This collection of Furlong's papers, not including the books, occupies forty-eight boxes, about forty linear feet. There are no restrictions on its use.