Otis Tufton Mason

Otis Tufton Mason, Ph.D., LL.D. (April 10, 1838 - November 5, 1908) was an American ethnologist and Smithsonian Institution curator.

Mason was born at Eastport, Maine. He graduated at Columbian University in 1861, then worked there for 23 years (1861–84)). He worked at the United States National Museum from 1884 onward, and founded the Anthropological Society of Washington. As part of his curation work at the Smithsonian, Mason developed the culture area concept. Mason was anthropological editor of the American Naturalist and of the Standard Dictionary. He believed in Gustav Klemm's step-wise evolution of cultures and that technology was a marker of a culture's stage of development.

References

• Otis Tufton Mason, "Aboriginal American basketry: studies in a textile art without machinery," Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for the Year Ending June 30, 1902, Report of the U.S. National Museum, Part II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904), pp. 171–548.
• Otis Tufton Mason, The Origins of Invention: A Study of Industry Among Primitives Peoples (London: W. Scott, Ltd., 1895).
• Otis Tufton Mason, Summaries of Progress in Anthropology; Woman's Share in Primitive Culture (1894).

External links

• Works written by or about Otis Tufton Mason at Wikisource
• Register to the Papers of Otis Tufton Mason, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution