| Abstract: | Field notebooks, reprint articles, speeches,
survey abstracts, photographs, diaries, and correspondence pertaining to
Shantz's interests in worldwide agriculture and botany. Shantz's various trips
to Africa resulted in extensive field notes, including those for the
Smithsonian African Expedition, 1919 to 1920, and the African Education
Commission, 1923 to 1924. Background material he collected about Africa
encompasses maps; postcards; dictionaries and primers on languages, including
Swahili; also, articles on the people, the areas they inhabited, and specific
problems, such as the tsetse fly, sleeping sickness, forced labor, and race
relations. Photographs of his travels from the Cape to Cairo depict the Nile,
Egyptian ruins, wild and domestic animals, vegetation and the landscape,
villages and cities, and people in tribal dress. Communal activities documented
include cultivation, thatching roofs, building a road, and weaving a large
bamboo mat to cover a bridge walkway. | |