{{Infobox person |name = Edward Harvey Davis |image = Museum_collector_Edward_H._Davis_1862-1951.jpg |caption = Davis in 1912. |birth_date = June 18, 1862 <!--{{Birth date|YYYY|MM|DD}} --> |birth_place = New York |death_date = February 22, 1951 <!-- {{Death date and age|1951|02|22|1862|06|18}} --> |death_place = San Bernardino, California |other_names = |known_for = |occupation = Museum field collector }}

'''Edward Harvey Davis''' (1862-1951) was a field collector for the Museum of the American Indian in New York City who acquired many artifacts from various indigenous groups in San Diego county and northwestern Mexico (including the Seris) for that museum (now part of the Smithsonian).

thumb|Desert Cahuilla, 1917.

==Biography== Born to Lewis S. Davis and Christine Smith Davis on 18 June 1862 in New York, Davis grew up in Brooklyn and attended the Brooklyn Art Guild,<ref name="Cornell">{{cite web|title=Guide to the Edward H. Davis Papers,1910-1944|url=https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM09166.html|website=Cornell University Library|accessdate=26 November 2017}}</ref> developing skills in drawing and drafting.<ref name="SDHC About">{{cite web|title=About Edward H. Davis|url=http://www.sandiegohistory.org/aboutdavis/.|website=San Diego History Center|accessdate=26 November 2017}}</ref> He worked for a time in New York in the accounting office of his family's shipping firm, Jonas Smith & Company.<ref name="SDHC About"/>

In 1885, ill with Bright’s disease, Davis followed his older brother Henry to San Diego, where the elder Davis had established an office of the family shipping firm and expanded into lumber and mining interests.<ref>{{cite book|title=An illustrated history of Southern California|url=https://archive.org/details/illustratedhistofsc00lewi|date=1890|publisher=Lewis Publishing Co.|isbn=5879878805|page=[https://archive.org/details/illustratedhistofsc00lewi/page/129 129]}}</ref> The younger Davis found work as a surveyor and a draftsman, drawing maps and house plans.<ref name="SDHC About"/> In 1887, he helped draw plans for the Hotel del Coronado.<ref name="Pursuits">{{cite journal|title=The Pursuits of a Museum Collector|journal=Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology|date=2013|volume=33|issue=1|page=89|url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6fx3z615}}</ref>

In 1885, he married Anna Marion (Anna May) Wells in New York and returned with her to San Diego.<ref name="SDHC About"/>

In 1887, a real estate deal in downtown San Diego provided Davis the funds to purchase 320 acres in Mesa Grande, approximately 60 miles northeast of San Diego, where he developed the land into a working cattle ranch and fruit farm.<ref name="SDHC About"/> In 1915, he built a summer resort on the property, the Powam Lodge, designed by noted architect Emmor Brook Weaver. Davis and his family operated the lodge until 1930, when it was destroyed in a fire.<ref name="SDHC About"/>

An interest in Indian culture led Davis to collect Indian artifacts, trading with various tribes in the neighborhood. Concerned with the loss of traditional Indian way of life, Davis acquired extensive artifacts to preserve and document Indian culture.<ref name="Pursuits"/>

In 1916, George Gustav Heye, founder of the Museum of the American Indian, hired Davis as a field collector of Indian ethnological specimens.<ref name="Pursuits"/> Davis collected for the Heye Foundation from 1917 to 1930, focusing on artifacts of the Indian tribes of San Diego County/Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico, including the Paipai, Kiliwa, Cora, Huichol, Opata, Mayo, Seri, Apache, Cocopa, Tohono O’odham, Papago, Maricopa, Mojave, Hualapai, Yaqui, and Yuma Indians.<ref name="SDHC About"/>

In addition to collecting, Davis photographed Indian communities, documenting their daily and ceremonial activities and publishing his experiences in both popular magazines and scholarly journals.<ref name="SDHC About"/>

Davis died on 22 February 1951 at the age of 89.

==Collections== The National Museum of the American Indian houses a large number of objects Davis collected during his years in the Southwest. The San Diego History Center (SDHC) houses the Edward H. Davis Collection of Indian Photographs and Drawings (5000 images, most dating from 1903 to 1947);.<ref>{{cite web|title=About the Edward H. Davis Collection of Indian Photographs and Drawings|url=http://sandiegohistory.org/collections/davis/|website=San Diego History Center|accessdate=27 November 2017}}</ref> Additionally, the SDHC Archives holds Davis's 62 notebooks and pages of field notes.<ref>{{cite web|title=MS 75 Edward H. Davis Collection|url=http://www.sandiegohistory.org/archives/archivalcollections/ms75/|website=San Diego History Center Archives|accessdate=30 November 2017|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171130001359/http://www.sandiegohistory.org/archives/archivalcollections/ms75/|archivedate=30 November 2017}}</ref> The bulk of his papers are housed at Cornell University Library (Edward H. Davis Papers, 1910-1944, Collection no. 9166).<ref name="Cornell"/>

==Selected publications== *Davis, Edward H. Early Cremation Ceremonies of the Luiseño and Diegueño Indians of Southern California. New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1921. *———. “The Diegueño Ceremony of the Death Images.” ''Contributions from the Museum of the American Indian'', Heye Foundation 5, no. 2 (1919): 1–33. *———. The Papago Ceremony of Víkĭta. New York: Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1920. *Davis, Edward H., and E. Yale Dawson. “The Savage Seris of Sonora--I.” ''The Scientific Monthly'' 60, no. 3 (1945): 193–202. *———. “The Savage Seris of Sonora--II.” ''The Scientific Monthly'' 60, no. 4 (1945): 261–68.

==Notes== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [http://nmai.si.edu/searchcollections/results.aspx?partyid=366&src=1-2 Davis items in the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian]{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} * [http://sandiegohistory.pastperfectonline.com/photo?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_criteria=Edward+H.+Davis+Collection&searchButton=Search Edward H. Davis Collection of Indian Photographs and Drawings], San Diego History Center * [http://www.sandiegohistory.org/aboutdavis/ San Diego Historical Society's biography of Davis], adapted from Theodore W. Fuller, ''San Diego Originals'' (1987, California Profiles Publications). * Gonzales, Christian. “ [http://www.sandiegohistory.org/sites/default/files/journal/v60-3/v60-3gonzales.pdf ‘Their Souls Are Equally Precious’: Edward Harvey Davis, Benevolence, Race, and the Colonization of Indigeneity].” ''Journal of San Diego History'' 60, no. 3 (Summer 2014): 181–206.

==Further reading== *Quinn, Charles Russell, and Elena Quinn. ''Edward H. Davis and the Indians of the Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico: A Harvest of Photographs, Sketches and Unpublished Manuscripts of the Indefatigable Collector of Artifacts of These Border Indians.'' 1965.

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Edward Harvey}} Category:Museum people Category:1862 births Category:1951 deaths Category:People from Brooklyn