By Jerome L. Thompson

 

Edgar Ruby Harlan served as the curator of the Iowa Historical Department for nearly 30 years from 1908 until 1937. Raised in Pittsburg, located in southeastern Iowa’s Van Buren County, and receiving a law degree from Drake University, he was elected as Van Buren’s county attorney in 1898. While assisting his father-in-law, George Duffield, in preparation of his reminiscences of early pioneer life for Annals of Iowa, Harlan became acquainted with Charles Aldrich, the first curator of the Iowa Historical Department. Aldrich convinced Harlan to give up law and become his assistant in 1907.  Following Aldrich’s death in 1908, Harlan assumed the position first as acting curator until his full appointment in 1909. 

 

During his tenure, Harlan championed the development of the State Museum collections from Aldrich’s early efforts. All collection areas received his attention from natural and social history, to manuscripts and the portrait collection. In the 1920s and 1930s Harlan used the press to make the museum have a presence throughout the state. Harlan authored stories on particular artifacts in the museum collections that were carried in newspapers across Iowa. In 1930, in cooperation with WHO Radio, Harlan launched a series of Iowa history radio broadcasts. He created traveling trunk exhibits that were borrowed by teachers and shipped to their schools by rail. 

 

During and following World War I, Harlan initiated efforts to document Iowans’ service in the war. He advocated for plans calling for an addition to the museum building to function as a veteran’s memorial and exhibit wing. The market crash of 1928 and the subsequent Great Depression killed those plans.

 

As secretary of the Iowa State Board of Conservation, Harlan was critically involved in establishing Iowa’s first state park, Backbone State Park, in 1920 closely followed by Lacey-Keosauqua State Park in 1921 near his boyhood home in Van Buren County. In other state government service he served on the William Boyd Allison Memorial Commission, Grenville M. Dodge Memorial Commission and the Revolutionary Soldiers Grave Commission.

 

Among his many endeavors Harlan had a special interest in documenting and collecting Native American history and material culture. Harlan secured some outstanding examples of Great Plains tribal artifacts from local collectors such as Louise Driscoll, J.S. Carpenter and Judge Caleb Davis through his daughter, Anne. Those collections aside, Harlan’s greatest collecting efforts focused on the Meskwaki of Iowa. One of the first major collections of Meskwaki materials was acquired by Aldrich, Harlan’s predecessor, from W.R. Lesser. Lesser served as an agent for the Meskwaki from 1890 to 1894 and later was an agent for the U.S. Land Office in Nebraska, but resided in Tama.

 

Harlan developed a strong relationship with the tribe. He was adopted into the tribe in 1923 with the name ME-SHE-KA (“Snapping Turtle”). He approached collections made from the tribe in a manner that was different from other collections. Harlan carefully sought to obtain as much information as possible from the offers made. His papers contain transcriptions of meetings in which tribal members offered items for sale. Harlan would ask for information on the age, who made, or owned, or used something and how some things were used. He wanted that same information from other collectors, but rarely did they respond and likely did not know many details. For this reason, the Meskwaki collections have some of the best documentation of any Native American objects in the museum collection.

 

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