Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Field, Henry, 1902-1986
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
American anthropologist Henry Field studied in England, graduating from Oxford University in 1925. He worked as Assistant Curator of Physical Anthropology in the Field Museum of Natural History, and held the position of Curator, 1934-41. Field participated in several of the Museum's Near East expeditions.
In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Field to join his staff as anthropologist and personal advisor. Field became a member of the Special Intelligence Unit of the White House, and director of the "M" project, a study of world population, migration and settlement undertaken to provide data for shaping post-war relocation strategies. Henry Field eventually published the 666 studies following declassification of the files in 1960. He also wrote a history of his experiences, entitled The "M" Project and The Track of Man, Volume 2: The White House Years.
Throughout his career, Field participated in archaeological expeditions in Europe, Africa, Mongolia and southwest Asia. He also led expeditions to Europe, the North Arabian Desert, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He was a member of the University of California African Expedition (1947-48), and the Peabody Museum- Harvard Expedition to the Near East and Pakistan. In 1966 he joined the University of Miami faculty, and edited, wrote and published a number of anthropological studies through his "Field Research Reports."
Field, the recipient of many honors and awards, was a research fellow in physical anthropology at Harvard from 1950-69, and an honorary member of the Glasgow Archaeological Society. He also joined several foreign scientific societies and organizations in the United States and other countries. His publications include the following works on southwest: Useful Plants and Drugs of Iran and Iraq, The Anthropology of Iraq and Bibliographies on South West Asia I-VIII. He also published Contributions to the Anthropology of the Caucasus, The Track of Man, Arabian Desert Tales, Mongolia Diary and Mongolia Today, Trail Blazers and other works.