Around Lake Michigan

Book excerpt: This volume chronicles the acquisition of artifacts that comprise the collections of Georg Schwarz (1800-1867) and Martin Pitzer (1803-1877) at the Weltmuseum Wien. It provides readers with biographical information, contemporary historical context, and background stories. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, the two collectors spent considerable time in the Great Lakes region of North America, chiefly in Wisconsin and Michigan, where they began compiling ethnographic American Indian artifacts. Hence, emphasis is placed on the material culture of the various Indigenous communities around Lake Michigan, specifically the Odawa (Ottawa), Ojibwe (Chippewa), and the Menominee. This book is based on a collaboration with members of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians who visited Vienna in 2016 to study and photograph the items of the two collections and advise in the conception of the permanent exhibition at the Weltmuseum Wien in Vienna, Austria.