first edition
1941 · Boston
by Speck, Frank
Boston: The New England Gourd Society, 1941. Octavo (21 x 14 cm.), 113 pages. Illustrated with line drawings and photographic plates. Index. FIRST EDITION. The first in a series of monographs on the ethnography of the gourd, this one focused on native peoples of the American Southeast. The author, Frank Gouldsmith Speck (1881-1950), grew up living with Fidelia Fielding, the last living speaker of Mohegan Pequot, studied with Franz Boas at Columbia, and received his Phd from Penn, the first ever conferred by Penn for the subject of anthropology. He later chaired the department. Near fine, in publisher's tan cloth, titled and decorated in brown. (Inventory #: 9960)