The Alaska Commercial Company Collection
In 1897, the University of California was given 2,400 artifacts collected from the Native peoples of Alaska—Northwest Coast, Athapaskan, Aleut, as well as Eskimo. They had been gathered between 1868 and 1897 by the Alaska Commercial Company (ACC) for a corporate collection. The company, which held a monopoly on fur sealskins, also ran a trading operation. Unlike the collections of university anthropologists, the ACC freely acquired artifacts that incorporated Western materials and forms, many of which had been made for sale. Unless otherwise noted, all the items in this section were collected for the Alaska Commercial Company, and accessioned by the UC Anthropology Museum between 1901 and 1904.
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