Exhibit at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology honors museum’s namesake--and subject of new U-M Press biography--Francis Willey Kelsey
From now until September 16, the Kelsey Museum is hosting a special exhibition honoring its namesake called “A Man of Many Parts: The Life and Legacy of Francis Willey Kelsey.” Describing the exhibit, the Kelsey Museum states:
"Informed by John Griffiths Pedley’s new biography, The Life and Work of Francis Willey Kelsey, the exhibition draws upon the Kelsey Museum’s extensive collection of archival photographs, slides, postcards, stereoscopic images, and guidebooks used by Kelsey on his expeditions and upon Kelsey’s papers, now at the Bentley Historical Library."
President of the Archaeological Institute of America, professor at the University of Michigan from 1889 to 1927, and president of the American Philological Association, Francis Kelsey was crucially involved in the founding or growth of major educational institutions. A vigorous traveler around the United States, Europe, and the Mediterranean, Kelsey strongly believed in the value of personally viewing sites ancient and modern and collecting artifacts that could be used by the new museums and universities that were springing up in the United States. This collecting habit put him in touch with major financiers of the day, including Charles Freer, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan, as he sought their help for important projects.
In The Life and Work of Francis Willey Kelsey, John Griffiths Pedley, Emeritus Professor of Classical Archaeology and Greek at the University of Michigan and past Director of the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, draws heavily on Kelsey’s daily diaries to give readers a biography that records the wide-ranging activities of a gifted and energetic scholar.
