Johan Adrian Jacobsen (1853 in Risøya,

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies in Northern Norway. The municipality is the 21s ...

– 1947) was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

and adventurer. He is mainly known as a collector of ethnographical objects, and a recruiter of indigenous peoples for the ethnographical shows organized by

Carl Hagenbeck Carl Hagenbeck (10 June 1844 – 14 April 1913) was a German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He created the modern zoo with animal enclosures without bars that were closer to their natural h ...

, founder of

Tierpark Hagenbeck The Tierpark Hagenbeck is a zoo in Stellingen, Hamburg, Germany. The collection began in 1863 with animals that belonged to Carl Hagenbeck Sr. (1810–1887), a fishmonger who became an amateur animal collector. The park itself was founded by C ...

, a zoo in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

. Starting in mid-1881, Jacobsen was hired by the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde to gather ethnographic objects and other specimens. His travels took him from the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada ( Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm ( Greenland), Finland, Iceland ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

, North America,

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...

, Japan,

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part o ...

, and the

South Sea Islands Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...

Biography

For seven years, beginning in 1867, Jacobsen was member of a whaling crew on the

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern N ...

and Murman coasts. In 1876/7 he traveled along the west coast of

. When he returned to

in 1877, he was hired by

to recruit Greenlanders for his live exhibitions of indigenous people. In 1880, once again on behalf of Hagenbeck, Jacobsen recruited a group of eight

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

Inuit, among which was

Abraham Ulrikab Abraham Ulrikab (January 29, 1845 – January 13, 1881) was an Inuk from Hebron, Labrador, in the present-day province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, who – along with his family and four other Inuit – agreed to become the latest att ...

. Unfortunately, this show ended in tragedy as, within four months, all

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, ...

had been killed by smallpox.Rivet, France. ''In the Footsteps of Abraham Ulrikab: The Events of 1880-1881'' Gatineau: Polar Horizons. 2014 In mid-1881, Jacobsen was engaged by the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde to gather ethnographic and other specimens on the west coast of North America. For the next two years, he traveled through British Columbia, Yukon, and Alaska. The museum later sent him on expeditions to

, Japan,

, the

, etc. In 1885, Jacobsen was back in British Columbia, Canada, where he and his brother Bernard Filip hired a group of nine Nuxalk (Bella Coola). Johan Adrian Jacobsen brought them back to Europe and traveled with them until 1887. Subsequently, he made ethnographic collections in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

and Norway. At the

Columbian Exposition of 1893 The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

, Jacobsen exhibited an ethnographic collection from 25 non-

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

an peoples. This formed the nucleus around which developed the Field Columbian Museum of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Works

Publications include:

References

* 1853 births 1947 deaths Norwegian explorers Norwegian ethnologists People from Tromsø {{ethnologist-stub