Roland A. Steiner (December 1839 - January 12, 1906) was a

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

, planter, folklorist, and amateur archaeologist who resided in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...

for most of his life. His archaeological pursuits in Georgia are his most prominent lifetime achievement. He also made significant contributions in the nascent disciplines of cultural anthropology and folklore.

Biography

Roland was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in December 1839 to Dr. Henry Hagner Steiner, a physician, and Susannah Wilhelmina Yoe Steiner. Roland fought at Richmond and Chancellorsville,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polic ...

as a private with Company C of the 48th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry, Army of Northern Virginia. Roland graduated from Princeton College in New Jersey in 1861 and he graduated from the Medical College in Richmond, Virginia during the spring of 1864. On October 13, 1870, Roland married Willhelmine J. Taylor, who was one of the wealthiest women in Georgia. Their wedding took place in Manhattan, New York, New York During the latter half of the 19th century and into the early part of the 20th century, Roland collected a massive quantity of prehistoric artifacts from areas throughout Georgia; including Mound C at the Etowah Mound site near Cartersville, Georgia and sites in Burke, Columbia, Floyd, Hancock, and several other counties. He became a member of the Georgia Historical Society on July 7, 1886, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1899 and the American Folklore Society in the same year. Roland was a founding member of the American Anthropological Association. In his lifetime, Roland collected more than 100,000 Native American

relics In religion, a relic is an object or article of religious significance from the past. It usually consists of the physical remains of a saint or the personal effects of the saint or venerated person preserved for purposes of veneration as a tang ...

from Georgia and South Carolina. Throughout the 1890s and early part of the 1910s, Steiner sent approximately 78,000 artifacts including copper axes, copper headdresses,

conch Conch () is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point at both ends). In North Am ...

shell cups and

gorget A gorget , from the French ' meaning throat, was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather collar to protect the th ...

s, pearl beads, pottery vessels, pottery statuettes, and other artifacts made of polished and chipped stone to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. His private collection at the Smithsonian is the largest private collection in the museum. Steiner also has collection of artifacts located at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, New York, the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, and the Peabody Museum in Massachusetts. In addition to his interest in archaeology, Roland also was one of Georgia's first ethnologists. He contributed several papers to the Journal of American Folklore, including several that were published. Elliott (2016) compiled the available corpus of these works http://thelamarinstitute.org/images/PDFs/publication_208.pdf Roland died on January 12, 1906, in Augusta, Georgia of an illness that had begun two weeks earlier. He was buried in the old cemetery at Waynesboro, Georgia next to the grave of his wife.

References

* Elliott, Daniel T. 2010 ''The Roland Steiner Project: Introductory Background and Correspondence''. LAMAR Institute Publication Series, Report No. 59, Savannah. *Elliott, Daniel T. 2016 Roland Steiner and Early Anthropology in Georgia. LAMAR Institute Publication Series, Report No. 208, Savannah. * Steiner, Roland 1899a Allan Stevenson's Trance. Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 48th Meeting 48:364-365, Columbus, Ohio, August, 1899. * Steiner, Roland 1899b Superstitions and Beliefs from Central Georgia. Journal of American Folk-Lore 12(47) (Oct.-Dec.1899):261-271. * Steiner, Roland 1900a Section XII. The South. In Prehistoric Implements. A Reference Book, by Warren K. Moorehead, pp. 364–394. Yobert Clarke Co., Publishers, Cincinnati, Ohio. * Steiner, Roland 1900c Sol Lockheart's Call. In Notes and Queries. Journal of American Folk-Lore 13(48) (Jan.-Mar. 1900):67-70. * Steiner, Roland 1900d Braziel Robinson Possessed of Two Spirits. Notes and Queries. Journal of American Folk-Lore 13(50) (Jul.-Sep., 1900):226-228. * Steiner, Roland 1901a "Seeking Jesus. A Religious Rite of Negroes in Georgia." ''The Journal of American Folklore'' 14(54):172. * Steiner, Roland 1901b "Observations on the Practice of Conjuring in Georgia." ''The Journal of American Folklore'' 14(54):173-180.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Steiner, Roland A. 1840s births 1906 deaths American planters