Preferred Citation
Publication Rights
Access
Biographical/Historical Note
Arrangement
Scope and Contents Note
Processing History
Acquisition Information
Related Archival Materials
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Lawrence Gustave Desmond papers relating to Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon
Creator:
Desmond, Lawrence Gustave, 1935-
Identifier/Call Number: 2013.M.12
Physical Description:
17.66 Linear Feet
(29 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1978-2009, undated
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Abstract: The Lawrence Gustave Desmond papers represent over 30 years of exhaustive research and writing by Lawrence Desmond on the
lives and work of Mesoamerican archaeologists Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, who lived and traveled throughout Yucatán,
Mexico, and Central America from 1873 to 1886, and were the first to systematically excavate and photograph the Maya sites
of Chichén Itzá and Uxmal. Desmond's interest in the husband and wife team began during his graduate studies and they are
the subject of his PhD dissertation and two books,
A Dream of Maya: Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon in Nineteenth-century Yucatán with Phyllis Messenger (1988) and
Yucatán through Her Eyes: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, Writer & Expeditionary Photographer (2009). Included in the collection are research materials and correspondence assembled by Desmond over the course of his
study of the Le Plongeons along with the drafts and manuscripts for his resulting publications. Inventories of the major holdings
of original Le Plongeon photographs in the United States, and of the Dixon family in England, as well as copy photographs
of those holdings, are also included.
Language of Material: Collection material is in English with some Spanish..
Preferred Citation
Lawrence Gustave Desmond papers relating to Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, 1856-2007, The Getty Research Institute,
Los Angeles, Accession no. 2013.M.12.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2013m12
Publication Rights
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Biographical/Historical Note
Archaeologist, author, and photographer, Lawrence Gustave Desmond, was born in San Francisco in 1935. His interest in photography
began as a pre-teen growing up in the nearby small town of San Carlos. After receiving a BA from the University of Santa Clara
in 1957, Desmond saw active duty as a Coast Guard officer from 1957 to 1960 and served in the Coast Guard Reserve through
the 1960s, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He completed an MBA at San Jose State University in 1964 and went on
to a career in human resources and management development with Silicon Valley electronic manufacturing companies. During this
period Desmond gradually developed an interest in Mesoamerican archaeology to the extent that he left his business career
in order to study first at the Universidad de Las Americas in Cholula, Mexico, where he received an MA in cultural anthropology
in 1979, and then at the University of Colorado, Boulder where he was awarded a PhD in anthropology and archeology in 1983.
Desmond has carried out archaeological research in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras for more than forty years. He has taught
at the University of Minnesota and San Francisco State University and has published numerous articles about his archaeological
and heritage preservation projects including geophysical and photogrammetric surveys at the Yucatán sites of Uxmal and Chichén
Itzá. He has exhaustively researched the lives and work of Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon, who lived and traveled throughout
Yucatán for ten years in the late 19th century, and they are the subject of his PhD dissertation and two books,
A Dream of Maya: Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon in Nineteenth-century Yucatán with Phyllis Messenger (1988) and
Yucatán through Her Eyes: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, Writer & Expeditionary Photographer (2009).
Desmond is currently a senior research fellow in archaeology with the Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project (MMARP)
at Harvard University and a research associate with the Department of Anthropology at the California Academy of Science in
San Francisco. His blog
ArcheoPlanet covers topics in archaeology (http://archaeoplanet.wordpress.com). Most recently Desmond has published a series of books
resulting from his life-long avocation of photography on the online platform Blurb, with titles ranging from
Growing Up in California, 1947-1959: Toy Racers and Giant Salamanders to
Mexico as It Was: Life in the 1970s (both 2014).
Arrangement
Arranged in five series: Series I. Book-length manuscripts, 1978-2009, undated; Series II. Articles, papers and lectures,
late 1970s-2001; Series III. Catalogs of Le Plongeon photographs, 1987-2005; Series IV. Research materials and related correspondence,
1977-2008, undated; Series V Photographs, 1980-1989, undated.
Scope and Contents Note
The collection represents over 30 years of exhaustive research and writing by Lawrence Desmond on the lives and work of Mesoamerican
archaeologists Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, who lived and traveled throughout Yucatán, Mexico, and Central America
from 1873 to 1886, and who were the first persons to systematically excavate and photograph the Maya sites of Chichén Itzá
and Uxmal. Desmond's interest in the husband and wife team began during his graduate studies and they are the subject of his
PhD dissertation and two books,
A Dream of Maya: Augustus and Alice Le Plongeon in Nineteenth-century Yucatán with Phyllis Messenger (1988) and
Yucatán through Her Eyes: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, Writer & Expeditionary Photographer (2009). Included in the collection are research materials and correspondence assembled by Desmond over the course of his
study of the Le Plongeons along with the drafts and manuscripts for his resulting publications. Inventories of the major holdings
of original Le Plongeon photographs in the United States and of the Dixon family in England, as well as copy photographs of
those holdings, are also included.
Series I contains drafts, manuscripts, photographs, and publication-related materials for book-length projects including his
early, unpublished work on Augustus Le Plongeon, his 1983 PhD dissertation "Augustus Le Plongeon: Early Maya Archaeologist"
and his book 1988
A
Dream of Maya. There is a small amount of material for his later book
Yucatán Through Her Eyes: Alice Dixon Le Plongeon, Writer and Expeditionary Photographer (2009). By contrast, Series II comprises shorter manuscripts for Desmond's unpublished class papers and published articles
and lectures as well as unpublished slide lecture materials including texts, images lists, slides, and ephemera.
Included in Series III are the repository inventories; photocopies of photographic prints; and copy prints, negatives, and
slides that resulted from inventory projects, beginning in the late 1980s, of Le Plongeon photographs that Desmond conducted
at various institutions in the United States and in the private collection of the Dixon family in England. In 1987, Desmond
received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to catalog three major collections of Le Plongeon photographs
held in the United States at the American Museum of Natural History, the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, and the Philosophical
Research Society (PRS), Los Angeles. The grant also covered copy photography of the original materials. In 1998, Desmond inventoried
and photographed the Getty Research Library's "Views of Maya Ruins in the Yucatan" (Special Collections accession no. 96.R.137)
and in the following year he documented the Donald Dixon Album (Dixon collection). Materials related to Desmond's 2005 catalog
of Le Plongeon photgraphs are also included in this series.
Series IV contains the bulk of Desmond's research on the Le Plongeons. Included are field notes, bibliographies, research
correspondence, and notes related to institutional holdings. Copy photographs (restrikes) and photocopies of original Le Plongeon
correspondence, manuscripts, published articles, and other materials are also present.
The photographic materials (slides, negatives, and prints) in Series V are primarily copy and reproductive materials made
by Desmond from original and copied materials, usually third generation images, that Desmond made to use for various unidentified
projects.
Processing History
The collection was processed by Linda Kleiger, Lilly Tsukahira and Beth Ann Guynn in 2014-2015, and Guynn wrote the finding
aid.
Acquisition Information
Gift of Lawrence G. Desmond. Acquired in 2012.
Related Archival Materials
The Getty Research Institute holds the Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon Papers, Special Collections accession no. 2004.M.18,
as well as two smaller collections of their photographs: Views of Maya Ruins in the Yucatán, Special Collections accession
no. 96.R.137 and Augustus and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon photographs of Chichén Itza, Uxmal and Yucatán, Special Collections
accession no. 2007.R.8. The original copies of the Le Plongeon photographs that Desmond made as part of his NEH grant are
housed at the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill as the Lawrence G. Desmond Colection of Augustus
Le Plongeon and Alice Dicon Le Plongeon Photographs, collection id no. 5268. Desmond's own photographs are represented in
the Lawrence G. Desmond Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project (MMARP) Photographs, Special Collections accession
no. 2014.R.16.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Anaglyphs -- United States -- 20th century
Gelatin silver prints -- United States -- 20th century
Gelatin silver negatives -- United States -- 20th century
Floppy disks -- United States -- 20th century
Uxmal Site (Mexico) -- Antiquities
Chichén Itzá Site (Mexico) -- Antiquities
Copy prints -- United States -- 20th century
Color slides -- United States -- 20th century
Archaeology -- Mexico -- Yucatán (State)
Stereoscopic photographs -- United States -- 20th century
Le Plongeon, Augustus, 1826-1908
Le Plongeon, Alice D. (Alice Dixon), 1851-1910