Physical Object: Reindeer hide (caribou) sleeping bag, used during Greely Expedition rescue

Sleeping bag made of reindeer (caribou) hide, circa 1884. A hand-penned paper label dating from the 1890s is stitched to the hide, and reads: "Sleeping Bag From The Greely expedition (U.S. Steamer Bear Sent to their Rescue)." The sleeping bag originated with the rescue vessel USS Bear, sent to locate, if possible, members of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition led by Lt. Adolphus Greely. The Expedition was part of the first cooperative effort among a dozen countries around the world to collect and share meteorological data from the Arctic Circle, which would be used to understand the earth's climate as a system. In 1882 the Greely party had established a base on Ellsmere Island, which they called Fort Conger. Proteus, the vessel that brought the team to Ellsmere Island, dropped them off in August of 1881 and departed, leaving the men without the means to return, and dependent upon two planned re-supplying missions, both of which ended in disasterous failure. At the time of the rescue attempt by USS Bear and USS Thetis, it was unknown if any men were alive and if so, where they were located, since they could have left Fort Conger in search of the supplies that were to be secured for them in caches. Of the 26 men in the Greely party, eventually seven were found alive, only hours from death. The date of the rescue was June 22, 1884. Most of the men had perished of starvation and cold, or drowning; one was shot for stealing food. One of the seven remaining men died soon after the rescue. Images of the rescue scenes show the survivors placed in this type of sleeping bag. The bags that the men had been using were far beyond use at that point, even partly eaten as the men tried to stave off hunger. The sleeping bag is 7 feet long and and 2.5 feet wide, with wooden toggles and hide loops that fasten across the center to secure the opening and keep out wind and cold. At the "head" end there is circular opening for the sleeper's face, and above it, a triangular flap with a toggle fastener to pull over the face. It should be noted that hide sleeping bags were made with the fur on the inside, since it traps warm air. The hollow core of caribou guard hairs make it especially suited to use in arctic climates. The Greely party did not have this type of bag, and had erroneously chosen to outfit themselves with buffalo sleeping bags, which are far less suitable for extreme temperatures. It is unknown how the hide was prepared (tanned) for use; its current brittle condition may be due in part to the way it was tanned, but likely also a result of long exposure to light as it was on very long-term display in the Barnum Institute. In addition, caribou fur is known to "shed" as it ages. The bag was almost certainly made in Greenland by native peoples familiar with working reindeer hide. (Reindeer are domesticated caribou.) At present, this sleeping bag is very fragile and the areas where it was stitched are holding up better than the broad areas of hide. Its deterioration is not reversible, and it seems unlikely that it can be displayed. This sleeping bag was donated by the widow of William Barrymore, Susan A. Curtis Barrymore. A former Navyman who was active during the Civil War, Barrymore worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard some time after 1868. It seems likely that he knew someone there who gave him the sleeping bag after Bear and Thetis returned. Barrymore himself died either in the late 1880s or in 1890, so probably only had possession of the sleeping bag for a short time. He may have intended to present the sleeping bag to the Bridgeport Scientific Society, of which he was a member, as the bag came to the Society not long after Barrymore's passing. The Greely Expedition, also known as the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, began in 1881. It was a part of the first cooperative effort between countries to gather information on polar climate data, laying the base for understanding Earth's climate and informing modern climate change data. There were to be 14 stations for gathering data in full, with then First Lieutenant (later Major General) Adolphus W. Greely leading one that would be located in Lady Franklin Bay, in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. Lady Franklin Bay was named after Lady Jane Franklin, whose husband, Sir John Franklin, was in charge of the attempt to trace the Northwest Passage while commanding HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in the 1840s. Two missions to resupply the Greely party were epic disasters, which led to the circumstances in which the men faced starvation. During this time, and mirroring the expedition's chosen bay of Lady Franklin, Lt. Greely's wife Henrietta began to apply pressure to the United States armed forces to put more effort into bringing the expedition back. When this failed, she and friends appealed to the public, using newspapers and the power of the press to stir sentiment in favor of launching a rescue. This proved effective, and in 1884, USS Bear, USS Thetis, aided by HMS Alert and HMS Loch Garry, were dispatched to try and locate the men. Along with meticulously gathering metereological data, and preserving it through the ordeal of their attempt to head south, the expedition was able to claim the honor of having reached "Furthest North," finally beating out the British and their 300-year hold on the record. The Greely Expedition became famous for the achievement, yet infamous as well, due to the findings that survival cannibalism had occurred after the deaths of some men. The 1893 Columbian World Exposition in Chicago included a diorama of the expedition, as did the New Orleans exposition just a few months after the rescue, in 1884. For a number of years there was continued public interest in what had happened, in part because of the horrifying nature of the story and the dramatic rescue, but in the early 1900s, when Antarctic expeditions were underway, the memory of the Greely Expedition was largely forgotten. The Smithsonian also owns a sleeping bag from the rescue expedition, transferred to them by the Field Museum in Chicago.