He dug up hundreds and obtained thousands of objects, many of which went to prestigious museumsīorn in 1880 in Lowell, Massachusetts, Glidden moved to Catalina in 1896 with his parents and was working as a carpenter in 1915 when he first began excavating Native American graves.
In the 1920s and 30s, the self-proclaimed professor was hired by a foundation to excavate Native American graves. No photographic proof of this was ever provided. Indeed, in 1930, he announced the discovery of a skeleton of a 'royal princess' surrounded by the skeletons of 64 children buried in four tiers and five feet below the children was the skeleton of a 7 feet, 8 inch tall man. His finds made their way across the United States to prestigious institutions and he made fantastical claims to have unearthed a mythical prehistoric race of blue-eyed, giant Native Americans. Shrewdly using the media to promote his own aims, Glidden hired an ex-Los Angeles Times journalist to become his personal publicist, transforming himself into 'the famous archaelogist Ralph Glidden'- complete with funding from oil baron George Gustav Heye. His methods allowed him to accumulate one of the largest collection of human remains and artifacts of the native peoples of Catalina Island and by the 1920s he was enjoying fame and fortune, dining with the nation's wealthiest men. No bones are part of the current exhibitĬalling himself 'Dr', despite there being no evidence he even graduated from high school, Glidden is thought to have rifled through 801 grave-sites from 105 individual locations around Catalina Island. Ralph Glidden poses with a soapstone urn at his Indian Museum - a new exhibition will run from May 11 through Sept.
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