Before the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition, Boas was asked by Frederic Ward Putnam, director of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, to help curate Department M, a building of galleries devoted to ethnology and archaeology. Boas used his contacts to source and acquire objects for their exhibits, overseeing the design and organization of the collection. With millions of visitors expected to be at the fairgrounds, Putnam knew they were in a unique position to define the field of anthropology on a global scale. This opportunity was especially important because Powell’s associates from the Smithsonian had also been offered an exhibition space.

Putnam presented their exhibits so that observers would appreciate the scientific nature of their approach and the legitimacy of their conclusions, especially in anthropometry, which was the practice of measuring human features to chart and catalog their characteristics. Boas and Putnam were disappointed when they were thoroughly upstaged by the Smithsonian exhibits, which featured “exotic” representatives of people from non-Western cultures as curiosities to be gawked at.

Boas was frustrated when he was not offered a position at the new Field Museum in Chicago, as he had spent the time after the fair’s closing transferring and organizing the objects he had acquired for Department M.