Early Life
Cushing was born in North East, Pennsylvania, and later moved with his family to western New York. As a boy he took an interest in the Native American artifacts in the surrounding countryside and taught himself how to knap flint (make arrowheads and such from flint). He published his first scientific paper when he was only 17. After a brief period at Cornell University at 19, he was appointed curator of the ethnological department of the National Museum in Washington, D.C. by the director of the Smithsonian Institution. There he came to the attention of John Wesley Powell, of the Bureau of Ethnology.
Read more about this topic: Frank Hamilton Cushing
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