The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846 at the bequest of James Smithson, an Englishman who had never been to the United States, but nonetheless believed it was essential for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge” (Smithsonian “Our History”). In 1876, the Smithsonian was placed in charge of putting together the “North American Indian” exhibit for Philadelphia’s Centennial Exhibition. The head of the project, Spencer F. Baird, chose to accomplish this by hiring an armada of amatuer ethnologists and instructing them to “collect” objects, specifically those that “did not appear to be influenced by white contact”(cited in Puckett). This resulted in an incredibly haphazard and piecemeal exhibition of objects crucially lacking their cultural context, and despite a stated intention to “enlighten the public about native cultures,” the exhibit ultimately did nothing more than reinforce pre-existing stereotypes (Puckett). 

The Bureau of American Ethnology (hereafter the BAE) was established by the federal government in 1879 and placed under the purview of the Smithsonian Institution. The need for such an institution stemmed from the problematic disorganization of prior efforts by the United States government to collect extensive information about the unique ways of living possessed by Indigenous populations in territories occupied by the settler colonialists (Genealogy). This was a way of “knowing”--and thus governing–the subject peoples. The Smithsonain and the BAE “were interested in bringing science to bear on the mapping of the West” (Pisani 2005:165). An embodiment of the type of “scientific” values championed by these joint institutions, John Wesley Powell was appointed as the first director of the BAE in 1879. Though he never received a degree (the Civil War interrupted his efforts), Powell studied the sciences at Illinois Institute, Illinois College, and Oberlin College(Wikipedia). He headed expeditions to pursue ethnological, anthropological and geographical information in Colorado, and became the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey. His passion for the Bureau’s work was sparked by his belief that “the study of such ‘savagery,’ as [Powell] called it, would help preserve the tribes and knowledge about them” (Graphic Arts Spotlight). 

Starting in 1881, the BAE published annual reports to the Secretary of the Smithsonian. In 1907, Frances Densmore wrote to the BAE asking for funding to continue work she had begun, studying how music was intrinsically tied into Chippewa medicine practices. She was granted the funding, and her work was published later that year in the 1907 BAE report, marking the first time the Bureau published any research related to music. The same year, Alice Fletcher contributed a section on  music to the BAE’s “Handbook of North American Indians.” After these preliminary contributions, the BAE continued to fund Desnmore’s research (though this funding was temporarily paused because of government cutbacks during the Great Depression) until her death in 1957. Other researchers who made contributions about music to BAE annual reports until the year 1948  include Francis La Flesche (Omaha), Walter Edmund Roth, J. N. B. Hewitt, Helen H. Roberts, James A. Teit, Edwin Thompson Denig, Leslie A. White, M. W. Stirling, William Jones, Ralph L. Beals, John R. Swanton, Ruth L. Bunzel, and Alfred Métraux. Many others contributed after this time. 

The BAE’s activity was not, however, limited to its annual reports. Following its establishment, the BAE published almost 200 bulletins specifically related to Indigenous peoples, although the focus on music was limited. These bulletins are particularly noteworthy because they are the source of some of the earliest published transcriptions, such as Densmore’s transcriptions of “Menominee Music” in BAE Bulletin 102. However, the BAE also disseminated research results in more widely accessible publications such as Scribner's, Harper's, Popular Science Monthly, Century Illustrated, and the Atlantic Monthly (Pisani 2005: 168). Another area in which the BAE exercised its public influence was in its sponsorship of an “Indian Congress” at the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition, held in Omaha. This event epitomized the BAE’s focus on “salvage ethnography,” with Edward Rosewater, the head of the event’s department of publicity stating that it “undoubtedly would be the last gathering of these tribes before the bronze sons of the forests and plains, who have resisted the encroachments of the white man, are gathered to the happy hunting ground,” and that “demand was high for an extensive exhibition illustrative of the life and customs ‘and decline of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere’” (Pisani 2005:175). However, any purported desire to adhere to the institution’s root in science was abandoned in favor of entertainment, with the event “having degenerated into Wild West shows and sham Indian battles - gaudily advertised on huge poster boards and clearly designed to increase ticket sales” (Pisani 2005: 175). Ultimately, the Smithsonian and the BAE stand as important institutions contributing to  the colonial legacies found in ethnography and ethnomusicology today because of their unique situation disseminating knowledge.  This knowledge was framed for the public as “scientific” but their rationales and motivations for calling it such can be questioned.