author
Geraldine Coffin
An early twentieth-century researcher, she is best known for coauthoring a detailed study of Indigenous canoe traditions in the Puget Sound region. Her surviving published work offers a small but valuable window into the history of Northwest anthropology.
1 Audiobook
Types of canoes on Puget Sound
by T. T. (Thomas Talbot) Waterman, Geraldine Coffin
About the author
Geraldine Coffin is chiefly known as the coauthor, with anthropologist T. T. Waterman, of Types of Canoes on Puget Sound, published in 1920 by the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. The book carefully describes canoe forms and use in the Puget Sound area, and it has remained available through major library and public-domain collections.
A later biographical note from the Journal of Northwest Anthropology identifies her as Geraldine Coffin Guie and says she studied at the University of Washington, where she was among the institution's first anthropology majors. That same source places her within an early generation of researchers documenting Native material culture in the Pacific Northwest.
Because confirmed biographical information about her is limited, much of her life remains hard to trace in standard reference sources. What can be said with confidence is that her name endures through a specialized work that still interests readers of anthropology, maritime history, and the cultures of the Northwest Coast.