James Mooney was born February 10, 1861, in Richmond, Indiana. His first publication, a fifty-five-page pamphlet titled A List of Linguistic Families of Indian Tribes North of Mexico, quickly became an indispensable reference book for the Smithsonian staff and other anthropologists. In 1886, he joined the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of Ethnology. He made his first field trip to Cherokee, North Carolina, the following year. On September 28, 1897, he married Ione Lee Gaut. He died of heart disease in Washington, D.C., on December 22, 1921.
