Joseph H. Howard (1912 - 1994), a dentist by profession, gathered what is arguably the "largest collection" of drums in the Americas. Dr. Howard and his wife Bootsie travelled around the world over a period of 40 years amassing this collection of 800 drums, representing the drums and other musical instruments of cultures from Alaska to Argentina and from California to the Pacific islands, as well as Africa and Asia. The importance of his collection has been noted by experts on folk instruments at the Smithsonian Institution and were part of a major touring exhibit with artifacts collected by Fernando Ortiz the Cuban ethnographer who defined Afro-Cuban culture and wrote 30 books on the subject.