Paul Rivet (1876 -1958) played a crucial role in the institutionalisation of French ethnology through the musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro, of which he became director in 1928), and in the professionalisation of the first generation of French ethnologists trained at the Institut d’Ethnologie (of which he was joint secretary-general). A legacy that is still strongly reflected in the collections held at the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac. The ethnologist arrived at the museum in the period 1928 -1938, set out on a mission out in the field and gathered items for the museum and to document human diversity. It is this key and very decisive period, illustrated here through Rivet's dedication not only to training the younger generation but also to serving a previously marginalised discipline, that spearheaded a new form of humanism at a time that was disrupted by a rise in racism and fascism and when European Imperialism reigned supreme.