From 1922 to 1942 he was a curator at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.[1] At his death Bishop was praised for his ability to synthesize a wide range of evidence and present them "in ordered and highly engaging fashion", which was "the best sort of popularization of prehistory".
Bishop developed his interest in anthropology and archaeology during 1907–12 when he traveled in the southwestern United States and Central America and was silver assayer in Mexico during the Yaqui Wars there in 1905–06.
[5] Bishop began his professional career as a member of Harvard University's Peabody Museum Expedition to Central America in 1913.
Shortly after arriving in China in 1923, Bishop responded to reports of the discovery of ancient ritual bronzes in Xinzheng (Hsin Cheng), Henan, the legendary home of the Yellow Emperor.
Bishop reported to the Smithsonian that the situation in Xinzheng was "most deplorable, in that no trained investigator was present to show how the objects could be removed from their setting without injury to themselves and to note down the information brought to light in the course of the digging but now, of course, lost forever."
According to Bishop's plan, the Smithsonian Institution was to be the sole foreign excavator and exporter of objects, though the work was to be carried out with Chinese colleagues.
[12] Bishop also used his spare time to photograph street life and social customs, architecture (especially historic buildings), and scenery.
These photographs, which Bishop classified with his own system and annotated with extensive notes, were not put on display, but mounted in twelve notebooks, though the negatives were kept in storage at the Smithsonian.
[13] Bishop produced a series of articles presented "in ordered and highly engaging fashion",[2] arguing for hyperdiffusionism, the theory that all civilizations originated in one place and spread to others.