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Order Number 1349430 The National Museum of the American Indian Smithsonian Institution: The establishment of a national museum Mitchell, Jean, M.A. The American University, 1992 Copyright ©1992 by Mitchell, Jean. All rights reserved. 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproductionFurther reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL MUSEUM by Jean Mitchell submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of The American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Arts Management Signatures of the Committee: Chair: _______ ( O '- r : L a ug./yu Jean of the College %-/ Date 1992 The American University 1333 Washington, D.C. 20016 ?HS AMEBICM UII7ERSITY LIBRARY Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © COPYRIGHT by JEAN MITCHELL 1992 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To Grandpa (Carl E. Miller) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL MUSEUM BY Jean Mitchell ABSTRACT Changes have been taking place within the museum community in response to a new focus toward public programming and "client-centered" museums. The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) can be considered a model of this new focus with a mandate to form a collabora­ tion with the Native American community in planning the new museum. Such a collaboration has rarely worked before. Methods used for gathering information for this study included conducting interviews with key staff members of NMAI, attending consultation planning meetings, and using information obtained from museum documents. The findings of the study show that the museum is creating a venue for different perspectives of Native American cultures, and attempting to re-educate the general public. The development of NMAI will change the way museums are structured, the planning process for programs, the way museums view their collections, and will re-evaluate constituencies and audiences. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have gained so much from this project, and must not let the opportunity go by to thank the many individuals who shared their insights, philosophies, and experiences with me so that I could compile this thesis. I will be forever in debt to Fred Nahwooksy, a dear friend who first suggested the topic of NMAI as a full thesis. He has gone out of his way to refer me to contacts within the museum, as well as provide documents and information that alone, I would never have been able to obtain. He has been a source of guidance and stability at a very stressful and difficult time in my life. I would like to thank James Volkert, Acting Assistant Director of Public Programs at NMAI, for allowing me to attend several consultation meetings in the Washington area, as well as the xice of NMAI documents to assist in this project. Last, but not least, I so appreciate the support and encouragement from my sister, Martha, and my dear friend, Gay. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .......................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................... iii Chapter 1. FROM HOBBY TO PUBLIC MUSEUM ........... 1 2. NEGOTIATIONS FOR A NATIONAL MUSEUM . 8 3. FOUNDING S T A F F .......................... 21 4. THE CONSULTATION P R O CESS ............... 30 5. PROGRAMMING FOR A BROADER AUDIENCE . 42 6. "POINTS OF VIEW" - AN EXAMPLE OF INNOVATIVE PROGRAMMING ............... 54 7. EXHIBITIONS: GIVING DIRECTION FOR PRESENTATIONS ....................... 62 8. MUSEUM FACILITIES: THE CHALLENGE OF SPACES ............................... 71 9. A MUSEUM COLLECTION WHICH BELONGS TO ITS P E O P L E ....................... 81 10. CONCLUSION............................. 90 APPENDICES........................................ 95 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................... 172 iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER ONE FROM HOBBY TO PUBLIC MUSEUM George Gustav Heye, a Wall Street banker, made a fifty-four-year hobby of collecting Indian artifacts from South, Central and North America from 1903 to his death in 1957. Heye drove from New York City across the country to Indian reservations, buying virtually everything he could from the tribes, including pots and pans and clothing.1 In addition, he purchased many collections consisting of predominantly archeological pieces.2 Heye had been the heir to a multi-million dollar inheritance from his father, an executive of Standard Oil. He had the money to hire the preeminent anthropologists of the time, and sent them on fieldwork expeditions to excavate at various archaeological digs around the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Central and South America. Heye's earliest attempts at collecting were purely for his own personal interest, and he originally had no intention of !Kevin Wallace, "A Reporter at Large, Slim-Shin's Monument," (New York, N.Y.: The New Yorker, 1960). 2A listing of collections are listed in appendix I. 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sharing his collection with outside scholars, or the public.3 However, in the years spent working with "his" anthropologists, he learned a great deal about Indian material culture. Very detail-oriented, he was the only person allowed to register each object acquired with catalogue numbers. At one point, he was the only person who knew exactly what was in the collection.4 After acquiring nearly 400,000 artifacts, and having nowhere to safely store his growing collections, a new building was proposed and later built on 155th Street and Broadway in New York City (Audubon Terrace) with funds from future Trustees, and friends.5 Archer M. Huntington, who later became one of the outstanding contributors to the Museum of the American Indian (MAI), donated the tract of land for the new facility. Realizing that this permanent location for the collections would be useful for science and education, Heye created the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. Heye endowed the new organization and transferred his 3Kevin Wallace, "A Reporter at Large, Slim-Shin's Monument," (New York, N.Y.: The New Yorker, 1960). 4Ibid. 5Anonymous, The History of the Museum of the American Indian. 1956, 1. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. holdings to its Board of Directors in 1916.6 The Museum was structured as a tax exempt non-profit and received financial support for its costs of maintenance and activities from personal contributions, grants-in-aid for special projects, and its endowment fund.7 The museum opened to the public in 1922 "devoted solely to the collection and preservation of cultural material relating to the aborigines of the Western Hemisphere."8 Even before the new facility opened, there was not enough storage and display space for the ever-growing collections.9 To assist in providing additional space for research and collections overflow, another tract of land, on