How do two institutions work in partnership across borders and time zones to care for cultural items? More than 25 years ago, the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre (MDCC) in Nova Scotia and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian began a partnership that continues today.
Bison, commonly referred to by Native people as “buffalo,” were once on the brink of extinction. Discover how the revival of the bison became one of the United States' great conservation success stories.
For thousands of years, Native Hawaiians have traveled the Pacific in traditional voyaging canoes. A fixture on the National Mall for almost 20 years now, a wa‘a (Hawaiian canoe) named Au Hou has called Washington, D.C. home since the National Museum of the American Indian’s grand opening in 2004.
Although current views may point to “political correctness” for changes in language and terminology, by looking back through historical documents, it’s quite clear that this is not something new.
What can one day tell us? This Friday, December 11, 2020, ten Smithsonian museums and cultural centers are taking a snapshot of this extraordinary year, offering a moment for reflection and sharing perspectives. Join us in this effort to document a day in the life of our nation and the world—a chance to consider together where we’ve been and where we’re going. In addition to collecting individuals’ and families’ stories—with the assistance of wide-ranging questions as prompts—the ten museums and centers present a series of free, virtual programs sharing different perspectives on the issues that have shaped this year. See https://24hours.si.edu/ for the schedule and to register for some of the programs.
The exact date of Jim Thorpe's birth is unknown, but it is generally believed that the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States—regarded by many as one of the greatest athletes of all time—was born on May 22, 1887, or May 28, 1888. In honor of his birth, the Smithsonian Transcription Center has added eight significant projects from the Grace Thorpe collection in the museum's archives, including Grace’s “Memories of Dad” and her answer to the frequently asked question “How does it feel to be Jim Thorpe’s daughter?” Read more about Grace Thorpe’s life, then consider becoming a Smithsonian digital volunteer and contributing to the Transcription’s Center’s work.
The collections of the National Museum of the American Indian include thousands of objects and images acquired during expeditions conducted or sponsored by our predecessor institution, the Museum of the American Indian–Heye Foundation. While some expeditions are well documented in collectors’ field notes and early publications, much of the information about specific objects or the individuals associated with them was never recorded on the museum’s catalog cards. A long-term, multi-institutional project to reconstruct objects’ acquisitions histories is reuniting this information with the collections. Here are a few things we’ve learned so far.
Most of the Native American art we see in museums, in the United States and around the world, was created by women. In many traditional tribal governments, women formed the upper council, responsible for decisions of war and peace, and women have been elected to the highest offices in 20th-century Native nations throughout the United States. In short, Women’s History Month is important to our museum. Here are highlights of programs on the calendar in Washington, D.C., and New York City throughout March 2020.
The National Museum of the American Indian has taken a major step toward making our collections more widely available: We have posted all of the museum’s ethnographic and contemporary art collections to the Smithsonian’s collections search center, more than tripling the number of our object records online. Equally important, a long-term, multi-institutional project to reconstruct objects' acquisitions history is adding significantly to what we know about the collections, the history of the museum, and collecting practices over time.
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