The Southwest Museum of the American Indian is a museum, library, and
archive
An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located.
Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
American Indians of the Northwest Coast
The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities. They share certain beliefs, traditions and practices, such as the centrality of sal ...
. Most of those materials were moved off-site, but the Southwest Museum has maintained an ongoing public exhibition on
Pueblo pottery
Pueblo pottery are ceramic objects made by the indigenous Pueblo people and their antecedents, the Ancestral Puebloans and Mogollon cultures in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico.
For centuries, pottery has been central to puebl ...
, open free of charge.
The Metro L Line stops down the hill from the museum at the
Southwest Museum station
Southwest Museum station is an at-grade light rail station on the L Line of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. It is located near the intersection of Marmion Way at Museum Drive in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles.Charles Fletcher Lummis, an
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
, historian, journalist, and photographer, created the Southwest Society, which was the western branch of the
Archaeological Institute of America
The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is North America's oldest society and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology. AIA professionals have carried out archaeological fieldwork around the world and AIA has established re ...
. He gained the support of city leaders, and with the financial backing of attorney Joseph Scott, opened the Southwest Museum in 1907. The museum moved from Downtown Los Angeles to Mt. Washington in 1914.
The 1914 building was designed by architects
Sumner P. Hunt
Sumner P. Hunt (Brooklyn, NY, May 8, 1865 – Los Angeles, CA, November 19, 1938) was an architect in Los Angeles from 1888 to the 1930s. On January 21, 1892, he married Mary Hancock Chapman, January 21, 1892. They had a daughter Louise Hunt.
Li ...
and
Silas Reese Burns
Silas Reese Burns (1855–1940) was an American architect.
Biography
Early life
He was born on April 8, 1855, in Morgantown, West Virginia. He became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1882. He graduated from the Massachusetts ...
. Later additions to the museum include the Caroline Boeing Poole Wing of Basketry (completed 1941), by architect
Gordon B. Kaufmann
Gordon Bernie Kaufmann (19 March 1888 – 1 March 1949) was an English-born American architect mostly known for his work on the Hoover Dam.
Early life
On 19 March 1888, Kaufmann was born in Forest Hill, London, England.
Education
...
, and the Braun Research Library (1971), by architect Glen E. Cook.
Frederick Russell Burnham, the highly decorated military scout and father of the international scouting movement, was an early president.
In 2003 the financially teetering museum was absorbed by the Autry Museum which designated it as its Mt. Washington Campus.
Following years of controversy with the Friends of the Southwest Museum and other local community organizations, the Autry began a partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the City of Los Angeles to develop a long-term plan for the site. On January 22, 2015, the Southwest Museum was designated a National Treasure by the
National Trust for Historic Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 by ...
. In March 2019 the Autry and the National Trust published a Request for Interest for the revitalization and reuse of the historic Southwest Museum campus and Casa de Adobe.
Collection
One gallery is open to the public on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with events and exhibitions that may take place on other parts of the campus. Admission is free. Autry has moved and been conserving most of the original collection in a new state-of-the-art home in Burbank, with plans to open that in 2021.
See also
*
List of Registered Historic Places in Los Angeles
This is a List of the National Register of Historic Places in the city of Los Angeles. (For those in the rest of Los Angeles County, go here.)
Current listings
:'
...
*
Bertha Parker Pallan
Bertha Pallan Thurston Cody (née Parker; August 30, 1907 – October 8, 1978) was an American archaeologist, working as an assistant in archaeology at the Southwest Museum. She was also married to actor Iron Eyes Cody. She is thought to be the f ...
Cheech and Chong
Cheech & Chong are a comedy duo consisting of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. The duo found commercial and cultural success in the 1970s and 1980s with their stand-up routines, studio recordings, and feature films, which were based on the hippie a ...
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections,
Charles E. Young Research Library
The Charles E. Young Research Library is one of the largest libraries on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles in Westwood, Los Angeles, California. It initially opened in 1964, and a second phase of construction was completed ...
,
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...