The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) is a

history museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

in the

South Lake Union South Lake Union (sometimes SLU) is a neighborhood in central Seattle, Washington, so named because it is at the southern tip of Lake Union. The official boundaries of the City of Seattle Urban Center are Denny Way on the south, beyond which ...

neighborhood of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, Washington, United States. It is the largest private heritage organization in

Washington state Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...

, maintaining a collection of nearly four million artifacts, photographs, and archival materials primarily focusing on Seattle and the greater Puget Sound region. A portion of this collection (roughly 2% at any given time) is on display in the museum's galleries at the historic

Naval Reserve Armory The Naval Reserve Armory is a landmark building in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. Since 2012, it has been the home of the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), a local history museum. The building is a ...

Lake Union Park Lake Union Park is a park located at the south end of Lake Union in Seattle, Washington in the South Lake Union neighborhood. The park is owned by the City of Seattle and operated by Seattle Parks and Recreation. The park property was gradua ...

. The museum's keynote exhibits include:

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

's first commercial plane, the 1919 Boeing B-1; the Petticoat Flag, a

U.S. flag The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen horizontal stripes, alternating red and white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-point ...

sewn by women during the 1856 Battle of Seattle; and the Rainier Brewing Company's 12-foot tall neon "R" sign. In addition to both permanent and temporary exhibits, MOHAI administers ongoing youth and adult programming, and regularly hosts public events in partnership with other community organizations, particularly within the South Lake Union neighborhood. MOHAI is accredited by the

American Alliance of Museums The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), formerly the American Association of Museums, is a non-profit association whose goal is to bring museums together. Founded in 1906, the organization advocates for museums and provides "museum professionals w ...

and is a Smithsonian affiliate museum.

History

In 1911, Morgan and Emily Carkeek hosted the first annual Founder's Day party at their home, which was an invitation-only event where guests dressed in historic costumes and brought artifacts and documents related to early Seattle. An outcome of these parties was the establishment of the Seattle Historical Society in 1914, the membership of which was limited to white settlers and their descendants. The Seattle Historical Society lacked a building to house the museum. Several attempts to find a permanent location were abandoned because of challenging financial circumstances, especially during the Great Depression, and the fact that the original society members were aging and new members were not joining. The collection continued to grow, however. In 1945, Boeing offered $50,000 towards an aviation wing and, over the next five years, the Society procured a site in Montlake. During this time, the Society became a more public and civic-minded institution, opening up the Founder's Day event to community and service organizations. The new museum opened in 1952. In the following two decades, turmoil developed behind the scenes over management practices of the museum's collections—including the mishandling and theft of items—dwindling museum membership and the organization's relationship to its neighborhood with increased traffic complaints. Changes in the 1980s included developing new exhibits and reaching out to underrepresented communities, which were a shock to older staff and board members. During the 1990s, the museum gradually recovered from these internal challenges, as well as financial ones, and began expanding educational and community outreach programs. The impending reconstruction of State Route 520 and the

Evergreen Point Floating Bridge The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, also known as the 520 Bridge and officially the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge, is a floating bridge that carries Washington State Route 520 across Lake Washington from Seattle to its eastern suburbs ...

forced MOHAI to move from the Montlake site. After exploring options to move near the

Washington State Convention Center The Seattle Convention Center (SCC), formerly the Washington State Convention Center (WSCC), is a convention center in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. It consists of two buildings in Downtown Seattle with exhibition hall ...

, MOHAI and the City of Seattle agreed to move MOHAI to the

in what was soon to be Lake Union Park. At that time, the building was being managed by the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department and was in need of significant repairs to be usable as a public museum space. Through a $90 million capital campaign, MOHAI did a full historic restoration of the facility, uncovering both the original ceiling and floor and conducting massive safety, accessibility, and systems upgrades. The project also included centralizing MOHAI's library and collections departments in a warehouse in the Georgetown neighborhood. In June 2012 the museum closed its Montlake location. Six months later, on December 29, 2012, the museum held a public grand opening for its new home in South Lake Union.

Galleries

True Northwest: The Seattle Journey

MOHAI's core exhibit rings most of the building's second floor and provides a chronological history of Seattle and its environs. The exhibit winds through a series of 22 different sections that each focus on a distinct event or era in Seattle history ranging from pre-Pioneer settlements up to the modern day. MOHAI Creative Director Ann Farrington, who previously worked on Seattle's

Experience Music Project The Museum of Pop Culture (or MoPOP) is a nonprofit museum in Seattle, Washington, United States, dedicated to contemporary popular culture. It was founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2000 as the Experience Music Project. Since then ...

and the National Holocaust Museum, has said that it is, "not a timeline, but a series of stories strung like pearls" in order to reveal how Seattle's past, present, and future are interconnected. Along with numerous artifacts and photographs, the exhibit incorporates a significant amount of interactive media that allow visitors to touch screens or play games that explore different parts of Seattle history and culture. The core exhibit also includes the Great Fire Theatre, a "Gilbert and Sullivan-style opera" that involves artifacts from the 1889

Great Seattle Fire The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington, on June 6, 1889. The conflagration lasted for less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night, during the same summer ...

singing the story of the event over a film of historic images, and the Joshua Green Foundation Theater which plays a 7-minute film about Seattle culture on two large screens.

Faye G. Allen Grand Atrium

Boeing Model 6 at MOHAI in Lake Union Park

The first floor of the museum is an expansive open room named the Faye G. Allen Grand Atrium. Both the original floor and ceiling of the Naval Reserve Building are visible from the Grand Atrium. Hanging in the center of the space is the 1919 Boeing B-1, the first commercial plane built by

Bill Boeing William Edward Boeing (; October 1, 1881 – September 28, 1956) was an American aviation pioneer. He founded the Pacific Airplane Company in 1916, which was renamed to Boeing a year later. The company is now the largest exporter in the United ...

. The plane is displayed to illustrate a typical flight path onto Lake Union, where the plane took off and landed during its tenure. On the south end of the Grand Atrium is a three-story tall-grid filled with Seattle cultural icons, including the neon Rainier "R" sign, a clam costume from Seattle seafood chain Ivar's, and a stuffed cougar donated by

Eddie Bauer Eddie Bauer LLC is an American outdoor recreation brand and chain store headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. Eddie Bauer sells its merchandise via retail stores, outlet stores, online, and via telephone. The company also license ...

, founder of the namesake clothing store. The north end of the Grand Atrium features a 64-foot-tall sculpture called ''Wawona'' by local artist John Grade. Wood and other materials for the sculpture were salvaged from the 1897 schooner Wawona, which was dismantled in 2009 due to a lack of funding for restoration.

Walker Special Exhibits Gallery

The Walker Gallery is MOHAI's main space for displaying temporary and traveling exhibits. It takes up the entire southern side of the museum's second floor. When the museum initially opened at Lake Union Park, the Walker Gallery showcased an exhibit about Seattle's relationship with film called ''Celluloid Seattle: A City at the Movies.'' In 2015, the Walker Gallery hosted
American Spirits: The Rise & Fall of Prohibition
' travelling from the

National Constitution Center The National Constitution Center is a non-profit institution that is devoted to the study of the Constitution of the United States. Located at the Independence Mall (Philadelphia), Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the center is a ...

Linda and Ted Johnson Family Community Gallery

Another temporary gallery that occupies the third floor space of the museum. Much smaller than the Walker Gallery, the space is designed "to promote community ownership and stewardship of MOHAI" by showcasing collaborative projects with community partners. The first exhibit in the gallery was a partnership with leading Seattle arts group

Arts Corps The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive range of me ...

, that worked with Seattle high school students to produce poetry and spoken word related to photos from MOHAI's historic photographic collection.

McCurdy Family Maritime Gallery

On the top floor of the museum is a small gallery dedicated to Seattle's maritime history. The space was originally designed as a replica of a ship's bridge in order to train naval recruits during World War II and features a set of south facing windows overlooking

Lake Union Lake Union () is a freshwater lake located entirely within the city limits of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is a major part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which carries fresh water from the much larger Lake Washington on the east t ...

. One of the most popular artifacts in the gallery is a working World War II-era TANG periscope from a naval submarine which offers a 360-degree view of Lake Union and downtown Seattle. The gallery is curated by the

Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society The Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society (PSMHS) is located in Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, ...

which has maintained a close partnership with MOHAI since the early 1950s.

Bezos Center for Innovation

The museum opened a major museum addition on October 11, 2013 called the ''Bezos Center for Innovation''. The project is funded by a $10 million gift from Amazon founder and CEO

Jeff Bezos Jeffrey Preston Bezos ( ;; and Robinson (2010), p. 7. ; born January 12, 1964) is an American businessman best known as the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce and clou ...

. The project was designed by Seattle-based

Olson Kundig Architects Olson Kundig is an American architectural firm based in Seattle, Washington, run by architects Jim Olson and Tom Kundig. Founded by Olson in 1966, the firm’s work has grown to encompass museums, commercial and mixed-use design, exhibit desig ...

and occupies a portion of the museum's Grand Atrium.
MOHAI website. Accessed online March 26, 2013.

Notes

External links

*
HistoryLink: The Free Online Dictionary of Washington State History

Edward Rothstein Edward Benjamin Rothstein (born October 16, 1952) is an American critic. Rothstein wrote music criticism early in his career, but is best known for his critical analysis of museums and museum exhibitions. Rothstein holds a B.A. from Yale Univers ...

, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', December 28, 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Museum Of History and Industry 1952 establishments in Washington (state) City museums in the United States History museums in Washington (state) Industry museums in Washington (state) Institutions accredited by the American Alliance of Museums Museums established in 1952 Museums in Seattle South Lake Union, Seattle