The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian will celebrate the centennial anniversary of the founding of its predecessor institution, the Museum of the American Indian, with a symposium, “Vistas and Dreams,” on museums, collectors and collecting, and relationships with Native Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A distinguished panel of scholars will explore how the stage was set for Museum of the American Indian founder George Gustav Heye’s personal collecting after 1897 and his establishment of a museum in New York City dedicated to Native peoples of the Americas in 1916.
The symposium will take place at the museum’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York City Saturday, Sept. 17, from 2 to 5:30 p.m. and will also feature a reception with light refreshments. Admission is free.
“For Heye, his collection existed as so much more than an aggregate of objects; it carried with it the very lifeblood—the ‘vistas and dreams,’ as he once put it—of the noble cultures it represented,” said Kevin Gover (Pawnee), director of the National Museum of the American Indian. “A century ago that notion led to the museum’s creation, and we now honor it by examining the historical background that allowed Heye to share this wonderful collection with the world.”
How Indians Wound Up in Museums, or Where Did the Heye Collection Come From?
Steven Conn, Miami University
Cultures of Collectors: The Relic-Hunting Economy in the American Southwest, 1880–1920
James E. Snead, California State University, Northridge
“A New Dream Museum”: George Gustav Heye and the Museum of the American Indian
Ann McMullen, Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian
Salvaging Salvage Anthropology: Revisiting Frank Speck’s Field Collecting
Ruth B. Phillips, Carleton University
Indians Loom Large: Indians and America at the Turn of the Century
Philip J. Deloria (Standing Rock Sioux), University of Michigan
The symposium’s moderator will be the museum’s founding Trustee Frederick Hoxie from the University of Illinois.
Abstracts for all presentations are available upon request. Scheduled speakers and presentations may be subject to change.
The National Museum of the American Indian is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding of the Native cultures of the Western Hemisphere—past, present and future—through partnership with Native people and others. The museum’s George Gustav Heye Center is located at One Bowling Green in New York City. For additional information, including hours and directions, visit AmericanIndian.si.edu. Follow the museum via social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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SI-433-2016
