Southwest Museum Deserves To Be Saved
Several years ago, the Southwest Museum merged with the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum and became part of a new entity called the Autry National Center. The vision was to restore the Southwest Museum as an independently branded, marketed and operated museum within the Autry National Center. However, that vision has not been achieved. The Autry has had the museum closed much of the past decade, using the facility primarily as a conservation site, and now only one room with artifacts is open for six hours on Saturdays to the public. Most of the collection has been moved to a curation and long term storage facility in Burbank. The Friends of the Southwest Museum has extensively studied the situation and found that revitalizing the Southwest Museum is feasible. We want to reclaim our heritage by reinvesting in this beloved museum in its beautiful Mount Washington historic site and make its magnificent collections and iconic building available for all to enjoy. The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board has called upon Autry officials to make a good faith effort to reopen the Southwest Museum as a museum.
Historic Southwest Museum Mt Washington Campus And Its Collection
The Southwest Museum of the American Indian is a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California , above the north-western bank of the Arroyo Seco canyon and stream. The museum is owned by the Autry Museum of the American West . Its collections deal mainly with Native Americans . It also has an extensive collection of pre- Hispanic , Spanish colonial , Latino , and Western American art and artifacts . Major collections had included American Indians of the Great Plains , American Indians of California , and American Indians of the Northwest Coast . Most of those materials were moved off-site, but the Southwest Museum has maintained an ongoing public exhibition on Pueblo pottery , open free of charge. The Metro L Line stops down the hill from the museum at the Southwest Museum station . About a block from the L Line stop is an entrance on Museum Drive that opens to a long tunnel formerly filled with dioramas, since removed by the Autry Museum and placed in storage. At the end of the tunnel is an elevator to the museum’s lower lobby.
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The Autrymuseum Of The American West
Discover the art, history, and cultures of the American West! Located in Los Angeles’ beautiful Griffith Park, the Autry features world-class galleries filled with Native American art and artifacts, film memorabilia, historic firearms, paintings, and more. Throughout the year, the Autry also presents a wide range of public events and programsincluding lectures, film, theater, festivals, family activities, and musicand performs scholarship, research, and educational outreach.
The Autrys collection of more than 500,000 pieces of art and artifacts includes the Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, one of the largest and most significant collections of Native American materials in the United States.
Mission Statement
The Autry brings together the stories of all peoples of the American West, connecting the past with the present to inspire our shared future.
History of the Autry Museum
Historic Southwest Museum Mt. Washington Campus
The Historic Southwest Museum Mt. Washington Campus is the original location of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, the oldest museum in Los Angeles, and was founded by Charles Fletcher Lummis. Mr. Lummis was the first city editor for the Los Angeles Times. He was also a photographer, amateur anthropologist, and prolific historian of the southwestern United States.
Gene Autry, Oklahoma Museum
Although not affiliated with the Autry Museum, the Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum is a fan favorite.
What Happened To The Indigenous Human Remains That Were Displayed At The Southwest Museum
Behold the fortress-like Southwest Museum atop Mount Washington. Prior to the Autry Museum absorbing its collection of Native American Indian art there was the white tarp covering a burial display of ancestral remains inside the Southwest Museums auditorium after a sit-in protest.
The Autry Museum of the American West inherited a 238,000-material collection from the Southwest Museum that includes artwork, religious artifacts, and human remains.
Thats right, the Autry received human cranial, long bone and other remains of indigenous peoples, as confirmed by L.A. Taco with Autry Director W. Richard West. Many of the remains are those of from indigenous tribes and bands that occupied the region before it was called Los Angeles or California.
The entire collection was moved in 2013 from Mount Washington to a climate-controlled facility in Burbank.
They are there in the collection that we now have, said West. We brought in representatives from local tribal communities to help with the move of the human remains. They were mostly Tongva people because we acknowledge were in their territory.
Autry Executive Vice President Maren Dougherty said, I can tell you that the Autry, which merged with the Southwest Museum in 2003, has not, does not, and will not ever display human remains.
The display was covered by a white tarp.
Eventually, the offensive displays were removed and placed inside the museums tower.
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Pablita Velarde, Betrothal, 1953. Heard Museum Collection.
Zuni Necklace, early 1940s. Fred Harvey Fine Arts Collection, Heard Museum Collection.
Museum visitors may view a Navajo hogan, made of cedar and adobe, which is a feature of the signature exhibit “HOME: Native People in the Southwest.”
2301 North Central Avenue
Southwest Museum Of The American Indian
| Museum building as seen from Sycamore Grove Park | |
| Former name | Southwest Museum of the American Indian |
|---|---|
| Established | |
Major collections had included American Indians of the Great Plains, American Indians of California, and American Indians of the Northwest Coast. Most of those materials were moved off-site, but the Southwest Museum has maintained an ongoing public exhibition onPueblo pottery, open free of charge.
The Metro L Line stops down the hill from the museum at the Southwest Museum station. About a block from the L Line stop is an entrance on Museum Drive that opens to a long tunnel formerly filled with dioramas, since removed by the Autry Museum and placed in storage. At the end of the tunnel is an elevator to the museum’s lower lobby.
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Monuments To White Supremacy: The Southwest Museum And The Vanishing Indian
To Christianize the pagan, to assimilate the savage, to domesticate the dominated: To make better Indians
Since the acquisition of the Southwest Museum of the American Indian by the Autry Museum of the American West in 2003, the Autry Museum has embraced and proliferated the idealized cognitive myth of Charles Lummis as a visionary multiculturalist and advocate for the American Indian as described in a KCET film special about him called Reimagining the American West. In fact, the opposite is true and this myth is in reality another page in the long playbook of the invasion of the western hemisphere from coast to coast and from north to south by self-proclaimed explorers, discoverers and collectors of Indigenous lands and lives. Charles Lummis was what one Tongva elder described to me as a bone licker, a person eager to raid graves and collect burial artifacts, even human bones for greed.
Today, this history must be reinterpreted through the eyes of the Indigenous Peoples from whom Lummis amassed his tremendous fortune of the artifacts and articles of peoples he described as pagans first, last and all the time.
Southwest Museum Site Is Officially Up For Grabs
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The Autry Museum of the American West, the longtime caretaker of the Southwest Museum, is expected to announce on Tuesday its intention to transfer the historic but problematic 1914 building and grounds to a new owner who can use the site for community benefit.
The Autry will put out a call for proposals for the revitalization and creative reuse of L.A.s oldest museum, a 12-acre campus near the Mount Washington-Highland Park border, plus the museums nearby adobe building, a 1917 replica of a Spanish California ranch house from the 19th century.
The Autry has spent a decade and a half and at least $20 million conserving and otherwise caring for the Southwest Museums massive collection of American Indian artifacts, now officially part of the Autrys collection. Faced with renovations estimated to run into the tens of millions of dollars in order for the Southwest to reopen fully as a museum, the Autry is looking for someone else to manage and own the property while respecting its history. That someone else could be a museum, university, nonprofit or other cultural institution or, the Autry said, commercial entities including a restaurant, retail or housing that partner with such cultural organizations.
The Autry said in a best-case scenario, the new owner would partner with the Autry on educational programming, exhibitions and events related to the Southwest Museums collection.
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Treasure It Together: Southwest Museum Site
Creating a Shared Vision for the Next Century
The first museum in Los Angeles, the Southwest Museum, was opened in 1914 by Charles Lummis, a visionary historian and early preservationist whose collection of Native American art and artifacts is considered one of the most important of its kind. Throughout the 20th century, the historic museum buildings, sited prominently in Mt. Washington and designed by Sumner Hunt and his partner Silas Burns, welcomed visitors from around the world.
However, many years of financial challenges and declining attendance led the Southwest Museum to merge with the Autry Museum of the American West in 2003. At that time, the Autry assumed responsibility for the sites historic buildings, which includes the historic Southwest Museum of the American Indian,, its 12-acre campus, an archive, a large and important collection of ethnographic and archaeological artifacts, and the 1917 Casa de Adobe, a hand-built adobe structure that was intended to be a replica of a historic early California rancho. While the Autry has completed the careful documentation, conservation, and preservation of the museums vast collection of art and artifacts in their new Resources Center and stabilized the historic museum buildings to address earthquake damage, the Autry and the community were not able to reach consensus on the most viable, appropriate, and sustainable use for the buildings and grounds.
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It was not malice on their part, West said. We have indeed attempted to pick that up.
NAGPRA depends on institutions to self-report, meaning the very institutions that once put up these displays are expected to begin repatriation.
Wendy Teeter, archaeology curator at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, says the museum has returned nearly 98% of its collection of human remains under NAGPRA.
That process began in 1993 when she took inventory of some 2,000 ancestral remains, including cranial bones and other human remains within the collection at UCLA.
Most of the collection was archaeologically researched. It makes it simpler to know where this person came from and where they can go, says Teeter.
Chief Anthony Morales from the Gabrielino/Tongva Tribe has seen several ancestors returned to his community from other institutions, but he knows there are many more with some likely in the Autrys collection.
Repatriation under federal law depends on a federally recognized tribe working with the U.S. government. But for unrecognized tribes, like the Tongva community, there needs to be a partnership with a cousin tribe that is federally recognized.
Meanwhile, Chief Anthony Morales from the Gabrielino/Tongva Tribe has seen several ancestors returned to his community from other institutions, but he knows there are many more with some likely in the Autrys collection.
Morales, 71, says this process will outlast him and his relatives.
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Movies And The Performing Arts
The city’s has become recognized as the center of the and the Los Angeles area is also associated with being the center of the . The city is home to major film studios as well as major record labels. Los Angeles plays host to the annual , the , the as well as many other entertainment industry awards shows. Los Angeles is the site of the which is the oldest film school in the United States.
The performing arts play a major role in Los Angeles’s cultural identity. According to the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, “there are more than 1,100 annual theatrical productions and 21 openings every week.” The is “one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation”, with more than 1.3 million visitors per year. The , centerpiece of the Music Center, is home to the prestigious . Notable organizations such as , the , and the are also resident companies of the Music Center. Talent is locally cultivated at premier institutions such as the and the .
The Historic Southwest Museum Operated By The Autry Museum Of The American West Is Seeking Proposals For Reuse
The Southwest Museum of the American Indian Wikimedia Commons
The Southwest Museum, a historic landmark building in Los Angeles that once held a vast collection of Native American artefacts and works of art but is now mostly shut to the public, is seeking proposals to transfer its grounds and building to a new owner. The museum was founded in 1914 by the writer and Native American rights activist Charles Fletcher Lummis and has been operated by the Autry Museum of the American West since 2003.
In a statement, the Autry Museum writes that it is requesting proposals from arts and educational organisations, private businesses, non-profit groups and historic property developers that can provide innovative and financially sustainable concepts for the revitalisation and/or creative reuse of the museum. The hillside building sits on 12 acres and faces the Los Angeles skyline and the San Gabriel Mountains.
In 2015, the Southwest Museum was named a landmark by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Despite the accolade, over the past decade the museum has suffered from poor attendance and funding. It is open to the public on Saturdays but most galleries are closed to serve as conservation labs, according to a spokeswoman for the museum. Most of the collectionspanning more than 400,000 items, which the Autry Museum now holdsis housed in a separate storage facility.
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